ANTIQUE COLLECTING
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Extract from the July-August 2009 Magazine
July-August 2009 Magazine Pages 10-11 PEMBROKE TABLES

by John Andrews
I n its most refined form, the Pembroke table attracts the discerning collector willing to pay for excellent craftsmanship. The presence of decorative inlays and exotic woods boosts the standing of this elegant and well-established piece, whose original success was due to its suitability as an occasional breakfast, writing, ornamental or dressing table. This remains the case. The range of quality and variation in execution of Pembroke tables is wide, allowing scope for very different depths of pocket. The later, 19th century plain mahogany versions have languished at auction for some time, however, and there are many pedestrian reproductions. It is a good time for a closer look at its available forms.
There are some doubts as to the origin of the name. With that gallantry for which gentlemen are noted, Ralph Edwards, in his Shorter Dictionary of English Furniture, quotes Sheraton as saying that the name derived from that of the lady who first gave orders for one of them, possibly the Countess of Pembroke (1737-1831). Edwards then proceeds to state that they began to figure in accounts from 1750, when the Countess would have been 13 years old, an early age at which to have established a name for ordering a table with flaps to extend it and to have already married the Earl of Pembroke. It might have been a previous Countess or, more likely, this one after she married the tenth Earl in 1756 aged 19, but that excludes the appellation from accounts of 1750. John Gloag, in his own Short Dictionary, points the finger at Henry Herbert, the ninth Earl of Pembroke (1693-1751), an amateur architect who had a pure taste in building, according to Horace Walpole, and who might easily have invented an elegant idea for an incidental table. The Encyclopaedia Britannica agrees and Gloag certainly dismisses the tenth Earl, a professional soldier who died in 1794, but see figure 3 below about his wife, who was a daughter of the 3rd Duke of Marlborough. Perhaps the fact that the table is of a free-standing, rather fragile character intended for ladylike usage has perpetuated Sheraton's gallant attribution, since it is widely quoted.

July-August 2009 Magazine Page 13Figure 5. A mahogany Pembroke serpentine table with satinwood inlays, c.1790.

Whatever the case, by 1766 Chippendale supplied one to Nostell Priory, having already illustrated the type as 'Breakfast tables' in his 1754 Directory. Hepplewhite and Sheraton also followed with the same kind of table, but Gillows were well to the fore with the Chippendale type, using the appellation 'Pembroke' by 1765 in an account to a client. The table in its various designs had become widely popular by the 1770s. Chippendale's tables were square or rectangular in the 'Gothic' or 'Chinese' taste - see figure 1 - but the oval shape was soon established. Serpentine flaps were also used on square tables and legs were either tapering square-sectioned ones, slender cabrioles, cluster-columns or turned, and if so possibly reeded. It is interesting to note, however, that Gillows were still supplying the solid mahogany 'Chippendale' Pembroke table with square legs and solid undertray as late as 1774 (to Delamain, Cumbria - see Susan Stuart, Gillows Vol 1 page 254). There are certain consistent constructional aspects worth recording, which include:
- Two fly brackets support each of the flaps, with three 'knuckles' to each hinge.
- There is one drawer in the frieze at one end and a sham, matching drawer at the opposite end. The drawer has a lock and lock rail.
- The tops of the legs continue up to form the side frame of the drawer.
- On oval tables the end frieze is bowed to match the curve.
- The side frieze under the flaps is inset to take the closed brackets when the flaps are down.
- The flaps fall to about one third of the table height.
- At either end the top overhang is quite narrow.
- Square-sectioned legs are tapered on the inner sides, with the outside corners at right angles to the floor.
- Underframes had mortise-and-tenon joints. Tops were fixed on with hand-made screws in rounded incisions.
- The undersides of flaps might be plain-veneered and hinged, with rule joints.
Although solid mahogany was used, many of the tables are veneered and highly decorated with inlays and cross-bands or even painted. Satinwood and the use of rose-wood, harewood, zebrawood and other exotic woods added to the many inlaid motifs and finishes. The frame was usually of beech or pine and the fly brackets sometimes used a harder wood such as plane. These delicate and fine tables were paralleled in country houses by two-flap tables in solid woods of sturdier character, with possibly a drawer at each end, and almost any Victorian table with drop flaps on turned legs incurs the name, but the true Pembroke table is the slender, elegant form with the constructional features detailed above.