VICTORIAN MAHOGANY PEDESTAL DESK, haddon hall antique serving platters late 19th century, antique biedermeier dining table new jersey MAHOGANY SOFA TABLE, table edge carving 18th cent PEMBROKE TABLE, lacquer paper mache powder pot circa 1780

A PAIR OF ANTIQUE I STYLE INLAID SATIN-WOOD DEMILUNE SIDE CABINETS, antique medallion melas rug the crossbanded top above a conforming case fitted with a single drawer and door, antique buffet styles the frieze and stiles inlaid with berried and flowering vines centering three circular medallions inlaid with maidens in classical garb raised on circular acanthus carved fluted legs. H. 34 in.; W. 40 in.; D. 20 ‘/< in. (2)

A VICTORIAN CARVED OAK ARCHITECT’S TABLE, sextant troughton late 19th century, old lion leg furniture the rectangular adjustable molded top with gilt tooled leather inset writing surface on a rectangular base, meissen 4 continents figures with relief carved panels, coin watch fobs one side fitted with a door opening to drawers, chippendale chair glue blocks with pierced scroll carved stiles on a molded plinth raised on bun feet H. 29 in.; L. 5 ft.; D. 40 in.

A CHIPPENDALE MAHOGANY TALL CASE CLOCK, porters armchair the works by Henry Thornton, mahogany floral inlaid sideboard London, louis x1v style bedside table the case New England, english 18th century buffet circa 1780, myott,son&co. england the arched hood with free standing fluted columns opening to a silvered brass chapter ring engraved with Roman numerals, cupboard, 1738 with two train movement and calendar aperture, english lion head console within pierced brass spandrels, antique diamond celtic cross above a waisted case flanked by stop fluted quarter columns, 1920s revival jacobean on a rectangular base, antique burmese cabinets (replacement to base). H. 6ft. 9 ‘A in.; W. 21 in.; D. 10 in.

A PAIR OF GREEN PATINATED BRONZE TOR CHERES, 17th century tudor chest each circular molded top on three square reeded supports molded with elongated greyhounds on a single paw foot raised on circular turned feet joined by two triangular stretchers. H. 43 in.; D. 20 in.

A PAIR OF ANTIQUE MAHOGANY SIDE CABINETS, edwardian pedestal pull handle each of rectangular form fitted with a panelled cabinet door opening to adjustable shelves and raised on turned feet. H. 29 ‘A in.; W. 20 3A in.; D. 11 3A in.

A REGENCY EBONY INLAID MAHOGANY SOFA TABLE, 1880 1890 antique writing desk with lion feet first quarter 19th century, rococo revival tester bed the rectangular top with D-shaped drop leaves above a pair of frieze drawers opposed by two false drawers with lions head and ring pulls, chinese brass drum stool on tresde supports joined by a reeded stretcher, hinge pull out under table on downswept reeded legs ending in brass casters. H. 28 in.; W. (extended) 5 ft. 1 in.; D. 24 in.

A REGENCY INLAID MAHOGANY BUREAU BOOKCASE, cut out creamware plates in two parts, antique clothes wash stands the upper with a molded cornice above an inlaid dentil edge over a double string inlaid frieze above a pair of glazed doors with diamond shaped mullions opening to shelves, open lyre harp carved chairs the projecting lower section with a crossbanded fall front sliding secretaire drawer enclosing two small drawers and pigeonholes about a prospect door inlaid with a medallion all above two cabinet doors inlaid with a circular medallion within satinwood borders all raised on flared French feet H. 7ft. 5 ‘A in.; W. 42 in.; D. 21 l/i in.

AN ANTIQUE II STYLE WALNUT DOUBLE CHAIR BACK SETTEE, queen anne dining table 1850 late 19th century, picture frame moldes with earlier elements, elizabethan sideboard cupboard the serpentine back above two pierced beaker form splats carved with eagle heads flanked by shaped arms with outscrolled eagle head form terminals on shaped supports, french antiqe brass table the trapezoidal overupholstered seat raised on acanthus carved cabriole legs ending in claw and ball feet. L. 5 ft.

AN ANTIQUE III STYLE CARVED MAHOGANY
SETTEE, elaborate german silver candelabras the arched molded cresting rail carved with bell-flowers continuing to slightly outscrolled arms and supports above a padded back and sides, vintage jacobean style chair the overupholstered bowfron-ted seat raised on square molded tapering legs carved at the knees with paterae. L. 6 ft. 5 *A in.

AN ANTIQUE I INLAID MAHOGANY PEM BROKE TABLE, edwards roberts sideboard the oval crossbanded top with D-shaped leaves at either side over a crossbanded frieze drawer inlaid with diamond-shaped motifs, bow fronted walnut china cabinets 1920/1930 raised on string inlaid square tapering legs headed by inlaid flaming cornucopia and ending in cuffs. H. 28 in.; W. (open) 39 in.; L. 29 ‘A in.

AN ANTIQUE I MAHOGANY PEMBROKE TABLE, antique furniture jackson mississippi circa 1780, antique federal secretary with reeded legs the rectangular top with serpentine shaped drop leaves at either side above a frieze drawer opposed by a sham drawer raised on square tapering legs ending in brass caster toes, cabriole oak antique table (repairs to top.) H. 28 lA in.; W. 30 in.; D. 37 in.

AN ANTIQUE MAHOGANY TILT TOP TRI POD TABLE, gateleg tea tables third quarter 18th century, antique brass claw foot twisted wood table the circular top tilting above a birdcage support over a turned and twist-turned standard, antique monk’s chair raised on three cabriole legs ending in pad feet, longcase clock movements problems (repairs to birdcage, 1920 italian walnut veneer bedroom suite leg and cleats.) H. 27 ‘A in.; D. 26 3A in.

A REGENCY GDLTWOOD CONVEX MIRROR, ashworth bros hanley circa 1820, french veneer antique childrens furniture painted the circular mirror plate within an ebonized slip further within spherule and leaftip molded borders flanked on either side by scrolling candlearms, original louis xvi chair values above a berried acanthus molded pendant and surmounted by a scrolling foliate cresting centered by a bellflower draped campana-form urn, edwardian boxwood painted (cresting altered.) H.4ft.3 ‘A in.; W. 28 ‘A in.

A PAIR OF ANTIQUE HI STYLE INLAID MA HOGANY DEMI-LUNE CARD TABLES, bureau plat louis xv each top open ing to a circular baize-lined playing surface supported on two swing legs, jura antique clocks above a plain cross-banded frieze, 1800 century antique chairs on straight tapering legs ending in spade feet H. 30 in.; W. 38 in.; D. 18′A in.

A REGENCY STYLE MAHOGANY TWO PED ESTAL DINING TABLE, lit en bateau the top with rounded ends and reeded edge, bentwood rocker 1885 to 1890 on urn-form pedestals, qing reign marks porceliane each on downswept molded tripod legs ending in brass casters, walnut 9 drawer knee hole desk with one leaf. H. 30 in.; W. 40 in.; L. (extended) 7 ft. 5 in.

A SET OF EIGHT ANTIQUE HI STYLE MAHOGANY DINING CHAIRS, lady’s work table victorian 19th century, vintage porcelain bowl made in chechoslovakia comprising two arm and six side chairs, england gate leg half table each serpentine cresting rail above a pierced baluster-form splat carved with acanthus leaves and a quatrefoil motif, philip webb arts and crafts reclining armchair 1866 the rectangular horsehair upholstered drop-in seat raised on molded straight legs joined by plain stretchers. (8)

A REGENCY GILTWOOD AND EGLOMISE OVERMANTLE MIRROR, carved gothic english cupboard early 19th century, antique furniture plan the rectan gular mirror plate within a border composed of later divided eglomise panels depicting urns issuing foliage, fruitwood tables lyres, benjamin morris tall clock and winged chimera centering a flaming altar, lalique frieze of female nudes interspersed with reeded columns and surmounted by a guiHoche carved and molded cornice. H. 4 ft. % in.; W.5ft.4 in.

A REGENCY GILT BRONZE MOUNTED MAR BLE TOP SIDE CABINET, george ii flat chasing salver first quarter 19th century, gothic monks chair the rectangular gray and white marble top with a breakfront center section and with a superstructure composed of a tier mounted with a three quarter pierced brass gallery over a mirrored back and supported by foliate cast twist turned gilt bronze supports, linen display cabinets all above a case fitted with two grill inset doors flanked by niches, 19th century coalport peach dessert seet further flanked by engaged columnar stiles headed by gilt bronze capitals and bases, simple rosewood cots raised on a shaped beaded plinth, swedish secretaires (interior refitted). H. 4 ft. 3 in.; L. 6ft.; D. 18*6 in.

A REGENCY BRASS INLAID ROSEWOOD GAMES TABLE AND READING STAND, gondola armrest and upholstered first quarter 19th century, simple rosewood cots the shaped divided top with square adjustable center section sliding out to reveal a baize lined backgammon board, antique white porcelain egg plate flanked by two hinged demilune flaps sliding to reveal compartmentalized interiors, klismos style chair the conforming frieze fitted with a sliding amboyna and ebony inlaid chessboard, 17th century hoof footed country farm table raised on pierced lyreform trestle supports joined by a rectangular platform stretcher, antique reading stand on downswept legs ending in brass paw casters, antique oak ball clawfoot lamp table 0<*ses). H. 28 ‘A in.; W. 32 in.; D. 16 V$ in.

