Empire style extendable french table in mahogany feather and 4 chairs, 19th century

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Item description

Beautiful and elegant oval Empire style extendable table in fine feathered mahogany (mahogany burl). The massive column-shaped legs are made of solid mahogany and finished with original decorations in gilded bronze. The four chairs, also in solid wood, have a Classic Empire design, a very comfortable seat and are covered in soft green velvet. The table can be extended with the two leads (they are not in mahogany) of 50 cm each up to the total size of 230 cm, if desired, another lead (not supplied) can be added for further extension. To perfectly stabilize the elongated table, there are two additional folding legs on each side that go down when the extension operation is carried out (see photo). The processing of the feathered mahogany with which the top and the underlying edges were was made is very particular, important and compelling making this table unique and different from others, for this reason, we must dutifully go further to explain the execution technique: the lastronatura. The exact term is Italian lastronatura, untranslatable in English, in fact, the lastronatura is very different and older than wood veneer. The lastronatura is an artisan technique that spread already during the sixteenth century and remained unchanged until the mid-19th century before the Industrial Revolution. It consisted of hand-cutting the trunks of noble wood (walnut, mahogany, briar, walnut burl, etc.) with ancient saws in so many layers with thicknesses ranging from 4 to 6 millimeters, which were then applied to furniture for decorative purposes. The finishing of this procedure was very complex: the wood layer was treated with natural earth dissolved in water for the desired shade, it was aged with stone, fixed with shellac applied with a brush and finally polishing was performed in 12 steps with a cotton pad soaked in shellac, straw oil with pumice stone powder. The lastronatura should not be confused with the wood veneer which is a modern process, in fact, the wood layer is cut by machine and the thickness is below 1 mm, while that of the lastronatura, as already mentioned, is from 4 to 6 mm. This ancient technique, applied to our table, allowed to enhance the colors, the flaming, and the grains of the precious feather mahogany. Handcrafted in France between 1870 and 1880.

ID: 4672-1610376668-13893