Antique Inlaid Dressing Tables between £0 and £0
A bedroom table or chest with a mirror above and drawers below, its veneered surfaces dressed with contrasting inlay, from plain lines to floral marquetry.
What Are Inlaid Dressing Tables?
Purpose-made dressing tables appeared in the 18th century, pairing a mirror with drawers and compartments for toilet articles, and became a standard bedroom item through the 19th and early 20th centuries. Inlay, meaning contrasting stringing, banding or marquetry set into the veneer, was one of the chief ways such pieces were dressed up for the retail trade.
The piece you are most likely to meet is an Edwardian mahogany dressing table with a swing mirror over a drawered base. 'Dressing table' appears in 92 of 112 titles on Sellingantiques, mahogany in about half, and Edwardian, 1900s and 1910s together account for two-thirds of the dated entries. Line inlay or a satinwood band is the usual decoration.
Around it sit smaller strands. Satinwood and other pale woods run through about one in seven titles, often in the light, inlaid neoclassical taste of the revival years. Marquetry pieces, pictorial or floral rather than line-inlaid, are named in ten titles, and they make up a much larger share of current stock than of the archive.
Dressing chests and kneehole forms are a real minority, with 'chest' in eleven titles against the 92 open-legged tables. Victorian and earlier examples in rosewood, walnut and mahogany account for roughly a quarter, and the heading also gathers shaving stands, washstands, vanity tables and a jewellery box dressing table.
Where The Range Splits
The decoration does most of the work. Plain line-inlaid mahogany dressing chests cluster at the bottom of the range, while floral and Dutch marquetry examples, and marquetry-inlaid tulipwood, sit at and near the top. Pictures beat lines, and the gap is wide.
Timber follows the same direction. Undifferentiated mahogany dominates the lower half; satinwood recurs through the upper half, and satinwood-and-tulipwood or figured-walnut marquetry pieces reach the top. Metal mounts and continental cabinet-making push higher again, with the one ormolu-mounted tulipwood and marquetry table of French origin among the highest-priced, alongside Dutch and Viennese entries.
Scale and mirrors matter at the margins. 'Large', 'bow fronted', 'oval mirrors', 'bevelled mirror' and 'triplate' turn up in titles above the middle of the range, while 'Small' sits near the bottom. A named firm in the title, or wording like 'in the manner of' or 'labelled', also lands in the upper part.
Retail Price Guide 2026
Typical UK retail prices for inlaid dressing tables between £0 and £0, 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 top sale of the last year on Sellingantiques was a 19th century inlaid satinwood dressing table, sold in June 2026.
The Antique Inlaid Dressing Tables between £0 and £0 Glossary
- Line inlay (stringing)
- Thin strips of contrasting wood set into the surface. 'Line inlaid' in a title means plain lines rather than pictures.
- Marquetry
- Inlay forming patterns or pictures, floral, foliate or scrollwork. Named in ten titles, and a larger share of what is currently listed.
- Satinwood
- Pale golden hardwood used as veneer or banding. The second most-named timber in this category after mahogany.
- Dressing chest
- A chest of drawers with a mirror above, rather than an open-legged table. Eight titles use the phrase.
- Kneehole
- A recessed central opening between two banks of drawers, so the sitter can pull up close to the mirror.
- Triplate
- A three-plate mirror arrangement, a central glass with hinged side wings. It appears exactly once in the samples.
Frequently Asked Questions
What period are most of these from?
The dated field runs from 1800 to 1930, and the profile leans heavily Edwardian. Edwardian, 1900s and 1910s together make about two-thirds of the dated entries.
Only 45 of the 112 listings carry a clean year. The rest sit under era words, with 'Edwardian' alone accounting for 35 and '19th Century' for 13.
Victorian material is thinner, and 18th-century or Georgian attributions are few.
Which timber turns up most often?
Mahogany is named in nearly half the titles, which is why the Edwardian mahogany dressing table is the standard encounter.
Satinwood comes second at around one in seven. Beyond those two, the archive also turns up ash, oak, walnut, rosewood, kingwood and tulipwood, so the timber list is longer than the headline suggests.
Is marquetry the same as inlay?
Marquetry is a kind of inlay. The difference is what the inlay draws: lines and bands in one case, flowers, foliage and scrollwork in the other.
Titles keep the two apart. 'Line inlaid' signals plain stringing, while 'marquetry' signals a pictorial or floral scheme.
Marquetry is named in ten titles across the archive, but forms a much bigger share of current stock.
How often do these come up for sale?
Supply runs at roughly thirteen a year on Sellingantiques.
Sixty-one different dealers have listed one, which means most dealers who handle them do so once and not again. It is not a category with a regular trade behind it.
Are continental examples common in this category?
No. The body of stock is overwhelmingly English.
Dutch, French, Italian and Viennese pieces together make only a handful of listings, and they sit high in the range. The two highest-priced in the sampled range were a French marquetry table and a George III marquetry example.
The single ormolu-mounted piece, a tulipwood and marquetry table of French origin, is the only ormolu recorded.
Do dressing chests differ from dressing tables?
A dressing chest is a chest of drawers with a mirror above it, so there is no open leg space beneath. A dressing table stands on legs, sometimes with a kneehole between drawer banks.
The chest form is a minority strand. 'Chest' appears in eleven titles and 'dressing chest' in eight, against 92 titles using 'dressing table'.