Featured Book Stand, ancient?

I have no clue how old this thing is...very old in my opinion, it does look that way...
It may have been used for a bible. Bought it a while ago for 10 euros from people who did not know what it was.
There have been some old repairs underneath the top part. The wear on the hind legs is quite severe though untouched for ages.

 

Hi,
Looks like an old gout stool for helping relieve the foot pain when having an attack.
greg

 

I started writing this: "It reminds me of a gout stool" and then had second thoughts...............thought it may be just a tad short - gout stools usually raised the leg a little higher..........but now,?????????????

 

Ancient usually refers to something hundreds or a thousand years old. Antique is 100 or more. The photos are a bit grainy and fuzzy. I'd like to see it in daylight with closeups of the carving. It almost looks machine made which would bring it into the late 1800s to early 1900s. That curved rest on the bottom of the slant looks like it would make it awkward to turn the pages of a book.

Could you take clearer photos on a PLAIN background, like a white sheet. Details are getting lost in that carpet. In the fifth photo, it looks like one of the legs has been sawn off, but which one? You need to take full on pictures from various angles and then a couple of closeups.

 

...do not take ancient too literally, using this word because in my opinion it is really old...The sun has finally broken through in the netherlands, so the pictures might get clearer(the photo's WERE taken in daylight, just a bit sombre outside)... to me it does not look at all like it was machine made and books do lie pretty comfortable on it, what can not be said about resting your feet on it, which I do not recommend at all.
Nothing has been sawn off, that is the result of pushing it around on rough surfaces, for some reason only three legs have suffered...
Ok then, I'll try to make some close ups.... but to find a spot in this house that is not distracting and has enough daylight is not an easy thing...

 

Wonder what I can get for 10 Yugos....

 

This does not look to me to be an early book stand, it should have a mechanism in back to raise & lower the book. Here is a late 17th century english example, note the strips of wood in back to adjust angle of stand

 

Hope that these are a bit better....

 

Another problem is, it should be riven (split) oak, not rotary cut as it is in OP stand. My guess is, a stylized version of an early book stand, probably 20th century.

 

Since I was a theologian in my former life, I can confirm that this is a portable/tabletop lectern. To support 'the Good Book' or a good book, the Dürer book would qualify imo. So book stand is a good enough term for me.
Most of my fellow students had one. Of course I wanted a Syrian mop inlaid one, which I never got, so to this day I am lecternless.

 

I do not know what you mean by all those terms, googling them did not help either... how can you tell this thing was "rotary"cut? I saw a reasonably similar one from the 1850s so no I do not think it's 20th century at all.

And I got three, it is unfair! I'll show you the other two later. Two neo-gothic brass ones from the belgian uncle...

The Dürer book is one of my most beloved books, it is from 1928.

 

Alas, life is not fair, which is why I never got the Syrian mop inlaid one.....

Dürer was a genius.

 

Before power tools, furniture forms were made primarily from riven oak, riven means "split" not sawn, "rotary cut" means sawn with a rotary saw at a mill.

 

And then on to a riving brake

 

A bit of hatchet work

 

And FINALLY, you get to plane it to a finished board

 

Agree that if there are rotary saw marks this could not be earlier than mid-19th century. However, I am not seeing any. What am I missing? The "wear" on the legs really appears to be moisture damage.

As has been the norm lately, pics are really not sufficient to evaluate this. Doesn't anyone have a camera besides a phone these days?

 

I had one from 2004, but it does not work any more...
I really did my best this time, Brad...

no moisture damage I think, it has been shoved around a lot. Maybe he sees the rotary cut marks on the more recent wood that was used for the top repair.

 

The way the same oak looks depending on how it's processed from an oak tree
Flat or rotary sawn boards


Riven or split

 

Sorry to overload your thread, difficult to resize all these pics for me. Riven oak is a lost art, only a few woodworkers today process trees in this way, mostly in england & america. You won't find out about it by clicking a few links off Google, you have to read the blogs of these woodworkers to fully understand the process.