Circular dining-tables are often considered to be the most convivial, those seated at the table can discuss easily with those on either side and beyond, while remaining in close contact with those on the other side. The convenience of this type of table, adjustable into three sizes means the table can be set for a dîner intime for four or six; a mid-size to seat eight or the largest size to seat twelve or even fourteen.

The ingenious design - a mechanism which when rotated pushes the fixed wedge-shaped sections outward, leaving a space for the leaves to be inserted - was first patented by Robert Jupe in 1835. June was an upholsterer of 47 Welbeck St, Cavendish Square, London and his ‘improved expanding table’ was made in partnership with John Johnstone of New Bond Street. Between 1835 and 1840 they traded under the name ‘Johnstone, Jupe & Co.’ After 1840, the two partners went their separate ways.

This splendid table has been in two private Scottish collections for several generations.

Round tables have often been thought of as useful for discussion or entertaining. King Arthur’s round table of legend gave equal status to his warrior knights; the circular design means there is no ‘head of the table’ and so emphasises equality among guests. In Victorian literature this was clearly a matter of some distaste for the pompous archdeacon Grantly in Anthony Trollope’s biting social satire Barchester Towers (1857): his son-in-law is to move into St Ewold’s Parsonage, where the dining-room is practically square. Arabin proclaims a circular dining table will be required.

“Now there was something peculiarly unorthodox in the archdeacon’s estimation in the idea of a round table. He had always been accustomed to a goodly board of decent length, comfortably elongating itself according to the number of guests, nearly black with perpetual rubbing, and as bright as a mirror. Now round dinner tables are usually of oak, or else of such new construction as not to have acquired the peculiar hue which was so pleasing to him. He connected them with what he called the nasty new-fangled method of leaving a cloth on the table, as though to warn people that they were not to sit long. In his eyes there was something democratic and parvenu in a round table. He imagined that dissenters and calico-printers chiefly used them, and perhaps a few literary lions more conspicuous for their wit than their gentility. He was a little flurried at the idea of such an article being introduced into the diocese by a protege of his own, and at the instigation of his father-in-law. ‘A round dinner-table,’ said he, with some heat, ‘is the most abominable article of furniture that ever was invented. I hope that Arabin has more taste than to allow such a thing in his house’.”

Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers, ch XXI, 1857.

The remarkable mechanism, which allows a single person to expand the size of the table, was conceived when Britain was developing its global, industrial power. Such mechanisation of ordinary, domestic objects was characteristic of the new modernity, which was later embodied by the new railways which cut through the English countryside. These modern mechanical innovations were rejected by those like John Constable (1776-1837) who treasured a pre-industrial English society, whose monumental six-foot canvasses, betray a melancholic, lost England.