What wood are Victorian tables usually made from?

Mahogany and walnut between them account for well over half of all titles, at 2,504 and 2,272. Oak follows at 712, then rosewood at 608 and pine at 438. Burr walnut is called out separately in 1,303 titles. It runs across the small forms: centre, loo, coffee, card, Sutherland, work and lamp tables.

How many leaves do extending dining tables have?

Titles routinely count them, and two or three leaves is the common case. Seat counts run from four upward. At the far end, the archive has held oak extending dining tables described at 15ft with six leaves and 20ft with seven, seating eighteen, and a mahogany one quoted as seating 16 to 20.

Are named makers common in this category?

No. Across 8,076 listings, Gillows leads with 22 mentions from 12 dealers, and nothing else clears a dozen mentions. Where a name does appear it sits at the upper end of the range. Heal & Son, Edwards & Roberts, James Shoolbred, Holland & Sons and Maple & Co each turn up across a handful of dealers.

Why do so many listings just say Victorian?

The dated field is categorical more often than precise. Of the 8,076 listings, 3,705 say only "Victorian" and 990 only "19th Century". Fewer than three thousand carry a clean year. Where decades are given they cluster mid-century, with the 1860s ahead of the 1880s and 1850s, and the 1890s and 1900s thinner.

Which small table forms turn up?

Side and occasional tables dominate the small end, with lamp, wine and tripod tables and tilt-tops behind them. Beyond those, gypsy tables on bobbin or barley-twist legs, cricket tables, coaching and folding picnic tables, duet and adjustable reading tables, bijouterie display tables and nests of three or four all recur in ones and twos.

What sits at the top of the range?

Exhibition-grade marquetry centre tables and very long extending dining tables occupy it almost entirely. The unusual pieces pass through singly. An Irish Killarney marquetry inlaid yew wood centre table sits at the very top, and Killarney arbutus, pietra dura specimen marble, papier mâché, Sorrento ware, birds-eye maple, thuyawood, zebrawood and padauk each appear once or twice.

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Victorian Tables

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Nineteenth-century British domestic tables in mahogany and walnut, running from screw-action extending dining tables down to the small side, lamp and occasional pieces that furnished a Victorian parlour.