The King’s Table & Fourteen Chairs Set

French & Hamptons Style

Louis XIV · solid cherry · one only

A grand trestle table in the spirit of Louis XIV, made entirely by hand in thick solid cherry and finished to the worn lustre of a true château piece.

Twin turned columns rise from an elaborately carved, scrolled foot; the top is a single run of solid plank, tongue-and-grooved and left free to float within a deep border, its edge worked with a diamond moulding. Every joint of that border is mortise-and-tenon, locked with square pegs in the traditional French manner.

The antique character is real work, not a shortcut. The planks and joints were hand-planed to a faint unevenness and hand-sanded over many hours so the softer grain sinks a little, the way aged timber does; the foot and the hand-holds carry a subtle, deliberate wear, worked in by hand rather than by time. The colour is toned by hand — deeper pigment held in the carved recesses, the touched surfaces worn lighter — then polished by brush with natural resins and linseed oil and buffed with beeswax, so the depth of the cherry shows through a soft, timeless patina.

This is the only one. The cherry of this quality is no longer obtainable at this scale, and the antiquing alone took more than a hundred hours — the making ran into hundreds more. It could not be reproduced today and it is offered now, exceptionally, as a single archive piece — the original of the design, never repeated — for a house that wants a true country-château table at its heart, and family and friends gathered around exceptional craftsmanship.

Specification

Form- Grand Louis XIV trestle table — twin turned columns on a carved, scrolled foot; diamond-moulded edge

Timber- Solid cherry throughout

Construction- Free-floating tongue-and-groove plank top within a pegged mortise-and-tenon border; demountable via sliding mortise-and-tenon joints for transport

Finish- Hand-toned antique patina; brush-polished natural resins and linseed oil, beeswax buffed

Dimensions- 3,000 mm long × 1,200 mm wide

Seating- Accompanied by fourteen Louis XIV chairs in Venetian blue and gold damask, hand-stitched sprung seats

Made- Designed and made by Jean-Christophe Burckhardt; workshop, Southern Highlands (Mittagong), NSW

Availability- One only available now