COMMON SENSE ANTIQUES By: Fred Taylor
HARLEQUIN FURNITURE
No Clowning Around
In the late 18th century English
furniture designers, having progressed
from survival style furniture to more
elegant designs, became intrigued with
“harlequin” furniture. In the Middle Ages
a harlequin was depicted as the court
buffoon, dressed in garish colored outfits
with a diamond pattern and a pointed hat
and shoes. While presumed to be slow and
stupid the harlequin could show a
surprising side and be exceptionally quick
and agile with acrobatic moves. In
furniture design it came to denote a piece
that was something other than what it first
appeared to be.
Thomas Sheraton, who achieved fame
as the designer of much of the American
Federal period, is credited with a number
of harlequin or combination pieces. The
most famous was what appeared to be a
flat writing table with two small end
leaves. But when the leaves were extended
a complete and complex set of pigeon
holes rose from below the surface to
present storage space for the user. A
Sheraton library table concealed a ladder
to reach the top shelves. Another designer
equally obsessed with harlequin pieces was
a contemporary of Sheraton’s named
Thomas Shearer.
But long before the English designers
came up with their harlequin curiosities,
American colonists of the 17th century
were using real life harlequin pieces in
daily life. They didn’t call them that of
course but they had the same
characteristics as the refined English
pieces. And the ability to “multi-function”
was based on daily need rather than parlor
niceties.
Another piece of harlequin furniture
made famous in the Colonies was the fold
over games table. Built to look like a
console table or a pier table, the two piece
top cleverly folded over to expose a square
game surface that could be rotated so that
the entire top was supported on the base
or it was supported by a swing leg that
swung out from the frame. Some versions
even had a fifth leg for this purpose. The
top also opened up to reveal storage space
for cards, chips and game pieces. Another
variation took the exercise a step further.
The fold over top extended on sliding
supports concealed in the base to provide
room for as many as five or six leaves
producing a dining room table concealed
within a console table. Clever, huh.
But the real explosion in combination
furniture occurred in America during the
late 19th century and lasted to the middle
of the 20th century and beds were the
primary contributor.
Cabinet beds exploded in popularity in
the 1880s with such models as the
“Champion Automatic Folding Bedstead”
made by Hale & Kilburn of Philadelphia
and a series of beds with geographical
names like “Columbia A”, “Manhattan
No. 5” and “New York” by M. Samuels &
Co of New York. Some of the cabinets,
like the 96in tall Champion, concealed full
size beds that simply folded down. Others
like the “New York No.2” had hinged bed
frames folded inside which greatly reduced
the size of the cabinet and the cost of the
bed. These beds are not to be confused
with the Murphy bed. One version of the
Murphy, patented in 1918, pivoted on the
door jamb of a closet and then lowered
into sleeping position. The 1902 Sears
catalog featured what it called the “mantel
bed.” It looked like a mantelpiece that had
a curtain lulled over the fireplace. Pulling
back the curtain revealed a single bed lying
on its side that could folded out from the
wall. It offered this little harlequin treasure
for $7.95.
One of the most ingenious of the
harlequin beds came from the United
Table-Bed Company of Chicago in the
1920s. Looking like a normal dining table
from the front, the top opened up and
swung back to become a headboard. The
apron, leaves and legs then extended to
form the bed frame. Another version
looked like a small server or sideboard.
The top opened up like that of a spinet
desk to reveal a folded bedstead inside.
Another manufacturer reversed
the Ta-Bed philosophy and used a
harlequin cabinet to conceal a dining
table. Saginaw Furniture Shops operated
out of Sparta, MI making “novelty”
furniture in the Depression era of the
1930s. After 1946 they made cabinets with
built in extension tables using T.E.
McFall’s patented devices under the
Extensol name and was sometimes called
Ta-bed
Left- This looks like an average
quality sideboard from the Depression
era.
Below - Surprisingly this sideboard
is really a cabinet bed ready for a good
night’s sleep.
the “Expand O Matic” line. The table
started with a cabinet frame like a china
cabinet. One drawer pulled out to reveal a
set of runners that collapsed into the
cabinet. The drawer also pulled out what
appeared to be part of the frame of the
cabinet that functioned as legs for one end
of the table. When the drawer was fully
extended on the slides, leaves were put in
place and a dining table grew out of a
china cabinet. Most of these tables were
made in the 1950s and 1960s.
Look around your house or shop
and see how many pieces of harlequin
furniture you can find.
Send your comments, questions
and pictures to me at PO Box 215, Crystal
River, FL 34423 or email them to me at
H Y P E R L I N K
mailto:[email protected]
[email protected].
Visit Fred’s website at HYPERLINK
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SENSE ANTIQUES by Fred Taylor”,
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