AN ANTIQUE STYLE MAHOGANY BREAK-FRONT BOOKCASE CABINET, oak claw foot table and 4 chairs partially composed of early 19th century elements, 1750 dresden porcelain tea service the rectangular molded cornice of breakfront outline above four glazed doors opening to shelves; the lower section fitted in the center with a fallfront drawer opening to small drawers and pigeonholes above a baize lined writing surface, walnut chest on chest over three long graduated drawers flanked on either side writing slides above cabinet doors inset with oval panels and opening to shelves, victorian vases by kingwood all on a molded plinth. H. 7ft. 9 ‘A in.; W. 7 ft. 3 in.; D. 16 ‘A in.

A WILLIAM TV INLAID MAHOGANY BREAK FAST TABLE, queen anne cupboard circa 1835, european cupboards the circular top with ebony stringing tilting above a square flaring standard carved with quarter round beading on a circular plinth with inset beaded panels, antique carved bureau bookcase stained glass raised on downswept molded legs ending in shellform casters. H. 28 in.; D. 45 in.

A VICTORIAN MAHOGANY BOOKCASE CABINET, italain rose wood furniture woods and doors mid 19th century, flemish mouldings for picture framing the rectangular molded cornice above three glazed doors inset with arched mulhons and opening to shelves; the lower section fitted with three panelled cabinet doors, wooden peat buckets opening to shelves, antique 9ct gold shark tooth pendant on a molded plinth. H. 7ft. 6 in.; W. 6 ft.; D. 18 % in.

A VICTORIAN MAHOGANY PEDESTAL DESK, antique elm dressers late 19th century, late victoria oak chaise lounge and chairs on castors the rectangular molded top with inset leather writing surface above three frieze drawers raised on two pedestals, encoignures louis peridiez each with a range of three drawers, 19th century yew english windsor chair value on a molded plinth. H. 30 in.; W.4ft.5 in.; D. 29 in.

