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WASHSTAND

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Originally appearing in Volume V28, Page 358 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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WASHSTAND , a table or stand containing conveniences for See also:

personal ablutions. In its 18th-See also:century See also:form it was called a " See also:basin stand " or " basin See also:frame," and is still sometimes described as a " washhand stand." Its See also:direct, but remote, ancestor was the monastic See also:lavabo, ranges of basins of See also:stone, See also:lead or See also:marble fed from a cistern. They were usually of See also:primitive conception, and a trough See also:common to all was probably more frequent than See also:separate basins. Very occasionally they were of See also:bronze adorned with enamels and blazoned with See also: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 See also:summary ablutions which, until a very See also:late date, sufficed to even the high-See also:born. By degrees the lavabo became portable, and a "basin frame" is mentioned as See also:early as the See also:middle of the 17th century. Examples of earlier date than the third or See also:fourth See also:decade of the 18th century are, however, virtually unknown. Thenceforward, until about the end of that century, this piece of See also:furniture was usually literally a " stand." It was supported upon a See also:tripod; a circular orifice in the See also:top received the basin, and smaller ones were provided for a See also:soap dish and a See also:water-See also:bottle. Sometimes a stand for the water-See also:jug when the basin was in use was provided below, and very commonly there was a drawer, sometimes even two drawers, below the basin. See also:Great See also:numbers of these stands were made to See also:fit into corners, and a " corner See also:wash-stand " is still one of the commonest See also:objects in an old furniture See also:shop. See also:Chippendale designed such stands in an elaborate See also:rococo See also:fashion, as well as in simpler form.

As the 18th century See also:

drew to its See also:close the See also:custom of using the same apartment as reception See also:room by See also:day and sleeping room by See also:night produced a demand for what was called " See also:harlequin furniture "—pieces which were contrived a See also:double or triple See also:debt to pay. Thus a variety of complicated See also:combination washstands and dressing tables were made, and fitted with mirrors and sometimes with See also:writing conveniences and drawers for clothes. See also:Sheraton See also:developed astonishing ingenuity in devising a type of furniture which, if we may See also: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 See also:grew in See also: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 See also:white, is now often of red or other warm-tinted marble.

End of Article: WASHSTAND

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