LAST QUARTER 19TH CENTURY, IN THE MANNER OF JOHNSTONE AND JEANES

This form of table was invented by Robert Jupe, upholder of 47 Welbeck Street, Cavendish Square, London, who applied for a patent for a circular extending dining-table with a segmented top (No. 6788) in March 1835. The description for it stated: 'An improved expanding table so constructed that the sections composing its surface may be caused to diverge from a common centre and that the spaces caused thereby may be filled up by inserting leaves or filling pieces. The table, when expanded, forms usually a round: but it may be arranged to form an oval or oblong.' The first examples of this type of table were produced between 1835 and 1840 by John Johnstone of New Bond Street. After 1842 the firm changed its name to Johnstone & Jeanes. An example stamped 'PATENT/JOHNSTONE/NEW BOND ST./LONDON/15975' was sold anonymously, Christie's, London, 8 June 2006, lot 100 (321,600). Several similar examples are reproduced in C. Gilbert, Pictorial Dictionary of Marked London Furniture 1700-1840, Leeds, 1996, pp. 283-286. Whilst the majority of these tables are supported on a singular column, this table follows an alternative design incorporating four turned baluster reeded legs, also having the capability to extend in the more traditional fashion. This added versatility, used in conjunction with the right-sized leaves, would allow the user to form an oblong table as Robert Jupe noted in his patent description above. A comparable table by Johnstone and Jeanes, with similar reeded tapering legs, was sold anonymously, Christie's, New York, 8 April 2004, lot 128.