CIRCA 1740 - 60

Tripod tables evolved from Dutch prototypes, the earliest of which were candlestands referred to in the 1690s by Gerrit Jensen as 'pillar-and-claw', but the term is first used in England in 1729 in the Lord Chamberlain's accounts which described them specifically as being made of mahogany. Thereafter they were widely adopted since their versatility made them ideal for all manner of uses. They were recorded in numbers in inventories, for example in the probate inventory of the furniture-maker Thomas Roberts (1733) which listed several mahogany pillar-and-claw tables, both complete and part-made, and they featured in numerous conversation pieces depicting families gathered around such tables, sometimes taking tea or playing games. A portrait of 1736 by Thomas Bardwell shows such a family group, thought to be the Brewster family of Beccles (A. Bowett, Early Georgian Furniture 1715 - 40, Woodbridge, 2009, pp. 246 - 251, and pl. 5.89).
The plain stop-fluted shaft is a feature of earlier tables, before the rococo fashion dictated they be more elaborately carved. A table with this pattern of shaft was sold at Sotheby's, London, 29 September 1995. It bore the label of the London cabinet-maker Benjamin Crook who was active from the early 1730s until 1748. Another table with the same shaft but with a brass line-inlaid baluster gallery to the top, and hence closely related to the table offered here, was sold from the collection of Mrs Derek Fitzgerald, Heathfield Park, Sussex, Sotheby's London, 5 July 1963, lot 98.