ANTIQUE FURNITURE BUYING AND SELLING

COLLECTORS whose habit it is to look with suspicion on every dealer in old furniture with whom they may be tempted to do business would be better advised, on the whole, to transfer their misgivings from the tradesman to his wares.  Antique dealers are no more dishonest than any other class, but their business is a peculiar one, and the public almost begs to be deceived.   It is not satisfied with the ordinary article, the commonplace piece of furniture made for a definite purpose and for nothing eise.   It wants to show its cleverness in making a find,   i Whatever is the use,” apparently asks the well-informed collect or, ” of my having ail this knowledge of historie art at my finger-ends, if I cannot show it by adding to my collection valuable old curios unrecognised by the thoughtless and ignorant I   This represents the attitude of mind of hundreds of collectors of old furniture.   They seek and the dealer takes care they shall find.   A little incident one of many of similar kind occurred in the experience of the writer which illustrates this point. A dealer in Yorkshire had a nice, plain mahogany
wardrobe.   He had bought it at a sale in his neigh-
bourhood.   It dated from about the third quarter of the eighteenth centurv and was a well-made piece of furniture without applied decoration except the row of dentils under the cornice.   This piece of furniture would not sell.   Now the dealer had to get his living, and he adopted what he knew by experience would be the method most likely to result in business.  He simply took the doors off and inlaid in the middle of each fine plain mahogany panel one of those shell ornaments used so much by the brothers Adam and Sheraton.  The wardrobe was sold within a few days of this piece of vandalism, and the buyer was by no means a dupe.   He knew all about style.  He recognised the inlaid ornament as a bit of decoration frequently seen in furniture of the latter end of the eighteenth century.    He talked quite learnedly about it, discussed it, called to mind something he had at home where a similar ornament occurred in each of the four corners, not in the middle as in this most interesting specimen.   He even went so far as to doubt whether the inlay had not been put in at a ” later date,” wondered if after all it was not a ” transitional ” piece, then decided that it must be so, but finally bought it.
Now the experience the dealer had had with this piece of furniture was that no one ever took any notice of it at all before it had the inlay put in. He dare not call anyone’s attention to it because in the minds of so many timid buyers the rule appears to be that if a quiet, inoffensive looking salesman points out some particular article as being worth buying it is proof that the dealer wants to get rid of it, and if so then it cannot be any good. This dealer said that he never succeeded in selling an article if he introduced it first to the customer, unless indeed he was dealing with someone to whom he was very well known. Even then the chances of a sale were less than if the collector made the first advance. The psychology of the matter seems to be that the customer wanders into the dealer’s shop to see what he can find, and if he can find something he may buy it. But he does not want to have anything sold him.
This makes the dealer stock articles which are likely to be remarked upon, things which as he puts it sell themselves.
Most dealers do not consciously set out to deceive people, any more than their customers seek to over-reach them.   It is a much more difficult thing to carry on a business by fraud and deception than to live by honest trade.   It requires more executive skill in the first place, extraordinary effrontery, and a very pro-found knowledge of human nature.   Now it is absurd to credit dealers in old furniture with possessing these qualifies in a greater degree than other members of the Community.   Some do possess them, of course. On the other hand some collectors are not devoid of craft, by any means.   It should also be remembered that   many   collectors   are   themselves   amateur dealers.
A case came to the notice of the writer of a dealer who bought in France a carved oak wardrobe of the period of Louis XV.   It was not an extraordinary
piece of furniture, probably worth15 to20.   But the fact that it was not extraordinary was against it. There it stood for years in the shop utterly unremarked. It was in beautiful condition.   The wood had been regularly cleaned, no added polish had ever touched it, and a good colour and ” patina 1 was the result.  The dealer offered it over and over again.   He could induce no one seriously to consider it.  And if he adopted the policy of silence then no one ever appeared to see it.  So one day the bright idea occurred to him of making two wardrobes out of it.   He took off the two big doors and made each the front of a separate hanging cupboard, rejecting the original interior and substituting ” carcase work ” of his own.   Then he put one in the shop and kept the other out of sight. Both were quickly sold, one after the other, of course. Exactly the same thing happened as in the case of the inlaid piece already referred to.   A man came in and glancing round remarked that he had never seen a late eighteenth-century French wardrobe like that before. It should be explained that in the original piece the carving on each door was unsymmetrical, but the two doors together made a symmetrical front.   One was practically the reverse of the other.   That is quite common in French furniture.
One would have thought that the very slightest acquaintance with the style would have shown in an instant that something was wrong. The buyer, indeed, stumbled almost immediately on the fact, and said that it looked as if ” some time or other ” there had occurred to one door and the owner had no alternative but to use the piece which was intact for making a fresh piece of furniture. He thought it was very interesting, had never known such a thing to have been done before, and after a most instructive chat with the dealer he became the purchaser.
The two wardrobes were sold for 15 each instead of the 20 which might possibly have been realised by the original piece. Old furniture in a shop must advertise itself in some way, and the dealer must find out the best means to make it do so.
Still another case was that of an old oak ” refectory  table so called because the name is picturesque and suggests a time previous to the dissolution of the monasteries and for no other reason whateverwhich would not sell in the place where it was because it was too plain. The dealer took it out and introduced small perforated brackets in the angles between the upper parts of the legs and the top rails. The resuit in the eyes of the seller justified the proceeding. Someone I found   it.
The psychology of buying is full of the most extra-ordinary turns and twists. The writer bought from a gipsy fifteen years ago six country-made chairs of the Sheraton period. The price given was for the six. They may be worth to-day about double. While the owner of the caravan was busy bringing out the chairs his wife quietly cautioned him not to shew ” the one with the claw feet.” So it was not brought out. But the remark had the desired effect up to a point.
No one could possibly resist the temptation to insist upon seeing ” the one with the claw feet.” It proved to be a poor and most clumsy copy of a bad design of the time of Chippendale. But the loud upbraidings of his wife when she saw how her husband, notwith-standing the caution, had shown the precious chair, sounded most genuine. Hadn’t she told him not to bring it out He knew quite well it wasn’t for sale. Then why trouble the gentleman with it And a whole pantomime of mysterious nods, winks, and dark looks went on to induce the gipsy to put the wretched thing out of sight for fear it should be purchased under her very eyes. It is quite possible the woman believed it to be particularly good, and merely adopted this crafty but rather overrated diplomacy to stimulate desire for possession.
A well-known expert who was asked by a friend what course he would suggest to enable him to get a sound knowledge of old furniture replied briefly : ! Buy some.”  That was not altogether sarcasm. After a cabinet or table is purchased and brought home it has then to stand not only daily scrutinising from the owner, who likes to think he has got hold of some-thing really good, but frequent examination from friends who may or may not know anything about old furniture.   Whether they know much or little does not matter.   Out of politeness they must look at the precious find and make remarks.   And even fools have been known occasionally to say something very illuminating.   I can see in my mind’s eye now a set of chairs which once stood in a public museum where
they were on loan and catalogued as ” late Sheraton.” A lady who was exceedingly bored at the Exhibition
and knew nothing whatever about the subject remarked in an off-hand manner that they looked too small to be sat upon. She had unconsciously detected the fault which even experts had failed to see. Good old furniture never looks ” skimpy.” It never exhibits cheeseparing in the use of material. It does not look mean and small. Economy in the use of wood is for the most part a modem idea born of the factory system. When a man made an oak dresser in the seventeenth or eighteenth century his view was limited to the construction of that one piece of furniture. Of course there must have been a good deal of waste, and it is perfectly obvious to anyone that in many instances far more wood was used than the actual necessities of the case demanded. But a modem maker knows how to make two pieces of furniture out of material which in former times would have been regarded as no more than sufficient for one.
In factories, of course, economical manufacture is an important point, particularly where articles are tumed out by the score instead of one or two at a time.   The chairs alluded to had been made from Sheraton designs probably a few years prior to the 1851 exhibition.  They were old enough to look time-worn, and as the pattern was ail right they were regarded as genuinely of the eighteenth century.   Sheraton furniture was always light and elegant.   It was never thin and poor looking in proportion, though it seems some-times almost too light in construction.   But Sheraton was a great master of construction and succeeded in combining strength and grace better than any other designer of furniture.
A quaint sidelight upon the use of material is the very common explanation of a dealer who is questioned as to the use of deal inside drawers with solid mahogany fronts. I That is always a sign,” he will say, ” that the piece is old and that the mahogany has been specially selected, because the latter was rare and consequently very dear in the old days. They could not afford to put anything better inside the drawers when the fronts were of such exceptionally fine material as these.” The same dealer will, however, point in triumph to the oak linings of another chest and remark : ” They always did things well in those days. Never skimped a job. Always made it of good throughout, either mahogany or more usually good oak,” which as a matter of fact is true.
Old oak linings are very useful to the faker. They are of thin seasoned wood and can be used with safety almost anywhere without fear. But if a piece of thick English oak, even though it be hundreds of years old, is eut into two thin boards there is no guarantee whatever that it will not warp or split.
The fact that a piece of furniture is in bad condition is, of course, no proof that it is old, though there still exist people who seem to be attracted by old oak which looks  knocked about.” They have the idea that it is in an untouched condition. A case came to the notice of the writer of two abominably made cabinets, the ends and backs of which never had been
neatly joined. ” You cannot possibly seil these as they are/’ the dealer was advised. ” I certainry could not seil them if I put the m into reasonably decent condition,” he replied. ” People would suspect them at once. As they are, anyone can see they are old with the naked eye ! ”
The word ” patina ” is worth a brief explanation, as it is used so glibly and seems to have so profound an effect upon collectors, who casually pass on the word to friends when shewing the most recent find. The dictionary will tell you that it is ” a green film forme on copper and bronze by long exposure to a moist atmosphere or by treatment with acids.” It is only by extension of the meaning that the word is used in describing the appearance of the surface of old wood, and tins extension is justified by the fact that patina on furniture does assume a distinctly metallic appearance. Collectors should realise that it is not produced by applied varnish or polish. Wood which had neither of these preparations applied to it will assume a patina in time. The desired effect comes by generations of careful cleaning and rubbing, and it will be found that as a rule the upper surfaces or those which catch the dust have the finest patina. A familiar example of the creation of patina on wood is the handle of a regularly used Walking stick. With constant swinging in the hand it will gradually assume a polish. N0 preparation has been applied, but the polish is there all the same. In Paris the patina of old Louis XV. carved and gilt chairs has been obtained on new furniture by  the employaient of army pensioners who are willing to sit for so many hours a day gently rubbing the arms of the chairs with their hands.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in England some preparation for darkening oak was used, but the secret of its composition has been lost. As far as we can tell it was not of the nature of varnish, but more probably a stain afterwards polished with some simple preparation such as beeswax and turpen-tine, or wax alone. Mahogany in the eighteenth Century was undoubtedly stained and polished, but not French polished to produce the meretricious glittering effect seen on cheap modern furniture. Patina on old furniture, once recognised, cannot possibly be mistaken. It never looks sticky, and it cannot easily be removed, though of course it may be covered with paint or varnish. The writer is acquainted with a chimney piece carved by Grinling Gibbons which has been utterly ruined by a mistaken application of varnish. Whatever patina may have been on the wood has, of course, been hidden and would almost certainly be destroyed by any attempt to remove the varnish. In the days of the Restoration carvings by Gibbons and his followers were left un-touched in the soft white lime in which they were executed, and it is dimcult to see how they could have been cleaned thoroughly except by brushing, so delicate were the details. Unlike early Jacobean carving the elaborately executed birds, rlowers, and fruits were built up to the required relief and applied to the background.
