This morning a card table purportedly from the 1840s revealed itself to be a chimera, and a badly reassembled chimera at that, when it suddenly and violently fell over, sending the Christmas tree tumbling into the manger scene. I had not had the thing upside down since I learned enough about old furniture to recognize what I was looking at. Not only are the cabriole-ish legs attached to the base with splines (well—three are, one was), but the base itself was added later, to replace legs that were sawn off just underneath the tabletop. The top has a big drawer and two folding leaves held up by swing-out wooden gates, and has construction straight out of the 18th century. The base is overly ornate and really too small for the top, which made the whole thing wobbly: now I know why. My best guess is that an original leg was broken, and that the too-small base was borrowed from some other piece.
More: the tabletop hinges are not original — they’re too small for the chiseled-out mortises — and have been stained-over, so I can refinish the blasted thing without fear of retribution by the Keno brothers. I never liked the table much but only kept it out of family obligation, and now I’m confirmed in my distaste, at the cost of a couple of Christmas ornaments.
What to do now? Keep the top, certainly, which is well made and has chalk marks visible through 180 years’ oxidation. But replace the ugly impractical base—with what, and how, is the question.