According to John Gloag’s “A Social History of Furniture Design: From B.C. 1300 to A.D. 1960,” there are only two forms of furniture: a box or a platform.
When it comes to boxes, nothing is more boxy than a chest (see yesterday’s entry on six-board chests). When it comes to platforms, nothing supersedes a trestle table. Since at least Medieval times, trestle tables have been a staple of the finer castles, manors and huts of the Western world.
The history of trestle tables fascinates me. But it would probably bore most of you. So let me deal only with the juicy parts. Before the Georgian period, the tops of trestle tables tended to be quite narrow, according to David Knell’s “English Country Furniture: 1500-1900.”
Why so narrow? Because diners sat on only one side of the table with their backs against the wall. Diners didn’t sit across from one another. This seating arrangement allowed servants to serve from one side, but it also had a much more practical purpose. In case you were attacked while eating (how rude!) you could flip the table so it served as protection against your attackers.
Another benefit: You could use the benches (usually called “formes”) that were secured to the wall of your hut or holdfast.
As home security improved and dining mores changed, the trestle table became wider but shorter in length. But its basic form survives basically unchanged to the present day.
The trestle table is an early achievement of structural engineering. It is lightweight – I can pick up an 8’ example with one arm – and yet it is impossibly sturdy. It requires a minimum amount of material. It is portable. And, most of all, it is a beautiful form.
From the ends, a trestle table looks like a tree, with prodigious roots, a straight bole and arching branches that support the tabletop.
So perfect is this form that it can be quite hard to date trestle tables accurately. Yes, you can use fasteners and patina to guide you, but those are the same things that guide the furniture forgers or refinishers. Relying on the form or ornamentation is useful if the table has a distinctive form or any ornamentation. Many have neither.
So we are left scratching our heads but admiring the lines of tables such as the one I drew above. Is it English or American? Auctioneers (respected ones) could narrow the date of its construction down to a 100-year period. But was that between 1700 and 1800? Or 1800 to 1900? Or later?
That’s the beauty of this piece and many other trestle tables. Remove the patina and these tables could be at home in the Tower of London or any tower of excess in Manhattan.
This example is 65-1/2” long, 38” wide and 28” high. So we know that it was built after the Georgian period. But after that….
— Christopher Schwarz
There is also the issue of reproduction furniture. Peter Follansbee has posted photos of a stool that he made ten years ago that could pass for a well used, but well preserved original.
Is the table pictured strong enough to endure leaning on it in order to shoo a cat off the table?
This is a fascinating subject. I’m looking forward to the book coming out.
This is a fascinating subject. I’m looking forward to the book coming out.
There is a trestle table in the Detroit Institute of Arts. I got yelled at by a guard for crawling underneath. Next time I will take a friend to stand watch and look more closely and take some pictures. It’s not fancy – considered primitive compared to the highly decorative museum pieces. They also have a Green & Green dining table with an interesting history.
http://www.dia.org/object-info/5f3ae238-ec1b-47d4-b2a4-774dde92210f.aspx?position=6
Last Saturday I spoke with Megan Fitzpatrick during the Lie-Nielsen show at Jeff Miller’s shop in Chicago about Chris’s Trestle Table and now Chris writes about them. Did I plant the seed or is it coincidence?
Same Kim, I talked with Chris. Great show, great discussion too. I’m looking forward to the book. I’d add that my mother got one of these from a school she taught at that closed. It’s a beautiful piece, light and very sturdy just as Chris describes.
This sounds like an interesting book, Chris. The 8′ trestle table I’m working on (like the last), is quite massive and unique and will not be easy to move.
Chris
Invite Adam Cherubini to write a book – PLEASE – on nailed furniture and period correct techniques of construction and tool maintenance.
I second the motion!
It seems like your thesis contains elements of past movements and echoes aesthetic concepts from other cultures as well. For example, there seem to be strains of William Morris’ Arts and Crafts Movement sentiments of simple , craftsman-made, and so on. As far as other cultures, I’m thinking of Japanese concepts like wabi-sabi, where the natural, elemental, and usually simple, are celebrated. Shakers too, of course. All to say, that it might be worth a chapter to discuss the draw of the elemental forms across other movements and cultures. Just a thought.
OK I’ll bite …. a narrow table flipped on it’s side doesn’t seem to provide much protection against guys with battle axes….
Time and space to draw one’s weapons are everything in a fight for your life. I’m often after the missus to lock the deadbolt on the back door at night. There’s a dog door in it so the deadbolt isn’t going to stop someone from getting in the house, but it might be the 2 or 3 seconds I need to arrange and appropriate reception for them. (sound of a shotgun being racked offstage)
About a year ago I built a half sized version of the trestle table you wrote about in Woodworking magazine, to use as a stand for a new TV. I painted the poplar trestle base flat black and used cumuru (a stripey grained, amber colored S. American wood) for the top.
Dressed up that way and used in that context it looks like a very functional, very modern furniture form. I was actually surprised at how good it looks in service. A very versatile and elemental furniture design indeed.
“Why so narrow? Because diners sat on only one side of the table with their backs against the wall.”
Yes, never mind all the engravings, paintings, illuminations, etc… showing otherwise. Never mind the fact that only a tiny percentage of people were wealthy enough to have servants. Never mind that a narrow table is essentially useless for defense…. (Heck, the 38″ inch model above is at best only marginally useful.)
I don’t know where Mr Knell is getting his information, but the reasons he gives don’t hold water.
I love myths about our forebears. I would say that tables are narrow during the period for the same reason English houses weren’t covered in Clapboards, but plaster over some sort of infill… WIDE LUMBER was inaccessible and scare. Move to the New World where large timber abounds and you won’t immediately abandon your old styles. Compare structures built in Virginia and New England in the first years of Colonization to those built later and we see an adaptation of style to available resources.
I may be wrong (and often am) but I think my theory holds more water than the above. Unless the intent is to hold the table like a shield… hmmmmmm. I still put more faith in the home security of the mastiffs depicted lurking under the table of numerous period art pieces, than a narrow table to hide behind. 😉