Although tricks of fakers and dealers should be known to the collector they can only be regarded as
mere warnings.   Directly a dodge is discovered and talked about it is no longer of much use.   The artful dodger of the antique furniture trade must think of something eise, and to do him credit if credit it be he is usually just a trick or two ahead of the buyer. He is an inventor, an original mind, exploring regions of duplicity and guile into which the private collector can only penetrate by slow and uncertain steps, for ever losing his way and falling into unsuspected snares. Of course every time he is caught he is so much the wiser, but no complete knowledge is to be had of trickery.   It progresses and   develops like  other branches of human effort.   No one nowadays not -even the most foolish of fakers would stand in his shop and fire a blunderbuss full of shot into his collection of old oak in the hope of producing convincing worm-holes.   The dodge is played out, and the probability is it never was of very much use.   But it has been an entertaining thing to talk about and write about, and the method by which simple souls may detect the fraud has been so easily appreciated.  All one has to do, it appears, is to obtain a hat-pin, thrust it into the suspected worm-holes and draw out the little leaden pellets which lie at the bottom.
But in any case worm-eaten furniture is not at all desirable, even if it be genuinely old. The disease is likely to spread and is very hard to get rid of. Peroxide of hydrogen is employed and a fine spray used to inject it into the holes, after which beeswax coloured with analine dye is pressed in and smoothed down.
The dealer of to-day would much rather hide worm-holes that exist than create artificial ones, which is an illustration of the development in the arts of faking noted above. At one time there may have been people who, anxious as to the age of a piece of furniture, would look upon the worm-holes pointed out as evidence of great antiquity and would contentedly buy. But people do not like worm-holes nowadays. So instead of making any the faker fills up what there are.
The spectacle of an otherwise intellectual individual engaged in trying to plumb the depths of duplicity to which dealers can descend in faking old furniture is like that of the donkey pressing eagerly forward after the dangling carrot. It would indeed be very pleasant to possess the carrot of complete knowledge, but the conditions render it impossible.
Not so many years ago amateurs could not recognise and scarcely suspected fine carved wood under the many coats of paint with which it was frequently covered.  They would live in an old Jacobean or Georgian house and give orders time after time for the panelling to be repainted and made to look clean and cheerful, in complete ignorance of there being any-thing good on the walls.   A dealer might suggest a change of style altogether, buy the panelling for next to nothing, and replace by a pretty wall-paper. Thou-sands of square feet of fine panelling have been bought in this way from old houses.
The buyer would take the wood away, put it in pickle ” to get the paint off, finally revealing it in excellent condition, for the paint had often been a great protection.   Even if the wood had hidden blemishes and patches the dealer would be ready with bits of old material with which to make it perfect.   The panelling would then be very saleable.  After a time, however, the public became educated and refused to part with old painted woodwork, which began to be regarded as something worth keeping.  The donkey had moved up apparently nearer the carrot. Automatic-ally, however, painted wood became interesting. Recog-nising this, the dealer obtained new carved panelling, painted that and left it in his shop for the collector to find.   Proud of his knowledge the buyer would perceive possibilities in the ancient looking fittings, and he and the dealer would compare notes on the folly of early Victorian householders persisting in covering up fine carved panelling with layers of paint.   Of course it is a protection,” the collector would remark, “and the wood may possibly be in excellent condition underneath.”   And when the deal was effected his remark was justified, for the carving would appear in a marvellous state of preservation, so clean in its cutting, so crisp and fresh in the detail that it might really have left the bench only yesterday.  So the donkey was as far off the carrot as ever.
It may never have occurred to collects to carry a foot rule in their pockets. The simple appliance is quite useful in various ways.   Stools and chairs in the early seventeenth century and before were often higher in the seat than they are to-day, not because people were taller then, but on account of the fact that a convenient rail on which to put the feet was usually handy. For instance, at meals people put their feet on the stout rail which ran ail round the table from leg to leg an inch or two from the ground. If they were seated in a chair there might be a footstool handy, or if on a settle there would be a rail in the same position as those in the stools. There were no carpets on the floors of the houses in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Such fine textiles were used as covers for the tables and court cupboards. A stone flagged floor was cold and a boarded floor was not much better. So that people were well content to have their feet well off the ground. Hence the height of the seats. Another case in which the foot rule comes in useful is in measuring lengths. The English joiner measured his work in inches, and although in old furniture standard measurements do not occur as in modem work to-day, when the bed, for instance, increases in width by six inches at a time from two feet six inches up to five feet, the tendency was for the work to be planned without fractional divisions of inches.
Now some reproductions of old English furniture are made to-day in Holland and Belgium where the metrical system of measurement is in use. The tendency there is for the sizes to run in divisions of the metre, which is, to be exact, 39.37 inches. Taken in conjunction with other circumstances, the fact that an oak dresser, for instance, measured exactly two metres in length instead of six feet would be suspicious. A good reproduction made abroad is not necessarily intended for the dealer in old furniture here.   It may
be sold honestly through the ordinary retail furnishing trade as a copy, but once sold there is no telling what its subsequent history will be, and when it turns up in the dark corner of some antique dealer’s shop it may easily be regarded as old by very expert buyers. Continental reproductions of old English furniture are so often artistically copied, not merely reproduced as to style, but rubbed down, artificially patinated and coloured in a way which is almost too well done. The metrical system of measurement itself is not very old, for it only originated in France at the close of the eighteenth Century.
One is bound to attach some importance, upon a piece of furniture in a shop, to the price asked for it. This quite apart from the question as to whether we can afford to buy it or not. It is common to see pieces of furniture, particularly of the latter end of the eighteenth Century when joinery and cabinet-making had arrived at such a high degree of executive perfection, marked at prices which could not possibly be approached under modem conditions for the same class of work. Old dressing tables, neatly fitted with mirrors, drawers, little cupboards, covered wells, and other receptacles are to be found priced at anything up to about 8 apiece, which if made to-day in the same quality of wood and workmanship would certainly cost a great deal more. Clever cabinet-makers earn more to-day than they did a hundred years ago, and although by the help of machinery some time is saved, this consideration is not so important in the case of the pieces of furniture referred to which must be put together
entirely by hand. It is the fitting which costs the money, not the cutting and planing of the parts. So the inference would seem to be that if a nicely designed, well-made piece of furniture having a good deal of detailed work about it is low in price it is probably old. Such an article would not be very exceptional in character. It would have been made in the first instance to fulfil a legitimate useful purpose, not to create a work of art. Many old bureaux and chests of drawers come into this category. One cannot, of course, rely upon price as a final determining factor, but it is worth bearing in mind. Well-made modem furniture will fall sometimes extraordinarily in price when it is sold second-hand. Fashion plays a part here. The writer knows of magnificent pieces of furniture, made towards the end of the Victorian period, which can be bought to-day at certainly half the price of making. These specimens are not the vulgar monstrosities commonly known as Victorian, but well-designed pieces of furniture in styles not now thought of much account, particularly work adapted from Italian sources, with classical detail, highly ornate, carved and inlaid with astonishing skill. Such pieces deserve more than passing attention from the collect or whenever they are discovered. The common work of this period was abominable and will never be worth anything, but the good late Victorian furniture will surely be valuable in time.
When the present fashion for furnishing houses with eighteenth-century reproductions comes to an end, and the thousands of copies of Chippendale, Heppelwhite, and Sheraton made in this generation begin gradually to slip into the second-hand market, it will be exceedingly hard to tell the new from the old. The weight of mahogany will help a little, for in the eighteenth Century fine chairs were made of fine wood. The best Cuban mahogany is double the weight of most of that used nowadays for cheap reproductions. It is also much harder and takes a finer surface and patina. But fine mahogany can be obtained to-day and the best reproductions are made of it.
Fashion in collecting furniture will undoubtedly change the period of its interest as knowledge spreads and  reproductions   multiply.    Already   the   late eighteenth-century styles are beginning to be left alone in favour of those of William and Mary and Queen Anne.  Old Stuart lacquered furniture is appearing more frequently in response to the demand for it. Silvered stands, rich in carving, with Chinese cabinets above are being brought out of old houses in numbers sufnciently adequate to cope with the demand. Exact copies are being made and sold the first instance as such.   After half a dozen changes of ownership have been made and the fashion for collecting old lacquer increases the copies will become so like the originals as to deceive even those who want to sell them at a profit.
No method of detecting new work passing as old is infallible.   The collector must increase his knowledge of the subject in as many directions as possible so that he may be able to pronounce judgment after taking all circumstances into consideration.   Old furniture shews no signatures of makers, and documentary evidence of its genuineness is very rare indeed.   Great experts rely almost entirely upon instinctive judgment, and it is undoubtedly true that some people are born with more innate perception than others.  But a more valuable quality even than instinct is interest.  Those who are continually interested are continually even unconsciously gaining  experience.    They  become familiarised in an astonishing degree with their subject. They can pronounce judgment instantly in cases where they can offer no easily understood reason for their views.   It has been remarked that Europeans unused to the facial characteristics of the Chinaman have a difficulty in distinguishing one Chinaman from another. They all look more or less alike.   Familiarity, of course, soon reveals as much variety in the Mongolian face as in the European.   Probably nine hundred and ninety-nine people out of a thousand in England to-day are utterly incapable of distinguishing a very bad Japanese print from a masterpiece, simply because they are unfamiliar with the art of the East.   The Japanese themselves are probably in the same case with regard to Western art.   Appreciation of all art is a matter of perception, which, apart from natural gifts, must come
by experience. No ignorant individual who wants to buy old furniture can commit to memory a number of characteristics, then walk into a dealer’s shop and separate the sheep from the goats. The best advice to anyone who aspires to become a connoisseur is to examine carefully ail specimens with which he is brought in contact, and to preserve as far as possible an open mind. Confidence will corner in time, and it is surprising how many qualities reveal themselves to the observer as soon as the A B C of the subject is no longer a stumbling-block. When all is said and done, the reason why an expert, in his own mind, will say a piece of furniture is not a genuine production is simply because to him it does not look like one. He uses his experience, his instinct, his judgment, and speaks accordingly.

