An Extremely Large and Fine Irish Drop Leaf Table, c.1765

Provenance

Acquired from the London trade in the late 1980s
A private American collection

This fine table is of extremely large size, being 8 feet in length and 5 feet in width. It has a wonderful colour and patina and something of a fine minimalist aesthetic, standing as it does on six plain, straight legs, two of which fold out in the gateleg fashion to support the top. The top is almost 1 inch thick and the timbers used throughout are truly first rate. When fully opened, the table can comfortably seat 6-8 each people whilst the fact that it can be folded down allows it to be stored conveniently against a wall when not in use if required and it can function perfectly well as a side table or narrow hall table in this way.

The average Irish table of this form tends to be much smaller and the scale of this piece suggests that it was made for a very large and grand Irish country estate. An example in Mount Stewart, County Down, is curated by the National Trust and can be viewed online here

https://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/1219664

There is also a fine example in Spencer House in St James, London, located in the room off of the main hall where visitors gather to await the arrival of their guide for the day. Other tables of this form are preserved in many great Irish houses such as Mounstainstown, County Meath, Leixlip Castle in County Kildare, Coolcor House, also in Kildare, Bellamont Forest in County Cavan and Greyabbey in County Down.

An example of a table of this form of essentially the same size as ours was advertised by then London-based dealers W. R. Harvey in Country Life on the 4th of September, 1975.

Tables of this sort are one of the most iconic of specifically Irish furniture designs and have always been keenly sought-after by collectors and decorators alike.

Another was in the stock of London dealer Richard Courtney in the 1990s.