Washstand

A washstand or basin stand is a piece of furniture consisting of a small table or cabinet, usually supported on three or four legs, and most commonly made of mahogany, walnut, or rosewood, and made for holding a wash basin and water pitcher. The smaller varieties were used for rose-water ablutions, or for hair-powdering. The larger ones, which possessed receptacles for soap-dishes, were the predecessors of the modern bathroom wash basin, or sink. Both varieties, often of very elegant form, were in extensive use throughout a large part of the 18th century and early-19th century, eventually disappearing with the advent of modern indoor plumbing.

In his Pneumatics, (chapter 31) Philo of Byzantium, a Greek engineer and writer on mechanics, describes an escapement mechanism, the earliest known, as part of a washstand. A counterweighted spoon, supplied by a water tank, tips over in a basin when full releasing a pumice in the process. Once the spoon has emptied, it is pulled up again by the counterweight, closing the door on the pumice by the tightening string. Remarkably, Philon's comment that "its construction is similar to that of clocks" indicates that such escapement mechanisms were already integrated in ancient water clocks.

In its 18th-century form the washstand was called a basin stand or basin 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 (tank). They were usually of primitive conception, and a trough common to all was probably more frequent than 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 date, sufficed to even the high-born.

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