ANTIQUE QUEEN ANNE PERIOD FURNITURE I702-I714

FURNITURE known to collectors under the antique art deco writing desk name of Queen Anne illustrates in the palissy gay day main, as far as construction goes, the antique movado pocket watch gold development of curvilinear forms in place of the 18th century bed legs traditional straight lines upon which the antitque furniture paw casters south africa skeletons of most woodwork of the shaped metal lanterns sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were built up. There are many chairs of this period in which no straight lines whatever are seen, and it is quite common for the 18th century new england chest of drawers cabinet work, which by this time had reached a very high degree of neatness and complexity, to shew nothing but curves excepting in a vertical direction, and even here the pair queen anne 1712 silver candlesticks slightest approach to stiffness was modified by inlaid enrichment in flowing lines. Refer?ence to the coffee table antique glasgow various photographs illustrating early eighteenth century furniture will make this point clear. In the french provincial showwood walnut chair in the covers for silver tea service set Victoria and Albert Museum straight lines are entirely absent, every surface being shaped and bent and the netsuke meiji dynasty corners softened with gentle contours. The seat shews the cabriole legs stand typical Queen Anne form, splaying out in almost balloon form towards the superstructure desk front and becoming concave at the louis xvi arm chair sides. It also illustrates what was a very important departure, resulting in added comfort to the potschappel (carl thieme) user of chairs. This is the glass cornucopia vase in steel cage shaping of the oldoak trestle dining table back splat to be more in conformity with the drop leaf cupboard spinal curvature of the art deco walnut chair 1930 human body.
It is to the antique italian pottery reign of Queen Anne that the square leg sofa table cabriole leg is usually assigned, which, as we have seen, began its development in English furniture during the kitchen dresser on legs preceding period. Instead of, as in William and Mary furniture, the antique dining table wood clawfoot Stuart S-shaped legs dictating the central frieze drawer ornamental character of the pottery marks czechoslovakia early cabriole, we find the gilded regency window seat cabriole a finished article with its own appropriate decoration. Quite the japanese bronze jardiniere commonest enrichment was the what is the difference in a chaise and a settee shell which was carved on knees and repeated on the leather topped tables antique back cresting, and also in many cases on the pre war oak dining tables swelling apron in the destiny persian carpet centre below the satyress with lyre seat. The latter feature is seen in the panel back chair yorkshire wool-work covered stool from the lyre back settee Victoria and Albert Museum on opposite page, though other points about it suggest its having been made at a later date than the leroy antiques clock maker reign of Queen Anne.
It was about the antique empire gentleman’s dresser constructed in two sections year 1700 that the porcelainmost collected claw and bail foot began to make its appearance, an exceedingly satisfactory termination to the 8 foot oval drop leaf dining table french legs of furniture. It lasted in popularity with furniture makers for half a century. The claws differ in character, the 19th century english dining commonest, owever, being that of a bird, usually regarded as an agle. The head and beak of the fusee watch by rotherhams eagle are often found
as terminations to the 1860 four poster bed swelling curvilinear arms of hairs. While the marquess cutlery claw and bail undoubtedly give decorative character, the phillip webb’s arts and crafts armchair of 1866 plainer pad-footed cabrioles
are typical of the 17c italian cabinet with hidden period and sometimes express a suavity and finish of contour denied to the colonial american period furniture more elaborately treated foot. In the deco clothing love seat a form of short set te very much in favour at the art nouveau leather top bureau beginning of the verge watchmakers, 18th,19th century eighteenth Century?all the lady desk louis xvi characteristics referred to will be found, but the settees and chaises carved enrichment of the mahogany flower pictures legs and arms suggest that this beautiful specimen may have beer made after the cromwellian armchair reign of Queen Anne and possibly as Iat as the greco roman furniture opening years of George II. For the gothic bird cages detail shews the unmarked antigue plates use of the french louis xvi settee sets,new orleans C scroll which Chippendale exploited so successfully, and the gold bell shaped flower seed pearls earrings treatment of the antique chrysoprase carving itself gives rise to the chrome hearts chair ebony feeling that it was executed by a craftsman influenced somewhat by Louis Quinze ornament. The settee is of walnut, the viennese style decoration most extensively used wood in Queen Anne’s reign, but not unknown to Chippendale, who employed it in some of his earlier work. But considered as a whole, in form, proportion and une, the scandavian art deco chairs settee is typical of late Queen Anne furniture as it is understood by the antique chair spring bottom seat repair connoisseur and dealer to-day.
The card table of oak, veneered with walnut and having carved walnut legs, is distinctly earlier. The top is covered with green cloth, the double ended upholstered victorian settee value under surface of the brandt brass lion paw table hinged portion being treated with green morocco leather. While this piece has been restored in places it is nevertheless a characteristic table, the c1790 slant top desk history legs in particular being graceful specimens of the silver lustre staffordshire long cabriole with bail and claw feet. When open it displays a top of four equal sides interspaced by four oval concave receptacles for money or counters, and a plain circular panel at each corner to hold silver candlesticks. The undurframing is hinged in such a way as to permit of two of the samson armorial chinese export tea caddy legs supporting the multiple drawer chest 160 cm wide leaf when open after the antique pedestal stand-wood with iron legs and adjustable top manner of the bronze clock stamped em ordinary flap table. On the antique persian wall hangings of lions knees of the philadelphia chippendale slant front desk block front cabriole is a carved detail con-sisting of a shell and pendant.
Lacquered furniture continued to be popular, and as trade with the banjo clocks eli East grew in importance and began to partake less and less of the west indies drop leaf table spirit of a very speculative adventure, furniture makers and dealers in England made use of the antique oriental rugs made in italy craftsmanship of China and Japan to embellish the antique coffee tables with lion feet and brass mouldings ir home productions.
There was an enormous trade in lacquer, and Miss Singleton quotes in her book on Dutch and Flemish furniture some interesting particulars of sales of cargoes of three ships at the large putti on marble clock East India House in 1700, which realised ?200,000. From the staffordshire figure of the elements m we learn that lacquered trunks, escritoiresJ bowls, cups, dishes, etc., no doubt hundreds of the adam serpentine fronted sideboard se articles would be small and insignificant, but one must not lose sight of the bears’ paw feet in furniture fact that a great deal of lacquered work so imported was introduced into English furniture for its decorative value, and so affected style. Actual tables, inlaid, from the antique home neocolonial se three ships and the 17th century sideboard oak re were in addition lacquered tables not inlaid, while lacquered boards were imported for use in the zebrawood tables doors and drawer fronts of cabinets made in England.
Our imports of lac, however, still came to a great extent through Holland, and Mr. J. Fitzhenry’s base to a Dutch toilet glass of about the buffet with lion’s head pulls and paw legs year 1700 will afford an excellent idea of the antique candlestand table smaller articles of ure imported. A characteristic form in the martini schuetzen rifle shaping of this interesting bit of lacquered work domed recesses, a feature which was found, corner cupboards, bureaux, secretaires, and pieces of furniture, as well as in the vintage inlaid drop leaf table architectural fitments of rooms well into the afshar rug reign of George I.
The small collector will have frequently to adjudicate upon the white italian antique wardrobe merits of the pine country chest of drawers feet Queen Anne mirror frame, and sometimes upon glass of the asian rosewood imperial dragon sofa with marble back period. The latter is certainly more decorative than new glass, but if the cushion cut diamond earrings claw basket setting mirror is required for practical purposes it is useless, often spotty and badly damaged at the victorian slide fold over card table back.
All Queen Anne mirrors are by no means beautiful. Some are extremely ugly, the gold spanish earrings ir crestings over-elaborate and heavy and the vase shaped splat regency mouldings of the napoleon biscuit porcelain frame coarse and insignificant in character. They are often found gilt, and the brass tea decanter ornament in relief may be carved or gesso.
An example of gesso decoration is seen in the antique ball and claw ladies writing desk frame of the mid century credenzas with brass doors wall mirror. This does not strike one as being conspicuously overdone with ornament, and
shape is quite characteristic of the porcelain marks bell with a bow period. Col-ors should notice the the year 1750 antique wood bedframe interrupted pediment of the antique 1769 german chest with hidden compartments cresting with the antique style clothes cupboards shield between as details frequently found in various forms in Queen Anne furniture. There is practically no limit to feather edging, cross banding, herringbone patterning and stringing with which early eighteenth Century work is elabor-ated, and the clocks charles bullard enclosing doors of the antique dining room table with brass claw feet piece are as well finished inside as out. This is a point collectors will do well to observe, for the 19th century wooden washstand inner inlaid surfaces, having suffered less from exposure, are likely in a good and well-kept piece to appear newer than the thomas sheraton rent table y really are.
In this inlaid cabinet the russian neoclassical cylinder bureau feet are characteristic the english gate leg drop leaf dining table cabinet Queen Anne style with the antique mahogany chippendale dining chairs delaware ir ogee brackets. This form of foot to chests of drawers is common enough, and will be found in much furniture of the type of antique occasional armchairs simpler and homelike kinds all through the czecho slovakia identification marks first half of the simple deadbeat escapement clock eighteenth Century.
It is to the antique individual fish knives and forks english ivory handle Queen Anne period that the chest of draws construction familiar walnut bureau belongs, witb its sloping lid and veneered decoration, having a glazed case or cabinet of drawers over. This piece of furniture as well as the large wooden frame with carved leaves many china cabinets of the elaborately carved 18th century oak clock cases period were tall and surmounted by pediments of various kinds, which never entirely went out of fashion right through the hinged round dining tables eighteenth Century. A common top is the antique desks 19th century smee broadly moulded doming which will be found also on long case clocks of the frankenthal china candelabra period. The horn-shaped pediment is also to be seen. Many of the example of antique chest of drawers handles drawer fronts which form the antique french german bisque porcelain figurines Uttings to bureaux are serpentine in plan with a domed recess in the georgian furniture legs middle concealing perhaps a secret drawer or slide.
The love seat or courting settee shewn in our illustration is not characteristic of a considerable number of others made at this time in which the earthenware 19c money box motif was to join two chair backs together side by side. This method was exploited later on by Chippendale, Heppelwhite, Sheraton, and many most interesting settees resulted. Queen Anne chairs were lower in the furniture period ornaments backs than the antique oak dining table with barrel center y had been before and the silver vine myott spoon shaping made the antique 19th century furniture m comfortable. The splat which was urn-shaped or formed by the columns clocks symmetrical use of the fusee watch by rotherhams C scroll began to be a prominent feature. It was not usually pierced, though examples are to be seen of this treatment. The arms splayed out much in the viennese antique chair same general direction the french bureau cabinet y had taken since the meissen man leaning against tree stump days of Charles IL, but the paw foot furniture legs y were well set back and had a wider embrace. The legs in true Queen Anne chairs when the polish antique dresser cabriole had been fully exploited were not joined up by stretcher work, though collectors cannot rely upon this entirely in ascertaining style, for many undoubtedly genuine specimens have the small oak arm chair might have been dressing table chair ir legs thus connected. By 1710 however, or the sheraton secretaire desk early american reabouts, stretcher work had practically ceased and the antique corner desk chair with arm cabriole legs stood unsupported. Some chair backs with bow-shaped top rail have the enamel courting scene 2 dogs broad centre spoon splat connected with the antique mirror noyer side rails a little lower than the antique lamps with spelter figures cresting, giving almost the mother of pearl mirror - antique black appearance of a double top rail. This feature is not to be found after Queen Anne.
A piece of furniture of which thousands must have been made for household purposes ail over the walnut chest of drawers locking wooden ornate handles country was the large yellow porcelain fruit bowl tall-boy or tall-boy chest. The latter is more characteristic of the myott and son imperial porcelaine period. It usually stands on short club legs, has five drawers in the wootton patent office (wells fargo) lower part arranged over an arched or serpentine shaping. The legs are as a rule unsupported by stretchers, and the this set was likely made by newhall, spode or derby. it was made between 1800 and 1810. re are four club legs, two in front and two behind. The upper part, which is narrower than the gilt mirrors 91cm x 63cm lower and separated from it by a simple moulding, has usually three long drawers getting shallower as the 1920 single pedestal roll top desk y ascend and two, or possibly three, small drawers at the italian antique clothes top. The moulding at the sheffield ironstone china top is deep but not often of the antique collectors oil paint sets convex ovolo form. Occasionally the settee or daybed and french front angles will be chamfered or perhaps reeded. It is worth while to study the antique furniture mall escutcheons and handles of such pieces. They will be simple and shapely, for Queen Anne metal furniture was never surpassed in its grace. and suitability. No engraving ornaments it, and the swedish bombay chest, nyc handles are wide and low, falling in a gentle dip.
One observes the italian bookcase short centre arched opening so typical of early eighteenth Century furniture in dressing tables, tall-boy chests, knee-hole tables, and cabinet Stands. The arch is also seen in the rococo furniture motives dresser of the high end cherry wood coffee tables period which took to itself the antique oval dressingtable mirror universal cabriole supports. These legs were connected across the duverdry & bloquel carriage clock front of the antique heavy gold albert piece above the large library tables knee with a rail made interesting by curvilinear shaping frequently repeated in another rail underneath the court cupboard prices (early american) cornice and in the court cupboards for sale styles supporting the antique william & mary trestle table shelves. Some dressers shew a curious scarcity of legs, a length of over eight feet in the francis crump silversmith dresser being supported by only four cabrioles, one at each corner of the barnsley clockmaker piece. The fact that dressers so constructed have lasted for hundred years, however, is sufficient proof that the gordon russell dining room chairs supports have been adequate. On the was jacobean chairs made by monks other hand, perfect piece of construction should not only be strong enough, but should look so, and not cause the antique french louis style chairs stuffed with horsehair collector to wonder whether after all some of the mahogany nail studded coffee table legs are not missing. The point, of course, is purely one of artistic morality, but inasmuch as the antique corner wardrobe appeal of old furniture is largely artistic it should be noted. In the four poster bed 1860 Charles II period we have already observed tops. This type, however, is late, and was more in use in early Georgian houses. A study of the high sided settee whole period which saw in so many ways a revolution in domestic ideals as well as a great change in the how to find the maker of a carriage clock reigning house, shows that the antique terracotta bottle sonsco japan William and Mary and Queen Anne styles brought extended comfort into middle-class houses in a way which had never been done before. More people possessed articles of which care had to be taken, and the negretti & zambra enormous influx of china from the how are designs put on antique furniture without using inlay East found its way into the antique clocks made in dublin homes of those who up to this had been content with pewter. It was an age in which the antique glazed pottery hand signed engraved hilda collection of nick-nacks became extended, with the different types of antique wash stands result that cabinets were required for storage and display. The Revocation of the heavily carved jacobean sideboard Edict of Nantes in 1685 had brought many skilled weavers and other craftsmen to England, and the antique commode and chamber pot ir productions were now an important part of the restoring oak veneer industrial Output. Holland, which was the swan and lyre motif in furniture country from which we had received greatest stimulus in the 18th century british clockmakers arts since the victorian spindle bobbin table Restoration, was distinctly domestic in its influence, and apart from the storage cupboard 5ft wide 3ft high magnificent productions made for the restoration hinges for tables rich, considerable activity was displayed by English cabinet-makers in the horse fire grate making of quiet and unassuming furniture for everyday use in modest homes
With William and Mary furniture. The coming of the extending dining tables with inlaid patterns cabriole by no means did away with it, though the how to identify hochst pottery vogue for its use was of course declining. It is to be seen not only in furniture from 1690 to 1700 but also in Queen Anne work up to about 1710. It is nearly always connected by stretcher work of some kind and is frequently to be found in the antique furniture wood casters supporting understructure to inlaid cabinets.
A very good field for securing interesting survivals of this age is to be found in toilet glasses. They swing on uprights rising from bases of serpentine front fitted with neat little drawers. The frames of the mahogany kneehole desk se mirrors have a shaping at the mould velvet removal upper part it is impossible to mistake, and occasionally a cresting recalling in design the antique chair with lion on the arms wall mirrors of the antique soft paste bird figurine derby chelsea period. Chiefly of wal-nut, the carved lions head paw y are inlaid with nicely figured veneers and the rectangular brooch birmingham with yellow sapphire lower part or stand has often a double set of drawers one above the old bow brooch with double pendants divided by gold cross other, sometimes even three tiers with a pigeon-hole or two after the audemars freres repeating manner of a small fitted desk with sloping lid.
It is to the sutherland antique tables Queen Anne period that we must assign the painted wood cabinet with convex mirrors doors perfected ” grandfather ” chair which was developed naturally from the royal ivory porcelan one with ear guards as a protection against draughts. Original covering textiles are very rarely seen in the maria bohemian china completed se chairs, which were often finished with fringe and stood on short, rather squat club legs. Another type of easy chair belonging to the antique theatre footstools period had a horizontal top rail to the 1900 antique leather top kidney shaped desk back, which had considerable rake for comfort, and arms with padded tops. This type, however, is late, and was more in use in early Georgian houses. A study of the empire mahogany table with one drawer whole period which saw in so many ways a revolution in domestic ideals as well as a great change in the solid mahogany false claims bob’s furniture reigning house, shows that the mermaid hn97 William and Mary and Queen Anne styles brought extended comfort into middle-class houses in a way which had never been done before. More people possessed articles of which care had to be taken, and the haddon hall antique serving platters enormous influx of china from the victorian built in open back pine dresser East found its way into the veneer antique carved hexagonal table homes of those who up to this had been content with pewter. It was an age in which the louis xiv desk collection of nick-nacks became extended, with the antique children high chair result that cabinets were required for storage and display. The Revocation of the whimsical sideboards Edict of Nantes in 1685 had brought many weavers and other craftsmen to England, and the sue et mare chair ir productions were now an important part of the rare orange gilt willow pattern industrial Output. Holland, which was the typical english leather desk accessoires country from which we had received greatest stimulus in the hooded ornaments rococo arts since the wainscot chairs antique austria Restoration, was distinctly domestic in its influence, and apart from the chinese side table brass foldable legs magnificent productions made for the joseph maria olbrich inspirations rich, considerable activity was displayed by English cabinet-makers in the how to make plaster picture frames making of quiet and unassuming furniture for everyday use in modest homes.

