Hi all. We have this unique coffee table in teak that was refinished for us by a friend (it was in a fire if you can believe that! He did a great job!) but I digress. There is a metal France and Sons button underneath and the table features two, hinged, fold down "leaves" that are held up with wooden "slider rails" underneath. I have never seen this type of coffee table and no clue as to the designer. Any info would be great! Designer, year, etc. there is a serial number but not sure how to de wiper it. Thanks a lot!
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I am pretty familiar with France and Søn. And I've never seen this table before. Hvidt and Mølgaard did a number of designs for France and Søn. And subjectively this looks like their work. There are also a number of uncredited, "in-house" France and Søn designs, at least one of which I suspect strongly was secretly designed by Hvidt and Mølgaard.
i am surprised that it doesn't appear to have the same joint profile between the slabs of wood that I am accustomed to seeing on France and Søn pieces. I am not sure what to make of this. Or maybe the photos are misleading me.
Maybe Howard Moon has seen this table before and might know something about it.
Oh, and also the top is veneer. I suspect that the core of the table may not be solid teak. Perhaps it is solid slabs some other wood that is teak like in color.
This makes me think this is perhaps later during the Cado period, and on second thoughts I probably would not believe an undocumented attribution to Hvidt and Mølgaard.
But I really don't know what to think. I've only ever seen one France and Søn veneer top table before and it was a Hvidt and Mølgaard that should not have been veneer.
Maybe somebody here can do better than come up with more questions....
I am sure HowardMoon will be along.
Glassartist:
How very odd. This is only the second one I've ever seen with a veneer top, including in photos. And adding the photos in, that would make dozens or more tables. Odd.
What is the substrate? I am rather curious what they did because there is end grain edge banding on this piece.
Nope, never seen it before.
Come to think of it, I have never had a France & Son coffee table or dining tabe that didn't have a solid timber surface, yet they do pop up. There was a thread a while back with a model 20/59 gateleg dining table that had a thicker veneered surface which was assumed to be a later Poul Cadovius era production.
This table looks like they have taken the base from a Hvidt/Nielsen table and stuck on an eliptical surface inspired by the model 20/59 dining table. The surface looks bulky and lacks the elegance of the solid teak tables designed by Hvidt & Nielsen.
I agree with Lief, I would guess it is a cobbled together Poul Cadovius production from the late sixties to seventies.
Edited...to the OP sorry if this sounds very dismissive, it is still a nice table, I am being hyper critical.
I will add here that I believe it is a solid deduction that his table HAS to be later than the mid 60s.
I have personally seen one France and Daverkosen catalog, and own a France and Søn catalog from the early to mid 60s. And I have seen and/or own at least half a dozen France and Søn retailer catalogs from the same period. And not one of them mentions anything about teak veneer tables. Across all of this furniture I know of only a few bent laminations involving veneer on anything. (Great Dane sofas back slats).
Therefore the only remaining era this could possibly belong to is the later Cadovious era.
Another supporting point is that I doubt the factory had the equipment to produce large veneer pieces (vacuum bags, etc), but the Cado systems are veneer, so his factory would have had that equipment.
Leif, one specific one that I can recall is a single Hvidt pinwheel table from the set of six. I was going to send it to Simon from the Danish homestore as he needed one to complete a set. He could not use it because it was a veneered version and he neede a solid one. He told me they did both. Perhaps other designs were done both ways as well.
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