How many sofa tables come up each year?

Around 142 reach the market on Sellingantiques in a year, and 250 different dealers have listed one at some point. That spread tells you it isn't a specialism. It's a form almost every furniture dealer keeps in stock sooner or later.

What period are most of them?

Regency leads the dated field with 344 listings, and "19th Century" follows closely with 338. Georgian, Victorian and 18th Century entries come after. There is a genuine twentieth-century tail as well, with 57 pieces tagged 1920s and 40 tagged 1900s. The dated field as a whole runs from 1750 to 1930.

Which timbers turn up?

Mahogany and rosewood describe six listings in ten. Burr walnut forms a substantial group at the later end. Beyond that the archive throws up single appearances of coromandel, palisander, amboyna, goncalo alves, zebrawood, burr birch, burr ash, satin birch, pollard oak, burr yew, Cuban mahogany, Hungarian ash, fruitwood, chestnut and cherrywood.

Are sofa tables sold in pairs?

Pairs are a real sub-population rather than a curiosity. The word pair appears in 46 titles. A matched pair of Regency mahogany sofa tables sits at the very top of the sampled range.

Why do listings carry two table names?

Dealers file side, centre, console, hall, lamp, Pembroke, library and writing tables under this heading, and titles often hedge across several of them at once. Side appears in 190 titles, centre in 112, console in 105 and lamp in 79. The wording tells you which form is actually on offer.

Do any unusual forms appear?

A Regency rosewood umbrella games table is the most unusual single piece in the samples. A Regency lady's screen writing table and a Regency sewing table in burr ash each turn up once and nowhere else. Non-European pieces are the rarest origin, with a Ceylonese occasional centre table, Anglo-Indian work and Chinese Qing hardwood altar and console tables accounting for barely a handful of listings. One sampled table carries a Florence Nightingale provenance, the only named historical owner in the archive.

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Antique Sofa Tables

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A long, narrow drawing-room table with a drawer or two in the frieze and a hinged flap at each end, made to stand behind or beside a sofa for reading, writing, tea and games.