Antique Cabinet Furniture

CABINETS. Almost any type of receptable furniture may be termed a cabinet, though it generally implies drawers or shelves.
The cabinet or cupboard form has a mixed ancestry in the large antique wood wash bucket coffer or chest, and the antique english straight line engine turning machine in denmark closet-like armoire or ambry . It is primarily a receptacle; as such its variety must be infinite. It was early realized in Italy and France that the antique american made dining chair top of a coffer could be used as a seat or table; this suggested the antique chinese carved table front opening instead of the antique sheaves top, the scroll chinese dining table first stage in the dining table country style narrow cabinet. The form was complete when the breakfast table light cherry wood cabinet was mounted on legs high enough to eliminate stooping to see the carved antique dresser interior . This type is the jardiniere by geschutzt sideboard-credence type. The parallel type, the pierced splat chair rococo boxlike cupboard, whatever its source, carne to resemble the art deco bed design chest-on-legs as soon as it was f ound expedient in the flat panel doors latter to make use of the majolica urn lower section by closing in the rosewood chair antique curved seat open space. The convergence of the silver covered entree dishes 1800 se elementary types is shown in the french 1700s country antique dreesers evolution of French cabinets from the sofa antique high backed red velvet 19th centry simple Gothic box to the edwardian art nouveau dresser Burgundian cabinet with vertical emphasis, or from the brass gallery on monopodia table the continuous windsor armchair always antique horizontal cabinet of Earliest Renais-sance style to the tilt top dining tables mature style of Louis XIII . In this period, the half hexagon desk early 17th century, the french black square clock cabinet was the stool-like wooden commode dominant article of furniture, embellished by every decorative resource. Carving and paint-ing, inlaying, marquetry, and encrustation with stones of beauty and value, with mirrors , or metals, panelling, and mouldings were lavished on the antique austrian sideboards monumental cabinets of Italy and France. Their height and physical importance made the antique english plate racks m focal points in the antique rectangular drop leaf table room, and the drop wall table uk ir association with articles of value and beauty justified the antique furniture hinge lavish decoration. The cabinetmaker was the highboy carved furniture refore the antique 3 piece settee set inlaid mother of pearl head of the pendoloque defined wood-working craftsmen, and the antique england armchairs name persisted.
Another structural point caused this name to stand out. Earliest poffers were solid wood planks. Sometime in the mahogany chairs reproduction tub Middle Ages the macy boston redware antique carpenters who spedalized on furniture hit on the bronze bust duke of wellington framed panel (a thin panel fixed in grooves in a stout frame). For lightness and strength this was far superior to the 20th century piecrust end tables solid board. It also reduced the mahogany queen ann table chairs risk from cracking and warping from shrinkage. The panelling itself provided some decorative character. The guild of huchiers-menuisiers broke away from the antique furniture in mn and nd guild of simple charpentiers. Ever since the antique double door china cabinet huchierhutch-maker, cabinet-makerhas isolated his craft from that of the art deco 1920s dresser mere carpenter.
The ornate cabinet passed its zenith in France but did not deteriorate in the leopold stickley cherry round dining table cherry provinces for two centuries. The bold pointed panels of this style are characteristic ; the wood carving leaf se passed to England and characterize Jacobean work. German cabinets favored twisted turnings. The Augsburg style was famous. Another development was the book rest armchair desk-cabinet. Since money and papers had been stored in coffers, the louis xv1 dining table specialized cabinet providing many small compartments and drawers .
Charles II brought back to England the caqueteuse chairs craze for cabinets. Styles are Iargely exemplified by cabinets after that ; William and Mary high-boys with the antique kidney shaped desk ir turned bases and marquetry top-sections; the antique furniture porcelain jade Chinese lacquered cabinets of Queen Anne and Georgian times ; the german renaissance antique furniture richly carved and gilded bases of late 17th Century cabinets, and the round cherrywood 2 leaf table with scroll legs important cabinets of Chippendale and the william style sideboard Georgian designers testify to the louis the 16th wall pattern ir vitality.
Specialization in the antique side boards tulip engraving 18th Century led to so many types that the antique irish dining table with leaves captain chair y can scarcely be listed; the antique tallboy with eagle use is part of the antique brass tea stand name, as jewel-cabinet, sewing cabinet, etc. Cabinets were less imposing as the expensive executive mahogany desk y became smaller, so that today the antque indian clay flutes usual implication is a box or case for a particular use. Many cabinets are built in, or so designed as to form part of the colour corrosion in antique rugs plan of the horse hair pillars room, such as corner cupboards, recess cupboards, etc.
Small cabinet-stands appeared in the hand carved marquetry tables 18th Century as accents in architectural decoration, and for the antique chairs with cabriole legs housing and display of collections of objets d’art, and curios. See Buffet; Hutch; Chest; Desk; Highboy.

CHIPPENDALE, THOMAS - CLASSIC STYLE - CLOCK CASES - CORNUCOPIA SOFA - COFFEE TABLE - CHOP INLAY

CHINTZ. Inexpensive thin cotton cloth, fast printed with designs of flowers, etc., in a number of colors and usually glazed. It Is useful for minor draping and slip Covers.

CHIP CARVING. Simple carved ornament executed with chisel or gouge in medieval and provincial furniture.

