Mission Console Table

The original console tables (primarily from French furniture designers in the 1700’s) were almost always a small half moon table adhered to a wall with a “console”, which is a bracket in the shape of an S or some other curve. In a few cases a console table which was so mounted to a wall had receding legs in front to appear as if it were freestanding when it was not.

In France, these originals were also known as pier tables due to where people mounted them, on the pillar or “pier wall” between two large windows. They were mostly decorative until they were slightly altered to have four legs, and while retaining either their half moon shape or narrow rectangular form, were adapted to rest either against a wall in hallway or entrance or be pressed against the backside of a large sofa.

Gradually, as console table popularity grew, they became known also as a sofa table, but this produced confusion because a true console table was not a side or end table or a coffee table but specifically a table with the height of the tall backs of 18th Century French sofas.

Then in the late 1800s, the old world European console tables gave way to a new trend that sprouted in the United States. It was the start of the console table revolution by Joseph McHugh in New York and his “mission” style furniture. These pieces were straight line, rustic designs that mimicked the chair backs of a Church in San Francisco whose chairs had been copied by the designs of a Spanish mission and therefore became known as “mission furniture”. Eventually the lines included mission console tables and just about anything “mission” you can imagine in household décor.

Although mission style didn’t remain popular straight through from the 1800’s to today, the mission console table was revived in the 70’s. Since then, mission console tables have surfaced throughout the world in creative designs that don’t confuse clean lines and simplicity with boring or poor taste.

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