November, 1923 
77 
Elaborately carved leopard's head ornaments appear on the cross 
stretchers at each oid of this mahogany and ebony writing table 
This beautiful little snakewood Regency table, with its finely chased 
and gilt mounts, would look well in any living room 
ihe drawing room—these may be 
picked up today. The big circular 
library table with brass handled 
drawers all round is not very acces¬ 
sible; it has proved too good and use¬ 
ful to part with. 
In contemporary catalogs of furni¬ 
ture it is most interesting to note that 
many of the descriptive names are 
new, an outcome of the time. We 
have the Trafalgar chair and the 
Nelson chair, with their decorations 
of anchors, cables, dolphins, and 
other nautical emblems. A Sheraton 
chair pattern was known as the Cur¬ 
ricle; armchairs were Herculaneums 
or Chariots; the Carlton table, remains 
a Carlton to this day. Mr. George 
Smith—-“already appointed upholder 
extraordinary to his Royal Highness 
the Prince of Wales”—sponsored the 
Chiffonier or Chiffoner, a corruption 
of the French for a lady’s work table, 
which described singularly ill the little 
cabinet-sideboard that bears the 
name; even now English dictionaries 
are uncommonly shy about including 
the word. What Mr. Smith called a 
“chaise-longue” we should speak of 
as a sofa or couch. Then there was the 
Dejune table, the Jardiniere, a double- 
tired stand for the drawing room, and 
the Escritoire, spelt according to 
fancy. The “tete-a-tete” was a 
comfortless, backless affair, “in di¬ 
mensions calculated for two persons 
to sit on.” The popular “Secretaire” 
of that date was a square solidly built 
chest of drawers with the top drawer 
made extra deep, fitted up with 
pigeon-holes and compartments for 
writing materials and finished with a 
pull-down front which served as a 
desk; a bookcase with latticed glass 
doors formed the top. All these were 
t^q^ical of a well-furnished house of the 
period, though that is not to say that 
all chiffoniers, for example, are to be 
cherished as Regency; many of the 
typical pieces were Victorianized. Of 
these some early copies are well worth 
{Contimied on page 136) 
A fi}ie example of Regency games table 
is in mahogany with inlaid ebony, lines 
and green morocco leather top 
.4 Regency secretaire of rosewood inlaid with lines of 
salinwood has a bookshelf above with finely pierced 
brass panels and a useful she f below 
The tables on this page show the variety 
of designs produced to fill the many 
purposes for occasional tables 
