Table Cover, Leather, Ham House

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries some elaborate wooden furniture was provided with protective covers to prevent damage from light fading and dust. English upholsterer and furniture maker Thomas Chippendale supplied his wealthy clients with leather covers for chairs, sofas, bedsteads, tables, and commodes. The practice of covering highly finished pieces continued into the early nineteenth century. In 1802, Thomas Sheraton made note of "[c]overs for pier tables, made of stamped leather and glazed, lined with flannel to save the varnish of such table tops" in his book "The Cabinet Dictionary."
This cover has a history of having been used at Ham House, a seventeenth-century historic house in Richmond, outside London, England.
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