French Gateleg Table

Some tables were built to stay put, and this one was built to disappear, a gateleg made to fold completely flat the moment the meal is finished and the room is wanted for something else. Found in Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, it opens to a round planked top on turned legs, with a swinging gate leg and hand-forged iron hooks that catch and release the folding frame. A table like this belonged in houses where space was borrowed rather than owned, carried out for supper and set flat against the wall as soon as the plates were cleared. Sylvie would keep it open by a window with a jug of flowers on top, quietly delighted that it can vanish again whenever the room asks.

 

 

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