Bedside Tables in Pine Wood, Central Europe, 1940, Set of 2

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A pair of antique bedside tables in pine wood, with a square top and four tapered legs tied by box … Read more A pair of antique bedside tables in pine wood, with a square top and four tapered legs tied by box stretchers. They originate from Central Europe, from the middle of the twentieth century, where pine was joined with mortise and tenon and painted in lime colours.The square-topped kitchen stool is among the most repeated pieces of the Central European country interior: it served for sitting, for reaching a high cupboard and for holding the washbasin. Its height, around fifty centimetres, is what turns it into a bedside table today.The top is formed of two or three pine boards joined along their length, the edge slightly rounded. The legs are square in section and taper toward the foot, tenoned into the apron. The low stretchers form a closed frame that stiffens the whole.The paint has worn back to bare wood along the edges of the top and at the feet, and earlier layers in different colours surface beneath the visible one. It is the record of successive coats across decades, and none of them has been touched up.They work as tables on either side of a bed, as occasional stools beside a sofa, or as plant stands. Their worn colour brings a point of contrast to a bedroom in a neutral palette, and their contained size makes them easy to place. See less