Hello Andrew
I'm posting this as a comment because I'm not sure if it answers your
question fully.
There isn't a huge amount of information on these tables, partly
because they don't belong to any particular school of furniture
design. As a UK resident, I've seen plenty of tables like these in
people's homes and on sale and I agree with you that they mostly date
from the 1920s-1940s. They are appreciated for their good solid
traditional qualities, though they don't usually fetch ebay prices. At
their best they are made of quality oak and crafted to a high
standard, but they were produced by anonymous cabinet-makers who
weren't involved in the more "cutting-edge" design of the Arts and
Crafts movement or Art Deco furniture of those decades.
I found confirmation of this on a site selling oak furniture that has
been limed (bleached):
"All our furniture is period oak, mainly from the 1920s and 1930s.
Some pieces are very stylised Art Deco; others copy Jacobean or
Elizabethan originals, but many are a hybrid style designed by the
individual craftsmen within the small workshops where they were first
made."
At present they have one draw-leaf table with oak legs, but they have
limed and waxed it which, in Britain, puts its price up considerably:
http://www.limed-oak.co.uk/oak%20dining%20table.htm
By "hybrid style" I presume they mean that the people who bought these
tables in the inter-war period wanted furniture with a traditional
look harking back to the previous century, a bit more modern than
Victorian perhaps, but not radically modern like these:
http://www.astoriaartdeco.co.uk/stock-frame.htm
(click on dining suites at bottom of page)
It seems highly unlikely to me that these were pub tables as some ebay
sellers describe them. English pubs were not places for eating a meal
until much later in the century; you'd be lucky to get a pork pie or
pickled egg in some of them. Any tables in a traditional pub would
take up less space than a dining-table.
"Until about twenty years ago, most pubs were "drinking-only"
establishments, with little or no food available."
http://www.lado.ne.jp/colu/uk/00_03.htm
"The rear right-hand side of the pub is reserved for drinking only. I
was really pleased with this - so many pubs have forgotten that they
are, after all, pubs where people can just come and relax with a pint
in front of the fire. "
http://www.midlandspubs.co.uk/warwickshire/pubs.htm
There were two famous big furniture stores in the 1920s-1940s which
carried a range of different kinds of furniture: Maples and Waring &
Gillow. They are more often mentioned in the context of other styles -
reproduction or art deco - but I would guess that some of the best
quality oak draw-leaf tables might have come from them. Both have now
closed but their records are available to serious researchers:
Allied Maples Group, furniture retailers and manufacturers, London:
records c1847-1975 (ADD/2000/3)
Waring & Gillow Ltd, furniture manufacturers and retailers and house
furnishers, London: records, incl accounts, approvals book, bad debts
register, staff and property papers 1807-1986 (Acc 2233)
http://www.hmc.gov.uk/accessions/2000/00digests/furnit.htm
This dealer mentions them when describing early 20th century
furniture:
"At Hingstons you will find all of the classic styles of the last 200
years of furniture making.
Whether your preference is for the restrained design of the Georgian
period; the elegant lines of the Edwardian period; the flamboyant use
of mahogany and walnut in the Victorian period; or the more recent
quality of the pre-war era from furniture makers such as Maples and
Waring and Gillows you will be sure to find the item to suit your
taste. "
http://www.hingstons-antiques.freeserve.co.uk/mainframe.html
You can track down UK auctions selling oak draw-leaf tables using this
search:
://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22oak+draw-leaf+table%22&hl=en&lr=&cr=countryUK|countryGB&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&start=10&sa=N
Hoping this is of interest to you - Leli |