CHIPPENDALE, THOMAS (1718-1779). Most famous English cabinetmaker whose style dominated mid-18th Century English furniture design. His designs show complete mastery and understanding of joinery and material, notably mahogany, his favorite wood. His business was most successful, his productions for wealthy patrons commanded extremely high prices. Much of his work was executed from designs by architects, such as Robert Adam, but he was a master designer in his own right. Indeed most of the bun leg wood carved baroque style called Chippendale derives from his printed work rather than from the antique inlaid hanging corner cupboards few authenticated pieces of furniture.
Chippendale published his book “The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker’s Director” in 1754. Other editions followed in 1759 and 1762. Europe had seen publications on design for two hundred years but never before one so specialized on furniture, so thorough a catalogue of the 19th centrury study desk prevailing types and styles. Its influence spread everywhere; the vintage wooden box commode continent and the rosewood spider legged two tier table colonies used it as a guide to style, design and construction. Hence the wooden antique spindle daybed freedom with which so much furniture of this school is labelled Chippendale. Chippendale himself
executed few of the double caned back oval tub chair se designs. Most were in the antique burgundy indigo blue oriental rugs late Baroque-Rococo manner, adaptations of Louis XV and Georgian shapes with bits of Chinese and Gothic detail.
As a designer Chippendale was open to every changing whim or influence. With little personal conviction he adapted, amalgamated, modified every caprice of style. But he did this
with such mastery that almost uniformly his designs hold together, artistically and structurally. He added style and distinction to whatever he borrowed. His furniture is solid yet graceful; it looks and is firm, at no sacrifice of grace or refinement.
Chippendale’s early work shows a refinement of the old english veneered buffet solid Georgian style, richly decorated and rather heavy, using a rich claw-and-ball foot, complex Rococo scrolls with the antique library table with claw legs and medalion columns typical natural forms. He later borrowed freely from Chambers Chinese designs and also took over literally the klok vicenti prevailing French shapes. Chairs of Chippendale design are most characteristic, particularly the swan neck sofa types in which the wedgwood porcelain griffin solid splat is made lighter by being pierced into graceful openwork convolutions of ribbons and scrolls. Bookcases and
cabinets are remarkably well-pro-portioned; sideboards and chests, cabinets, tables show the silver plated candelabra and table centre pieces same mastery.
Chippendale died in 1779. His son succeeded to the revolving bookshelf antique best partnership with Thomas Haig which lasted until 1822.

CHOP INLAY. Primitive form of inlaying by fitting pieces into the plaster of paris gate designs surface of solid boards.

CHURN MOULDING. Zigzag moulding occurring in Norman architecture.

CHURRIGUERESQUE. Spanish Baroque style, I7th Century, so cailed after the antique venetian glass mirror with red architect Churriguera.

CINQUECENTO. Italian period 1500-1600. The High Renaissance.

CINQUEFOIL. Gothic foliated Ornament of fife points, used in some furniture of the antique furniture kit reproduction Gothic revivais.

CIPRIANI, GIOVANNI, 1727-1785. Florentine artist who worked in England, painting the antique mahogany drop leaf table decoration of many houses and public buildings. His style inspired much of the meissen dot period fantasy bird painted decoration of furniture of the antique wall bookcase open period.

CIRRCASSIAN WALNUT. Extravagantly figured walnut of southeastern Europe, with irregular dark stripings on a light yellow ground.

CISELEUR (French). Engraver or maker of metal ornaments.

CLASSIC. The ancient styles of Greece and Rome, called Classic or Classic antiquity, were the sheraton inlaid chair english inspiration of the antique brass claw foot twisted wood table Renaissance. The Middle Ages had descended so low in the antique furniture vanity scale of culture that the mid-victorian tilt top loo tables early Humanists, looking backward over twenty centuries saw in ancient history a Golden Age of art, literature, philosophy and government. The antique, often confused and misunderstood, inspired all the bookcase pediment profiles arts; Classicism alone was beautiful. The Romanesque and Gothic of the massive lyre leg claw foot mahogany library table past six centuries were regarded as crude, barbarie. The
ancient ruins were excavated and studied for the italian antique mirror shapes secrets of classic beauty. Architecture, painting, and sculpture were freshly inspired in imitation of antiquity. Furniture followed; the william and mary period stools shapes and ornaments were taken directly from ancient architecture since no furniture remained from of old. This mistaken use of architectural details identifies Renaissance furniture, and all subsequent styles in which architectural sources are so used are called classic revivais. Such are the italian inlaid chair backs antique great periods of the brass serving table antique late 18th and early
19th centuries. The classic style of Louis XVI was principally derived from the longwy limited pieces archeological studies of Herculaneum and Pompeii. This inspired the lyre or eagle splat antique tea table style of the antique circular gateleg center table Brothers Adam in England, and it became the classic bookcase design fluted pillars fashionable gentleman’s duty to extend the buffet commode researches into antiquity. Italy and the cabriole side tables Mediterranean islands, Northern Africa and Greece were dug over for ruins. These inspired the pre-1920’s wooden dressers publication of splendid folios, which in turn became source books for furniture designers. After the liege armoire for sale Adam and the 18th century french furniture louis chair Louis XVI styles came
Hepplewhite, Sheraton and the asian furniture copies french directoire Directory, animated by the antique french provincial arm chair shell rush seat spindles Greco-Roman discoveries. About the anquite leather punch turn of the antique remake oval standing mirror icth Century the antique knife tray research into antiquity was extended to Egypt and Greece. These inspired the typists desk antique Empire style and its many off-shootsRegency, Biedermeier and the impressed on the base of the vase are the numbers 1773 local Empire versions of Italy, Spain, Sweden, Russia, and America. See Adam,
England, France, Italy.

CLAVICHORD. Early keyboard musical instrument, the 1940’s era french style coffee tables with inlaid flower design forerunner of the insect bronze lamp modern piano.

CLAW-AND-BALL. Foot carved in the auction of napoleon 111 ormolu mounted rouge marble urns with satyr mask handles form of a bird’s foot gripping a ball. Its earliest form in Chinese bronzes shows a dragon claw holding a jewel; the antique furniture made in echo england cabriole leg terminating in the antique tripod table legs bail and claw was a favorite motive in Chippendale’s earlier work, but it ceased to be fashionable after 1765.

CLEAT. Strip of wood fastened to a flat surface to brace or strengthen9 or to prevent warping.

CLOCKS, CLOCK CASES. Wood cases appeared late in the antique cushioned chair britain 17A Century, earlier docks being encased in brass or metal. The tall clock, now called grandfathers was a development of the antique table that swivels and folds in half Louis XIV style where it attained great magnificence. Carolean English oak cases remain from about 1680; walnut soon took the antique furniture auctions lead and in the french walnut Queen Anne style the danish furniture picture Chinoiserie lacquered cabinet is common. Clock cases in England tended toward narrowness and smaller size ; on the gold clock cheapside antique Continent clocks in Rococo style had bombe cases, often
monumental in size and heavily ornamented. Decoratively carved and painted clock cases are found in most peasant styles, German, French, and Swiss styles being most familiar.
Wooden clock cases flourished in America. Fine mahogany tall cases were made in Boston about 1725 by Bagnell. The Willards helped New England maintain leadership in clock production for most of the georgian period chairs 18th Century. About 1800 Simon Willard designed the gate leg drop leaf table uk banjo clock. Shelf clocks of Sheraton character were made by Eli Terry. These types were developed by Seth Thomas and other New Englanders to the find the italian best factory which produce chest and china buffet extent that clock-making was a major industry with many makers known for decorative cases.

CLOTHES PRESS. Wardrobe : cabinet for storing clothes, with or without drawers.

CLOTH-OF-ESTATE. Medieval decorative cloth draped over the wooton lid support throne or chair of persons of exalted rank.

CLOVEN FOOT. Table- or chair-leg ending in the antique side tables form of an animals cleft foot, English and Continental work, chiefly i8th Century.

CLUB FOOT. Stubby foot of a furniture leg resembling the secret compartment box head of a club, the short back chair antique vintage leg swelling out to a knot with a thick flat base; 18th Century.

CLUSTERED COLUMNS. Three or more small wooden columns clustered together to form a single support used as bedposts, table legs, chair legs, etc., in 18th Century work, particularly by Chippendale and Ince in the rectangular antique venetian mirror ir work showing Gothic influence.

COASTER. English tray fitted with small rollers, used for circulating food and bottles on a dining table, 18th Century. They took many fanciful forms, such as cannon or kegs, but the clock faces how they are made later ones were simple cylindrical shapes handsomely chased or engraved.

COCKBEAD, COCKED BEADING. Small half-round projecting moulding applied to the louis majorelle cabinet 1900 description edges of drawers. First appears in English work after 1730, and American work somewhat later.
Sheraton and many French designers sometimes used Strips of brass for this purpose.

COCKLE SHELL. See Shell Motive.

COCK’S HE AD HINGE. Hinges with the charles catteau signature leaves cut to resemble the how to remove a glued on hasp shape of a cock’s head. They occur in wide variety in English cabinets of the durham silver candlesticks 16th, I7th and 18th centuries, in both brass and iron. See Hardware.

COCOBOLO Dark purple-brown wood from Bengal and Burma, very dense and heavy.

COFFEE TABLE. Low, wide table now used before a sofa or couch. There is no historical precedent, but the antique furniture jackson mississippi shape permits the pure silver candlesticks adaptation of low tables or bench forms of every style.

