WASHSTAND

This article appears in Volume V28, Page 358 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: VIR-WAT

WASHSTAND , a table or stand containing conveniences for personal ablutions. In its 18th-century form it was called a " basin stand " or " basin

frame

FRAME

," and is still sometimes described as a " washhand stand." Its direct, but remote, ancestor was the monastic lavabo, ranges of basins of stone, lead or marble fed from a cistern. They were usually of primitive conception, and a trough common to all was probably more frequent than

separate

SEPARATE

basins. Very occasionally they were of bronze adorned with enamels and blazoned with heraldry. Very similar usages obtained in castles and palaces, fixed lavatories being constructed in the thickness of the walls for the use of their more important residents. These arrangements were obviously intended only for the summary ablutions which, until a very

late

LATE

date, sufficed to even the high-born. By degrees the lavabo became portable, and a "basin

frame

FRAME

" is mentioned as early as the middle of the 17th century. Examples of earlier date than the third or fourth decade of the 18th century are, however, virtually unknown. Thenceforward, until about the end of that century, this piece of furniture was usually literally a " stand." It was supported upon a tripod; a circular orifice in the top received the basin, and smaller ones were provided for a soap dish and a water-

bottle

BOTTLE (Fr. bouteille, from a diminutive of the Lat. butta, a flask; cf. Eng. " butt ")

. Sometimes a stand for the water-jug when the basin was in use was provided below, and very commonly there was a drawer, sometimes even two drawers, below the basin.

Great

GREAT

numbers of these stands were made to fit into corners, and a " corner

wash

WASH, THE

-stand " is still one of the commonest objects in an old furniture shop. Chippendale designed such stands in an elaborate rococo fashion, as well as in simpler form. As the 18th century drew to its close the custom of using the same apartment as reception room by day and sleeping room by night produced a demand for what was called "

harlequin

HARLEQUIN

furniture "pieces which were contrived a

double

or triple debt to pay. Thus a variety of complicated combination washstands and dressing tables were made, and fitted with mirrors and sometimes with writing conveniences and drawers for clothes.

Sheraton

developed astonishing ingenuity in devising a type of furniture which, if we may judge by the large number of examples still existing, must have become highly popular. With the beginning of the 19th century and the expansion of ideals of personal cleanliness, the washstand grew in size and importance. It acquired the form of an oblong wooden table provided, like its smaller predecessors, with orifices for basins and fitted with a broad shelf-like stretcher upon which the jugs were placed when they were removed from the basins. Ample space was provided for soap-dishes and water-bottles. These tables were single or

double

, for the use of one or two persons. The washstand, as we know it in the loth century, took its final form when the wooden top was replaced by marble, unpierced, the basins being placed upon the slab, which, in the beginning almost invariably white, is now often of red or other warm-tinted marble.

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