Antique Tripod Tables
A small table on a turned central pillar splaying into three feet, made to stand beside a chair or bed for a candle, a teacup or a glass.
What Are They?
The construction is the same throughout: a round or near-round top, usually cut as one board, sitting on a turned column that divides into three legs. The top is either fixed or hinged on a block so it tips vertical, which let the table be stood flat against a wall out of the way. Dealers catalogue that hinge as tilt-top, tip-top, snap-top or flip-top.
Mahogany dominates the titles, with Georgian dating close behind. The single most likely encounter on Sellingantiques is a George III mahogany circular tilt-top, listed as a wine table, a lamp table or an occasional table. Those names describe use rather than form, so the same object can appear under any of them, and 'wine' and 'lamp' often sit in one title together.
After the mahogany group come oak and elm country tripods, then Victorian walnut and burr-walnut occasional tables, often inlaid. A smaller band carries birdcage actions and carved pie-crust edges. Fewer still are non-English: Swedish birch, Anglo-Indian padouk and ebony, Burmese teak, Chinese export lacquer, Italian Sorrento work, alongside 1920s and later Georgian-style pieces.
Dating is done by reign or century. Only 537 of 2,317 listings carry a clean year, so 'Georgian' and '19th Century' do most of the work and cover a lot of ground. The dated field as a whole runs from 1700 to 1950, with decade tags thin and clustering mid-to-late Victorian.
The Range
Carving is the clearest divide. Pie-crust edges and carved columns and knees cluster in the highest-priced titles, sometimes with a gallery rail round the top edge as well. At the other end sit small stained-beech and plain oak occasional tables catalogued as nothing more than 'tripod table'. The spread between those two ends runs to several hundredfold.
Timber and figure pull in the same direction. Titles that name the mahogany - Cuban, flame, plum pudding, figured - and those that say burr, specimen wood, yew, pollard oak or amboyna sit at the upper end; stained softwoods sit at the lower. A birdcage between top and column, letting the top revolve as well as tilt, is a recurring note among the dearer pieces.
Stated age counts too, with eighteenth-century and George III attributions attached to much of the upper sample and 1920s or 'in Georgian style' entries lower. Scale and number matter as well: pairs turn up in 47 titles, and 'large proportions' recurs at the top while 'small' is the commoner word overall.
Retail Price Guide 2026
Typical UK retail prices for tripod 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.
About 247 tripod tables are listed on Sellingantiques each year, and 283 different dealers have listed one.
Gillows
The Antique Tripod Tables Glossary
- Tilt-top
- A top hinged so it can be raised vertical against a wall. Also written tip-top, snap-top or flip-top, and in 269 titles under 'tilt top' alone.
- Wine table
- Dealer term for a small tripod, generally the lower and narrower sort. It appears in 313 titles, more than any other use name.
- Lamp table
- The same object named for a later use, in 169 titles, and often paired with 'wine' in a single description.
- Supper table
- A larger tilt-top tripod, big enough for a tray or a meal for one or two. Sixty-five titles use it.
- Birdcage
- A small boxed cage of four turned pillars between top and column, letting the top both tilt and revolve. Forty-nine titles.
- Pie-crust
- A carved scalloped and moulded edge to a circular top, in 49 titles and mostly at the upper end. Written piecrust as often as not.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many come up for sale each year?
Around 247 tripod tables come to market on Sellingantiques in a year.
That volume is spread very wide. Some 283 different dealers have listed one, which makes it a form almost every furniture dealer handles at some point.
What wood are they usually made from?
Mahogany leads the titles by a long way, with oak second. After those two the timbers thin quickly.
Walnut comes next, then rosewood and elm. Beyond that come single appearances of laburnum, amboyna, thuyawood, cedar, mulberry, sycamore, ash and olive wood.
Why is the same table called so many things?
Because dealers name them by use, not by construction. Tripod table, wine table, lamp table, occasional table, supper table and candlestand all describe the same three-legged pillar form.
Size gives a rough guide. 'Wine' tends to mean the lower and narrower sort, 'supper' the larger tilt-top.
Are pairs common?
No. 'Pair' appears in 47 titles out of 2,317.
That puts pairs at roughly a one-in-fifty encounter, the same frequency as pie-crust edges, birdcage actions and elm tops, each of which lands on almost exactly the same number.
What does a birdcage do?
It is a small boxed cage of four turned pillars set between the top and the column. The arrangement lets the top revolve as well as tilt.
It turns up in 49 titles and recurs among the higher-priced pieces, sometimes described as a tilting and revolving top.
Do any turn up from outside England?
A few, and they range widely. Swedish birch, Dutch marquetry, Italian Sorrento and olive wood, Iberian wrought iron, Anglo-Indian and Bombay-region padouk, Burmese carved teak, Chinese export lacquer and Vietnamese mother-of-pearl all appear.
French pieces reach 33 titles. Everything else in that group is scarce, often a single listing.