Coffee Table with Antique Hardwood and Brass Base
This low table undoubtedly belongs in the P. Tendercool Hall of Fame.
We created this massive table for a New York based interior designer. Since she specified a “large table”, we offered her a custom table created with two slabs of our famed collection of antique Chicken-Wing wood (鸡翅木 Jīchì mù) (read more on this wood below). We felt the slab so impressive, the grain so attractive that we refrained from adding “design”. We added no decoration whatsoever, decided to slightly bleach the wood so the grain of the wood would stand out even more. We mounted neutral cylindric brass bases which make the table seem to float.
Reach out should you consider a similar table.
- Top 2 Slabs of Chicken-Wing Wood (鸡翅木 Jīchì mù)
- Finish Bleached + Natural Oiled
- Base PT81 Sand Cast
- Finish Golden Sand
- Size D 196 x W 153 x H 22 cm
- D 77.16 x W 60.23 x H 8.66 in
- Lead-time 12 weeks maximum
Antique Hardwood
P. Tendercool founders are former antique dealers who collected about 200 slabs of antique Chicken-Wing Wood (鸡翅木, Jīchì mù) over a period of 15 years. This wood was venerated during the ‘Ming’ dynasty and coveted by literati and scholars for its beautiful grain, “…like feathers of a bird…”
Our slabs were collected in Northern Vietnam, close to the Chinese border. Back in the 19th century, villagers would place two identical ‘Slices’ of the same tree next to each other, directly on the floor, to serve as a dry platform to sit, eat, and sleep on. This explains why our slabs come in pairs, typically about a person’s size, in various thicknesses. Inspection of the underside shows they were clearly cut by hand (pre-machine age!), without traces of legs nor decoration. Unlike the Chinese refined ‘Kang’ tables for the well-to-do, these 19th century slabs were purely functional furniture.
The simple fact these wooden slabs still exist is proof of their stone-hard quality: many decades of humid-hot, termite-infested surroundings have had no noticeable effect other than them remaining solid witnesses of a bygone era. We keep them in their original unfinished state awaiting clients’ preferences. We currently own two hundred slabs, an extraordinary collection for you to select from.
Table Bases
Our table-bases are sand cast by hand, one by one, by Octogenarian Armando Beato and his team. Armando started working with his uncle when he was fourteen and even worked for artists like Salvador Dalí. Care for a better reference?
Most of our bases are available in Bronze, Brass or Aluminum in a number of finishes. Download our catalogue to learn more.
Made-to-Your Order
Contact us with your preferred size or any details you love and we’ll get back to you with a quotation.
Lead-time: 12 weeks (shorter if we can – please contact us for our schedule).