T.H. Robsjohn Gibbings Flip-Top Convertible Console Table for Widdicomb 1950s
About the Item
- Creator:T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings (Designer),Widdicomb Furniture Co. (Manufacturer)
- Dimensions:Height: 31.5 in (80.01 cm)Width: 60 in (152.4 cm)Depth: 19 in (48.26 cm)
- Style:Mid-Century Modern (Of the Period)
- Materials and Techniques:
- Place of Origin:
- Period:
- Date of Manufacture:1953
- Condition:Refinished to the highest possible standard.
- Seller Location:Dallas, TX
- Reference Number:
T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings
British-born designer, interior decorator and author T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings was one of the great American tastemakers in the middle decades of the 20th century. Much like Edward Wormley, Robsjohn-Gibbings was a design classicist by education and inclination, but he would come to create some of the most gracious and livable modern furnishings of the era.
Robsjohn-Gibbings studied architecture at the University of London, then held various jobs that included designing décors for passenger liners and working as the art director of a film studio. In the early 1930s, while employed by the upper-crust interior designer Charles J. Duveen, Robsjohn-Gibbings experienced an epiphany during a visit to the British Museum.
Examining the furniture depicted on ancient Greek ceramics — lithe stools and klismos chairs — he realized that he had found a design touchstone. By 1936, Robsjohn-Gibbings had moved to New York and set up a showroom on Madison Avenue for his modern reinterpretations of Classical Greek designs. Aided by contacts he’d developed while working with Duveen, he quickly established a clientele that included Elizabeth Arden, Doris Duke and Thelma Chrysler Foy.
Through his writings for magazines and books, Robsjohn-Gibbings earned a public following and was established as an urbane arbiter of taste. From 1943 to 1956, he produced an understated line of modernist furnishings for Widdicomb, which included one of the icons of the period: the tiered, biomorphic Mesa coffee table (1951). Robsjohn-Gibbings moved to Athens, Greece, in 1966, and created a new line of antiquity-inspired pieces for the firm Saridis. The series turned out to be his swan song.
Collectors’ interest in Robsjohn-Gibbings was reignited in the 1980s when the 200-plus pieces from his 1936–38 commission for the Bel-Air estate of Los Angeles socialite Hilda Boldt Weber — pared-down neoclassical pieces rendered in blond wood (with the occasional flourish) — came on the market. (Up until then, the collection had remained in the house, despite its having changed hands several times.)
But his work for Widdicomb remains his most widely known, appreciated for its elegance and generous proportions. Robsjohn-Gibbings despised the stern aesthetic associated with his Bauhaus contemporaries, and a keynote of his modernist pieces is that they have no sharp angles. His chair and sofa frames, table legs and even many cabinets feature softly contoured edges. In whatever style he designed, Robsjohn-Gibbings was guided by simplicity and timelessness. He wanted his furniture to be lived with happily.
Find antique T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings coffee tables, dining tables, credenzas and other furniture on 1stDibs.
Widdicomb Furniture Co.
Admirers of vintage mid-century modern furnishings likely recognize the Widdicomb Furniture Company name for the fruitful partnerships it forged with iconic designers such as Frank Lloyd Wright, T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings and Mario Buatta. But there is more to the Widdicomb story than the albeit quite covetable sofas and bedroom furniture it produced during the middle of the 20th century.
A wealth of pine and oak forests rendered Grand Rapids, Michigan, a logging center during the 1800s, and it eventually gained recognition for its furniture industry. The American city became a destination for furniture makers who hailed from across the United States and beyond. Furniture maker George Widdicomb emigrated from England to the United States in 1845, eventually setting up a cabinet shop in Syracuse, New York, before moving west to Grand Rapids. There, he opened a shop with his four sons, including John Widdicomb, whose name would help carry the family legacy into the 20th century.
The Widdicomb shop in Grand Rapids prospered, as the patriarch’s formal English training allowed him to produce pieces with superior craftsmanship compared to those of his competitors. Although the Civil War halted business and took the life of one of the Widdicomb brothers, the family’s survivors would start anew as Widdicomb Brothers and Richards, soon renamed the Widdicomb Furniture Company.
