French Polished Console in Antique Hardwood, Bronze Base
We created this jewel (our unbiased opinion) because we wanted to challenge ourselves again: we had sourced this superb slab of Antique Hardwood with a truly superb grain which shouted showpiece! We decided to go all out and opted for a true french polished. The finish is french polished, our signature ‘Look Mummy What We Can Do!’ finish, a time-consuming, highly specialized technique mostly used in the 18th century for very precious furniture and now almost forgotten (but not quite). While this is a fragile finish – any drop of water or alcohol will leave marks – it is the Rolls Royce of wood finishes, allowing the tiniest nuances in the wood to, literally, shine. Consequently we’d only recommend this finish for furniture which is not used daily – not for dining, not for working, not for coffee tables. Ideal to present your favorite art, or indeed to wow in a hallway. The base fits the bill: hand-cast bronze, highly polished: our best work.
- Top Antique Chicken-Wing Wood (鸡翅木 Jīchì mù)
- Finish French Polished
- Base PT17 Sand Cast Bronze
- Finish Polished
- Size D 190 x W 35.5 x H 79.5 cm
- D 74.81 x W 14.57 x H 31.3 in
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.