Tripod Table
TRI-POD TABLES
These tables were primarily made for holding the tea equipage. As a consequence of the high duties payable on tea, and thus its high price, it was considered a luxury. By the middle of the Eighteenth century, the many tea gardens in and around London had come to be regarded as common and places of bad repute. Instead, it became customary for the fashionable world to invite their friends to drink tea in each other's homes. As one contributor to the Female Spectator wrote in 1745, 'The tea-table costs more to support than would maintain two children at nurse'.
Thus, at about this time, cabinet makers including Chippendale started to design and produce tables for the express purpose of taking tea. As one might expect of tables intended for such a luxury, they were often of the very finest quality, constructed from the densest of mahogany, invariably with a bird-cage support and deeply carved.