John Widdicomb, however, split from the family business in 1897 to create the John Widdicomb Company, where he would go on to focus on Louis XV- and French Provincial-style furnishings. Chairs made in these styles have distinct characteristics, such as floral motifs carved in the frames and gently angled backrests. John's company also remained a family affair: The founder’s son, Harry, assumed control of the company when his father died in 1910, while John's nephew Ralph Widdicombe — who retained the English spelling of his last name and joined the John Widdicomb Company at its start — designed every single piece of the offerings at his uncle's manufacturing outfit until he retired in 1951. Ralph was an internationally distinguished furniture designer whose modern mahogany bedroom suite won first prize at the Paris Exposition in 1900.
The original iteration of Widdicomb, which was helmed by John's older brother William while John ran his own brand, had shifted from making period revival styles of furniture, such as Georgian and Chippendale, to manufacturing modern pieces in the late 1920s. Today vintage Widdicomb seating, tables and other pieces produced during the postwar years are particularly sought after by collectors of mid-20th-century furniture.
In 1959, master woodworker George Nakashima created his Origins collection for Widdicomb when the firm merged with Mueller Furniture Corporation and was known, for around 10 years, as Widdicomb-Mueller. Origins, a revered Shaker-influenced group of nightstands, upholstered lounge chairs, dining-room tables and more, saw Nakashima working with woods like Carpathian elm and laurel in his Pennsylvania studio.
Eventually, the two Widdicomb companies would combine in 1970, operating under the name John Widdicomb Co.
In 2002, the business closed after more than a century of operations, and its assets were acquired by Stickley Furniture. Interestingly, it was not the first time Widdicomb and Stickley overlapped: In the final years of the 19th century, the companies opened a shared storehouse in London, while John Widdicomb and Albert Stickley would travel Europe together for the purposes of research.
Find vintage Widdicomb coffee tables, case pieces, dining chairs and more on 1stDibs.
- ShippingRetrieving quote...Ships From: Dallas, TX
- Return PolicyThis item cannot be returned.
- T.H. Robsjohn Gibbings Petite Night Stands for Widdicomb Brass Legs Cane HandlesBy T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings, Widdicomb Furniture Co.Located in Dallas, TXEspresso-stained mahogany single drawer cabinet with elegantly tapered solid brass legs and cane-wrapped handles with solid oak interiors. A very understated yet sophisticated design...Category
Mid-20th Century American Night Stands
MaterialsBrass
- TH Robsjohn Gibbings Chest for Widdicomb in Mahogany Cane Handles & Brass LegsBy T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings, Widdicomb Furniture Co.Located in Dallas, TX1950s Widdicomb Cabinet designed by TH Robsjohn Gibbings and fully restored in a deep espresso stain with a satin lacquer finish over the original mahogany. All of the solid brass ha...Category
Mid-20th Century American Commodes and Chests of Drawers
MaterialsBrass
- Robsjohn-Gibbings Biomorphic Cocktail Table w Interesting Anecdote of NoguchiBy T.H. Robsjohn-GibbingsLocated in Dallas, TXT.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings Biomorphic cocktail table w Interesting Anecdote of Isamu Noguchi. Cocktail table designed by T.H. Robsjohn Gibbings for Widdcomb constructed of solid carved maple sculptural base and biomorphic glass top. If you have not read the story of the infamous meeting between T.H. Robsjohn Gibbings and Isamu Noguchi you should, it would be worth your time. Shortly after Noguchi created the sculpted wood and glass coffee table in 1939 for the president of the MOMA, Conger Goodyear, he had a chance meeting in Hawaii with Gibbings and provided Gibbings a plastic mockup of a coffee table but never heard back from him. A few years after the meeting while Noguchi was voluntarily interred in a WW2 Japanese-American internment camp in Potsdam, AZ, Noguchi saw in a design publication the built example of the mockup he had provided Gibbings in Hawaii a few years earlier but represented as a T.H. Robsjohn Gibbings' design. He contacted the British designer asking for compensation and was basically dismissed being told "anyone can design a three leg coffee table...Category
