Styles
Types
Related
AD
X
Antique and Vintage Coffee Tables
We are a part of eBay Affiliate Network, and if you make a purchase through the links on our site we earn affiliate commission.
Historically speaking, tables used for serving coffee were introduced to Europe with the arrival of the first coffee houses in the 17th century. These bourgeois establishments often included small cafe-style tables, giving patrons a place to set...
Historically speaking, tables used for serving coffee were introduced to Europe with the arrival of the first coffee houses in the 17th century. These bourgeois establishments often included small cafe-style tables, giving patrons a place to set their coffee cups and reading material while indulging in the caffeinated beverage. Yet such tables weren’t readily adopted into private homes.
In fact, for domestic use, tea tables preceded coffee tables. During the late 17th and early 18th centuries, as the popularity of drinking tea exploded across urban areas in Europe and the United States, fashionable homes often included a tea table. Typically, these were small rectangular wood tables with raised, decorative trimming known as a “galleried edge” to prevent cups, saucers, teapots, and spills from sliding off the surface.
Some early tea-table designs were actually portable trays that mounted onto stands. In the later 18th century, many tea tables featured a round hinged top that tilted vertically to allow for easier storage when not in use. Like dining tables, tea tables were typically over two feet in height, or around 28 to 30 inches tall, and sometimes included ornately carved wooden legs or inlaid brass or silver designs.
In the United States, owing to well-established trade routes with China, tea was generally cheaper than coffee until the mid-19th century, when coffee imported from Latin America became a more common sight in American homes. Regardless, what we think of coffee tables today—low tables used as a centerpiece feature in living rooms—are really a 20th-century development.
F. Stuart Foote of the Imperial Furniture Company in Grand Rapids, Michigan, claimed to have invented the coffee table while helping his wife prepare for a party simply by shortening the legs of an existing dining table. Others cite the surge in popularity of French-style “tables bas” (literally meaning “low tables”) around 1915. Though traditionally placed at the perimeter of a room, interior designers began putting these low tables front and center.
Following World War II, several influential Modernist furniture designers made the coffee table an integral part of living rooms throughout America. Iconic vintage coffee tables include Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona Table from 1929, with its square glass top on a chrome X-shaped base; Isamu Noguchi’s triangular glass Noguchi Table, supported by a hinged, curving double L-shape base, which was first sold by Herman Miller in 1947; Charles and Ray Eames’s elliptical coffee table with a laminated plywood top over a wire base (called the “Surfboard table” for its distinctive shape), first made by Herman Miller in 1951; Eero Saarinen’s low Pedestal Table with its white marble top supported by a slender hourglass base, made for Knoll in 1957; and Warren Platner’s circular glass coffee table with an indented cylindrical base made from chrome wire, designed for Knoll in 1962.
Continue readingHistorically speaking, tables used for serving coffee were introduced to Europe with the arrival of the first coffee houses in the 17th century. These bourgeois establishments often included small cafe-style tables, giving patrons a place to set their coffee cups and reading material while indulging in the caffeinated beverage. Yet such tables weren’t readily adopted into private homes.
In fact, for domestic use, tea tables preceded coffee tables. During the late 17th and early 18th centuries, as the popularity of drinking tea exploded across urban areas in Europe and the United States, fashionable homes often included a tea table. Typically, these were small rectangular wood tables with raised, decorative trimming known as a “galleried edge” to prevent cups, saucers, teapots, and spills from sliding off the surface.
Some early tea-table designs were actually portable trays that mounted onto stands. In the later 18th century, many tea tables featured a round hinged top that tilted vertically to allow for easier storage when not in use. Like dining tables, tea tables were typically over two feet in height, or around 28 to 30 inches tall, and sometimes included ornately carved wooden legs or inlaid brass or silver designs.
In the United States, owing to well-established trade routes with China, tea was generally cheaper than coffee until the mid-19th century, when coffee imported from Latin America became a more common sight in American homes. Regardless, what we think of coffee tables today—low tables used as a centerpiece feature in living rooms—are really a 20th-century development.
F. Stuart Foote of the Imperial Furniture Company in Grand Rapids, Michigan, claimed to have invented the coffee table while helping his wife prepare for a party simply by shortening the legs of an existing dining table. Others cite the surge in popularity of French-style “tables bas” (literally meaning “low tables”) around 1915. Though traditionally placed at the...
Historically speaking, tables used for serving coffee were introduced to Europe with the arrival of the first coffee houses in the 17th century. These bourgeois establishments often included small cafe-style tables, giving patrons a place to set their coffee cups and reading material while indulging in the caffeinated beverage. Yet such tables weren’t readily adopted into private homes.
In fact, for domestic use, tea tables preceded coffee tables. During the late 17th and early 18th centuries, as the popularity of drinking tea exploded across urban areas in Europe and the United States, fashionable homes often included a tea table. Typically, these were small rectangular wood tables with raised, decorative trimming known as a “galleried edge” to prevent cups, saucers, teapots, and spills from sliding off the surface.
Some early tea-table designs were actually portable trays that mounted onto stands. In the later 18th century, many tea tables featured a round hinged top that tilted vertically to allow for easier storage when not in use. Like dining tables, tea tables were typically over two feet in height, or around 28 to 30 inches tall, and sometimes included ornately carved wooden legs or inlaid brass or silver designs.
In the United States, owing to well-established trade routes with China, tea was generally cheaper than coffee until the mid-19th century, when coffee imported from Latin America became a more common sight in American homes. Regardless, what we think of coffee tables today—low tables used as a centerpiece feature in living rooms—are really a 20th-century development.
F. Stuart Foote of the Imperial Furniture Company in Grand Rapids, Michigan, claimed to have invented the coffee table while helping his wife prepare for a party simply by shortening the legs of an existing dining table. Others cite the surge in popularity of French-style “tables bas” (literally meaning “low tables”) around 1915. Though traditionally placed at the perimeter of a room, interior designers began putting these low tables front and center.
Following World War II, several influential Modernist furniture designers made the coffee table an integral part of living rooms throughout America. Iconic vintage coffee tables include Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s Barcelona Table from 1929, with its square glass top on a chrome X-shaped base; Isamu Noguchi’s triangular glass Noguchi Table, supported by a hinged, curving double L-shape base, which was first sold by Herman Miller in 1947; Charles and Ray Eames’s elliptical coffee table with a laminated plywood top over a wire base (called the “Surfboard table” for its distinctive shape), first made by Herman Miller in 1951; Eero Saarinen’s low Pedestal Table with its white marble top supported by a slender hourglass base, made for Knoll in 1957; and Warren Platner’s circular glass coffee table with an indented cylindrical base made from chrome wire, designed for Knoll in 1962.
Continue readingBest of the Web
Chipstone
This beautiful site showcases the collection of Stanley and Polly Stone of Fox Point, Wisconsin,...
Kentucky Online Arts Resource
This huge online database from the Speed Art Museum is a rich trove of beautiful photos and...
Most Watched
ADX
Best of the Web
Chipstone
This beautiful site showcases the collection of Stanley and Polly Stone of Fox Point, Wisconsin,...
Kentucky Online Arts Resource
This huge online database from the Speed Art Museum is a rich trove of beautiful photos and...
ADX
AD
X