CF10

General Description: A rosewood occasional table, c.1825, with a circular top on a tapered pillar with leaf-carved baluster and turned socle, on a flat triform base with lotus-carved feet and castors. (Bowett, Adam, 2013)
Researcher Description: This is a good quality, late Regency table. It was presumably bought by William Cotton III, perhaps after his marriage and move to Leatherhead in 1824. There is a tradition, of uncertain origin, that this table was somehow associated with Napoleon I (d.1821). This seems unlikely. (Bowett, Adam, 2013)

The top is a single board of mahogany, veneered with rosewood on its upper surface. A moulding of solid rosewood is applied to the underside of the edge in six sections; it is not clear how this is fixed to the top, but it could be screwed through from the upper side, the screws being covered by the rosewood veneer. The underside of the table is braced with four mahogany battens, screwed and plugged to the top, and forming an open square in which the support block on top of the pillar is located. The block pivots on two brass thumbscrews passing through the two side battens and is secured with a sprung brass catch screwed to the underside of the top. The block is mahogany, laminated in two pieces set at 90 degrees to each other, and is 40 mm thick in total. The pillar is turned from solid rosewood, and is fixed by two tenons into the block. The tenons are secured or ‘foxed’ with oak wedges. The turned socle at the base of the pillar is formed by additional pieces of solid rosewood being glued to the base of the pillar and then turned. The pillar is secured to the base with four large screws, one placed centrally and the other three arranged in a triangle. It is possible that the base of the pillar is also sunk or shallow-tenoned into the base, but this cannot be confirmed without disassembly. The base is made of three white pine (?) blocks jointed Y-fashion at the centre, the edges being given depth with glued battens. The top surface and sides of the base are veneered with rosewood and the whole of the underside is covered by a black wash. The solid rosewood feet are fixed to the base each with a single large screw. Brass castors are sunk into the feet and fixed with three screws each.

, 1825 c.

wood (rosewood), veneers: wood (rosewood), wood (mahogany), wood (white pine)

Named Collection: Cottonian Collection