Mid-20th Century American Mid-Century Modern Coffee and Cocktail Tables
MaterialsGlass, Maple
- Paul Evans Console for Directional Brutalist Sculpted Bronze & Glass Wall MountBy Directional, Paul EvansLocated in Dallas, TX1960s sculpted bronze wall mount console designed by Paul Evans and produced by Directional. New glass top. Original wall mount brackets.Category
Mid-20th Century American Brutalist Shelves and Wall Cabinets
MaterialsSteel
- Curved Front two-Tier Console in Honduran Mahogany by Edward Wormley for DunbarBy Dunbar Furniture, Edward WormleyLocated in Dallas, TXEarly 1960's sculptural Dunbar Janus Series two-tier Console. Fully restored to the highest possible standard in a satin lacquer finish. Designed by Edward Wormley. Would also serve ...Category
Early 20th Century Console Tables
MaterialsMahogany
- Dunbar Table Desk Model 1123 with Marble Top designed by Edward WormleyBy Edward Wormley, Dunbar FurnitureLocated in Dallas, TXA very rare, unique dining table/desk model 1123 with an incredible exotic polished marble top designed by Edward Wormley for Dunbar, 1950. Table is in very good condition with a wal...Category
Vintage 1950s American Mid-Century Modern Dining Room Tables
MaterialsMarble, Steel
- T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings, Flip-Top Console, Wood, Brass, 1950sBy T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings, Widdicomb Furniture Co.Located in High Point, NCA brass and wood flip-top console table, designed by T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings and produced by Widdicomb, USA, 1950s. Unfolded Dimensions:29.6" H x 60" W x 38" DCategory
Vintage 1950s American Mid-Century Modern Console Tables
MaterialsBrass
- T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings Console Table "Arch Colosseum" for WiddicombBy T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings, Widdicomb Furniture Co.Located in St.Petersburg, FLA stunning and rare console table designed by T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings for Widdicomb, circa 1956. Features gorgeous arches creating what looks like partitioned display areas. This unco...Category
Vintage 1950s American Mid-Century Modern Console Tables
MaterialsWalnut
- T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings Console Table for WiddicombBy T.H. Robsjohn-GibbingsLocated in San Francisco, CAT.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings design console table for Widdicomb Furniture U.S.A. Beautiful contoured bull nose edges throughout on telescoping solid brass legs. Rare form table from his li...Category
Vintage 1950s American Mid-Century Modern Console Tables
MaterialsBrass
- Robsjohn Gibbings Brass Console Table & Nesting Stools Set for Widdicomb 1950sBy T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings, Widdicomb Furniture Co.Located in Troy, MIA rare grouping by Terence Herold Robsjohn Gibbings for Widdicomb Solid brass model 1787 splayed leg console table with complimenting pair of nested model 1730 webbed stools circa ...Category
Vintage 1950s Mid-Century Modern Console Tables
MaterialsBrass
- Robsjohn-Gibbings for Widdicomb Flip Top Dining or Game Table, Newly RefinishedBy T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings, Widdicomb Furniture Co.Located in South Bend, INAn exceptional Mid-Century Modern flip top dining table or game table By T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings for Widdicomb USA, 1950s Black lacquered walnut, with original brass hardware...Category
Vintage 1950s American Mid-Century Modern Dining Room Tables
MaterialsWalnut, Lacquer
- 1950s T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings Extendable Dining Table by WiddicombBy T.H. Robsjohn-GibbingsLocated in Chula Vista, CAT H Robsjohn Gibbings-Widdicomb Extendable Dining Table 28.75 h x 40 d fully extended 98 inches 2 extensions measuring 80 with one extension 62 without an extension. Preowned origina...Category
Vintage 1950s American Mid-Century Modern Dining Room Tables
MaterialsWood