Coffee table

It is believed that the earliest coffee tables originated in Renaissance England.

Origins

During the late Victorian era in Europe, specifically in Britain, the first tables designed and called coffee tables appeared. According to R.W. Symonds & B.B. Whineray in Victorian Furniture and Edward T. Joy in The Country Life Book of English Furniture, a table created by E.W. Godwin in 1868 and mass-produced by William Watt and Collinson & Lock, fits the description of a coffee table. If accurate, this could be among the earliest in Europe. Some sources refer to it simply as a "table," so this cannot be conclusively stated. Interestingly, this table stood at about twenty-seven inches tall.

Later versions of the coffee table evolved to be lower, a concept that might have been inspired by tables used in Ottoman tea gardens. Given the rise of the Anglo-Japanese style in Britain during the 1870s and 1880s, and considering low tables were common in Japan, these influences could be equally significant in shaping the coffee table.

From the late 19th century onwards, many coffee tables were designed in revivalist styles, making it possible to find Louis XVI or Georgian style coffee tables. However, there seems to be no proof of a table specifically made as a coffee table before this period. In 1938, Joseph Aronson described a coffee table as a "low wide table now used before a sofa or couch," noting the lack of historical precedent. The advent of television in the 1950s further solidified the coffee table's place in living rooms, as its low profile didn't obstruct the screen view even while holding cups and glasses.

See also

References