Gaming table
Category
Furniture
Date
circa 1570
Materials
Joined walnut and oak, inlaid with various timbers such as sycamore, yew, fruitwood and cedar
Measurements
88.5 x 105 cm
Place of origin
London
Order this imageCollection
Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire
NT 1127740
Summary
A walnut and inlaid games table, English, probably London, circa 1570, a very rare survival of an Elizabethan gaming table, similar to the 'Aeglentyne' table [NT 1127774] of circa 1568, the top is inlaid various woods with a playing board, and to the borders with arabesques and strapwork, and to each corner with a playing card, the '5' of each suit. The frieze fitted with a pair of oak-lined drawers and also inlaid with discs and triangles, and the legs of broadening tapering columnar form inlaid with stop-flutes, and joined by a deep moulding-capped stretcher, and with base moulding. Inlaid with oak, bog oak, yew, cedar, sycamore and fruitwoods. The two drawers to the frieze apparently re-made, or re-lined, circa 1800. Possibly identifiable with 'a square table inlayde' in the 'best bed chamber', two more in the 'gallerie' and another in 'Tobies Chamber' in the 1601 Hardwick inventory. With intriguing similarities to the Eglantine Table of circa 1568 [NT 1127774] which is also inlaid with the fives of each suit of playing cards, inlaid with similar motifs to the legs and friezes, and with the same upper and lower base mouldings. It is probable that this was produced in the same London workshop.
Provenance
Transferred to the National Trust from the Treasury in 1984.
References
Jervis, Simon Swynfen, 'Furniture at Hardwick Hall - I' in Hardwick Hall: A Great Old Castle of Romance, eds., David Adshead and David Taylor (2016), 99 - 100 Macquoid, Percy, The dictionary of English furniture :, 1983, illustrated and discussed Volume III, p. 193. Boynton and Thornton 1971 Lindsay Boynton and Peter Thornton, ‘The Hardwick Inventories of 1601’, Journal of the Furniture History Society, Vol.VII, 1971, illustrated Plate 13