Neoclassicism - England - Part 7 (final part)

Workboxes and tables, firescreens, and reading and music stands in many shapes reflected other typical occupations among the leisured classes. Sets of three or four graduated small tables were known as trio or quartetto tables in the late 18th and early 19th century when they began to be made. Although somewhat flimsy in construction, these nests of tables were invaluable for refreshments, needlework, cards and many other activities. At this period appeared a range of useful pieces of handmade furniture combining several functions. There were needlework-cum-games tables, and reading, writing and needlework tables (often housed in the bedroom) all with appropriate fittings. Because it was an essentially feminine occupation, the furniture made for needlework was among the most daintily elegant of all. Specially fitted needlework tables and boxes were made in noticeable profusion from the early 19th century. They were usually lined with padded silk or satin, with compartments for thread, needles, scissors, knotting shuttles, crotchet hooks, stilettos, and all the other paraphernalia of the worker. These accessories, of ivory, tortoiseshell or mother-of-pearl in the best examples, are now much collected.

Card playing was always a favourite pastime and for more than a century had given rise to special tables, generally with fold-over tops concealing a baize or needlework surface. Similarly shaped fold-over tables with polished wood inside surfaces were for tea. Some tables had three leaves, providing a baize surface and a plain one, to accommodate both card playing and tea drinking.

The elegant ritual of tea begat numerous other items of non fitted furniture, such as small tables including a variety supported by a pillar on a tripod base known as a teapoy. Later the name teapoy was given to a large tea caddy supported on one of these pillar and tripod bases. The sofa table - a rectangular form of the Pembroke - appeared at the end of the 18th century. Its central section, usually with a drawer or two in the frieze, sometimes slid open to reveal a chess board, or rose on brackets as a reading or writing stand. In the design of most small tables, a central column with splayed feet was replacing four legs by the closing years of the 18th century.

Developments in bedroom furniture, apart from the changing styles of beds, were most noticeable in washstands which, by the close of the 18th century, were well supplied with fittings and compartments for washing, shaving and other aspects of the toilet. The familiar and still useful corner washstand, with drawers and sometimes a cupboard below, was a popular and space-saving form. Night tables and cupboards often had tambour doors in their upper parts, while a lower section drew out on casters to reveal a close-stool, commode or, as 18th century parlance had it, 'convenience'.