Small painted pine table

The plain rectangular, scrubbed top above painted aprons raised on square tapering legs. The drawer fronts are decorated with simulated crossbanding in a dark outline containing the plain turned wood knobs. The section between the drawers is decorated with a simulated woodgrain ‘scumbled’ effect.

This early-nineteenth century table might lack the sophistication of metropolitan neo-classical examples with their fine inlays of contrasting woods and ebonised crossbanding, but its honesty and charm make up for it, not least evident in the signs of years and decades of scrubbing, cutting, scraping, and dough kneading of which there are a thousand stories to tell.

With its nod to contemporary neo-classical tastes, it originally probably was intended for one of the front rooms in a small rural cottage or farmhouse where the family would receive guests as well as performing a variety of other domestic tasks, especially in small two-roomed cottages with an open hearth at one end. Although these tables were often listed under the heading ‘tea table’ in eighteenth and nineteenth century inventories they were in fact used as the kitchen table, the dining table, the games table, the homework table – and the tea table!