Antique French Tables
A French dressing table is a bedroom table with a mirror and drawers for combs, cosmetics and jewellery, made in quantity from the early 19th century into the 1930s.
What They Are
The form goes back to the 18th-century toilet table, a small table with a mirror and compartments for toilet articles, the poudreuse and coiffeuse being the French versions with a hinged or sliding top over a fitted interior. By the 19th century it had settled into standard bedroom furniture and was being made in every timber and every borrowed style.
What comes to market on Sellingantiques is mostly small to medium bedroom tables with a mirror, either swinging between uprights, set in three hinged plates, or hidden under a lift-up top. The carcase is walnut, painted, mahogany or oak, and a marble slab over the top turns up in about one title in twelve. Around a fifth of titles say walnut, which makes it the default.
The dating runs from 1800 to 1930. The largest single decade is the 1920s, followed by a vague '19th Century' that dealers use as a catch-all, then the 1910s and 1900s. So the bulk of the category is late, roughly the 1890s onward, even though the titles borrow Louis and Empire names from much earlier. Title dates and the dated field don't always agree, and they are two separate claims.
Alongside the plain dressing table, the heading absorbs washstand dressing tables, dressing chests, work and occasional tables, and a few dressing mirrors sold on their own. Four poudreuses and one coiffeuse appear under their French names; two bonheurs du jour are filed here as well. One-offs surface too: a faux bamboo table, a caned example with original paintwork, an enamel table, a kidney-shaped bleached one.
Where The Range Splits
Timber does most of the sorting. Plain oak and pine sit at the bottom; kingwood, tulipwood, amboyna, satinwood, rosewood and burr walnut cluster in the upper half, and they appear sparingly. Burr veneers turn up in a dozen titles, usually walnut but also elm, yew and amboyna.
Applied decoration is the other lift. Ormolu mounts appear in thirteen titles and marquetry in seventeen, and the mounted Empire mahogany pieces sit almost uniformly in the top quarter. Marquetry-inlaid kingwood sits at the very top. Carving does similar work on the oak group, though from a lower start.
Style naming in the title tracks the same way. Empire and Louis-revival pieces concentrate above the middle of the range. Painted stock, at about an eighth of the category, sits low to middling, with only the parcel-gilt and original-paint examples climbing. Named makers are almost absent: two titles in the whole archive attach a name, and both sit at the extreme top.
Retail Price Guide 2026
Typical UK retail prices for french tables, calculated from the Sellingantiques database of over a million retail prices indexed since 2003. This retail price guide relies exclusively on Sellingantiques data; no external sources or auction records are used, so the figures do not describe the wider market.
The 1920s is the decade given most often on Sellingantiques for French dressing tables, with the 19th century next and the 1910s third.
The Antique French Tables Glossary
- Dressing table
- The term in nine out of ten titles here: a table with a mirror and drawers for toilet articles.
- Marble top
- A separate slab laid over the carcase. Dealers write it three ways, 'marble top', 'marble topped' and plain 'marble', so all three describe the same thing.
- Lift top
- A hinged top that raises to reveal a mirror and compartments below. Also written as 'hinged top' or 'fold out' in titles.
- Triple mirror and swing mirror
- The two arrangements named in titles: three hinged plates, or a single plate pivoting between uprights.
- Ormolu
- Gilded bronze mounts, usually paired with the word 'mounted' and most often on Empire mahogany.
- Poudreuse
- French toilet table with a hinged or sliding top over a fitted interior. Four appear in the archive; a single coiffeuse, the hairdressing version, appears once.
Frequently Asked Questions
What wood are French dressing tables usually made from?
Walnut leads, in roughly a fifth of titles, which makes it the default timber for the category. Painted finishes, mahogany and oak each account for around one title in ten.
Exotic veneers show up sparingly. Amboyna, kingwood, tulipwood, satinwood, burr elm and burr yew each appear only a handful of times across the archive, and they gather at the upper end of the range.
How old is a typical French dressing table?
Later than the styles suggest. The dated field runs from 1800 to 1930, and the 1920s is the biggest single decade, followed by an unspecific '19th Century' that dealers use when they don't want to commit.
Nineteenth-century decades are thinner and scattered, with the 1880s the strongest of them. Empire and Louis-revival pieces are present but uncommon.
The earliest clean year in the archive is 1800, on a campaign dressing table, the only campaign example in the sample.
Why do titles say Louis XV or Empire on later tables?
Those are style names, not dates. The 19th and early 20th centuries produced revival furniture in quantity, and dealers title the piece by the style it copies.
Empire appears in twenty titles and Louis in fourteen. Both groups sit above the middle of the range, and the Empire pieces are typically mahogany with ormolu mounts.
What is a poudreuse?
A French toilet table with a hinged or sliding top concealing a fitted interior, with a mirror and compartments beneath. Four appear in the archive under that name.
A coiffeuse is the dressing table for hairdressing, and one turns up in the sample. Everything else in the category is titled in English.
Do these tables come with marble tops?
Some do. Marble appears in about one title in twelve, laid as a separate slab over the carcase, and it turns up on carved oak examples as often as anywhere.
Dealers phrase it inconsistently, as 'marble top', 'marble topped' or simply 'marble'.
How often do French dressing tables come up for sale?
About twenty-two a year come to market on Sellingantiques, so it's a steady rather than a busy category.
Sixty-five different dealers have listed one, which means no single dealer or stock style defines what turns up.