19th Century American Tilt-Top Table

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An early 19th-century American mahogany tilt-top table, carved in the Queen Anne style, quietly rewrites the familiar script. Most tilt-tops … Read more An early 19th-century American mahogany tilt-top table, carved in the Queen Anne style, quietly rewrites the familiar script. Most tilt-tops of the period were round—perfectly polite, perfectly expected. This one, however, asserts itself with a rectangular top, lending the form an air of rarity and architectural clarity. Its simplicity is its strength: a turned upright column with an urn-shaped base, three cabriole legs that bend with a subtle serpentine line, each ending in the gentle punctuation of a pad foot.

The Queen Anne style, beloved in both England and the colonies, prized restraint over ornamentation—curves over carving, balance over bravado. Tilt-top tables were the versatile players of early American households: propped against the wall to conserve space during the day, then opened for tea, conversation, or display when company arrived. This table, both practical and poetic, channels a time when furniture was as much about ritual as it was about utility. See less