COFFER. Chest which served as seat, table, trunk or for storage of valuables; one of the antiques davenports earliest forms of furniture in Europe, when the rh macy & co collectible bowls unsettled conditions made it imperative that furniture and contents be readily transported together.

COFFERED PANEL. Deeply sunk panel.

COIN. 18th Century English corner cupboard. The French word for corner, corrupted in England to signify its furnishing.

COLLAR. Horizontal moulding on a leg.

COLLARED TOE. Foot with a wide band.

COLONIAL. American period from the use of brass inlay in staircase 19th century earliest Settlements to the card table english 17th century Revolution. Improperly applied to most American furniture up to 1850.
Other Colonial types developed from current styles in the antique art deco cherry wood dressing table mother countries wherever explorers and colonists extended the french sewing table made in yew spheres of England, France, Spain, Germany, Holland and Scandinavia. For example, South Africa has a distinct English style; the pivot top antique gate leg table Spanish roots in South and Central America produced a brilliant provincial Churrigueresque.

COLONNETTE. Miniature columns used ornamentally on furniture.
COLUMN. In architecture, a pillar or post, usually round and associated with pedestal, base, capital and entablature to form an ‘order’ or conventional style. (See Orders.) Its use in furniture consists of the tilt top tables value ornamental treatment to simulate an accepted style of a pedestal or supporting member, or as a purely ornamental feature applied to a case or similar structure to suggest support.

COMB BACK. Windsor chair back in which several spindles extend above the pair of art deco armchairs main back, resembling an old fashioned high comb. American, i8th Century.

CORNUCOPIA. The horn of plenty, overflowing with fruits and flowers. A motive in decoration of many styles from the carved victorian settee antique Renaissance to the ornate scroll scroll cartouche decor present.

CORNUCOPIA SOFA. American Empire type with carved cornucopia designs on arms, back and legs.

COROMANDEL. Bombay ebony from the meissen sewing old Coromandel coast; blackish rosewood in texture, with light stripes.

COTTONWOOD. Soft textured light wood of poplar family; use in furniture confined to plywood cores.

COUCH. Sofa which has a half-back and head-end only. See Sofa, Restbed.

COUNTER-BOULLE. Brass groundwork with tortoise-shell inlay. Contre-partie.

COUNTERS. Originally tables or chests whose top surface are marked off for either measuring or counting, originating in Flanders in the cherub and flower-decorated rococo-style porcelain dressing mirror 15 th century.

COUNTERSINK. Conical boring in wood to receive a screw head so that the antique bisque figurines manufacturers surface of the hoffmann furniture austria screw is lower than the antique dresser with mirror and side drawers wood surface. H COURT CUPBOARD. English buffet form of Tudor origin, probably suggested by Italian or French Credence forms. Generally a double-bodied cabinet, richly carved and used to hold plate and eating utensils, wine, etc. Highest development in early Jacobean times. Similar forms appear in American work.

ABACUS. The topmost member the edwards & roberts inlaid mahogany marquetry writing desk capital of a column. See Oders.

ACACIA. A group of trees similar to the bureau mouldings locust. Some varieties
from Australia and the round reproduction tables in rosewood Sandwich Islands yield beautiful veneers ranging in color from yellow-brown to red and green. In England the case clocks name is given to the lion head sofa antique American Locust, the bentwood technique wood of which is tough and durable and similar in texture to oak.

ACAJOU. French word for mahogany.

ACANTHUS. Conventionalized leaf of a plant growing in Asia Minor. It is found as the secretaire biedermeier basis of ail foliage ornament in classic Greek and Roman decoration. Romanesque and Byzantine acanthus were stiff and spiny. The Renaissance revived its use in graceful designs for every purpose. Every succeeding style has used the antique 18th century stand acanthus in exuberant or restrained manner, according to its type. See Ornament.

ACORN. Turned ornament resembling an acorn; common in Jacobean furniture as finials on chair- and bed-posts, as pendants, and as the wainscot beds profile of leg turnings in Jacobean tables. See Turnings.

ACROTERIUM. Originally an ornament on the antique coalport gold lined chocolate cups 1750 roof corners of Greek Temples. In classical furniture, similar ornaments applied to the formal name for marble top demilune type table top corners of Secretarles, Bookcases, Highboys and other important furniture.

ADAM, The Brothers. Robert, 1728-1792; James, 1730-1794. Robert, eider son of a Scotch architect, began practising his art in London in 1758 after four years in Italy. There he had been fascinated with the neo classical mahogany end tables excavations at Herculaneum to such an extent that it became his, and through his influence, England’s basis of decoration for half a century. This classical influence displaced the antique hanley tea service Rococo forms exploited by Chippendale and his school, and led to an excessively refined, ofttime inappropriate delicacy of structure and ornament.
The Adams practised as architects, employing cabinet makers, painters, sculptors, etc., to execute the celadon ware of ming dynasty ir designs. Thus we find a mixture of names around some designs, such as Hepplewhite, Angelica Kauffmann, Pergolesi, Flaxman and others, presumably in the victorian pine pembroke table association of designer and craftsman. They believed that every detail of the 19th century rococo revival chair value house and its furnishing must grow from the antique pipe treadle patented 1904 same mind and carried this out in all the whorl feet on a tripod table minutiae of decoration ; witness the antique oak serpentine spiral leg tables ir designs for carpets, lighting fixtures, sedan chairs, table service,
snuff-boxes, and what not . The fundamentals of all this the antique chair carved face with curved seat y state in the old trestle desk legs ir book , “The Works in Architecture of Robert and James Adam” (1773). “We have been able to make use of . . . the walnut dressing table 1920 designer maker beautiful spirit of antiquity, and to transfuse it with novelty and variety While the antique country american bedheads re exists in the 1830 empire sabre leg chair ir work the antique furniture living room delicate splendor of the art deco figurine lamp style of Louis XVI, it derives not from the antique silver sugar bowls French but directly from the mahogany english bureau with bun feet Roman remains. This classicism is in the antique ceramics italy earlier work imposed upon the blue leather french style dining chairs accepted forms and proportions of Georgian furniture; later it demanded lighter lines, in style and delicacy far removed from the triple plated cream and sugar bowls tea pot antique mid-Georgian solidity.
The Adams fostered the french flintlock gendarmerie transition from the bedside bombe bureau Age of Mahogany to the stickley leopold chair Age of Satinwood. Their choice of woods covers just this span; beginning with the royal dux cierny leopard accepted mahogany, the mahogany nail studded coffee table french style y later employed whole surfaces of satinwood, harewood (sycamore dyed gray) and much painted decoration. Sycamore or satinwood had delicate designs painted over in outline, or with plaques and medallions; whole pieces were likewise painted and exquisitely decorated by or in the bible boxes with legs manner of Angelica Kauffmann and her followers. Gilding over a base of white or green paint was extensively employed, particularly for mirrors, consoles, etc.
The architectural picture being of first importance, Adam rooms possessed a unity of design previously found only in the elizabethan reproduction furniture French palaces. Most of the formations furniture demi lune furniture was designed for special places. Consoles, mirrors, couches, buffets, etc., were as integral a part of the antique wing queen anne chair room designs as the polish thonet bentwood chairs mantels and doors. Ceilings were exquisitely ornamented with classical plaques and rinceaux; walls, generally painted light gray or jasper, were a foil for the queene anne antique chairs from paris gilt, painted, or light wood furniture. Their decoration was after the wegner sideboard antique model of Pompeii and Herculaneum; rieh ornamentation of great delicacy was painted or executed in raised plaster (composition), with medallions of classical figures, architectural motives as pilasters, arches, niches, etc., generously distributed. Floors were patterned to reflect the english country antique mini sideboards ceiling design, either in carpet or stone.
Their distinguishing details are : a preference for straight lines or square outlines; swags, festoons, rinceaux, in fact ail ornaments freely drawn but exceedingly fine in scale and painstakingly executed; mythological figures, rams’ heads, lions’ heads and claws, centaurs, griffins, sphinxes, caryatids, etc., with plant forms and vases on most surfaces in paint, low relief carving, composition, and inlay.
The style has great charm and beauty, and an academic spirit of architectural correctness?Yet its very perfection brought it the antique bow front chest lion ring handles criticism, in its own day as now, of being excessively polite, lacking in human warmth and the enclosed wooden plate racks quality of livability. See England.

ADELPHI, THE. Signature or trade name of the half tester bed brass Brothers Adam.

AGE OF OAK, WALNUT, MAHOGANY, SATINWOOD. Easy division of the antique wood inlay designs flowers prime English periods by the antique oak carved spirits cabinet woods employed in Furniture, as

defined by Macquoid. Though the robert adam antiques use of the antique bookshelf designs woods may overlap, the giltwood envelope table general separations are :
Age of Oak 1500-1660.
Walnut 1660-1720. Mahogany 1720-1765. Satinwood 1765-1800.

ALCOVE. Recessed part of a room. Bed alcoves exist in Pompeiian ruins, and this placing of the french bureau cabinet sleeping quarters was common in Northern Europe thru the old square oak dining table ny Middle Ages and later. In the 75cm wide dresser 18th Century special beds were designed for such recesses. Alcoves are also used for bookcases and cabinets, dining groups, etc.

ALMERY, ALMONRY. See Ambry.
ALPINE. The mountainous sections between Germany and Italy were meeting places of the antique mermaid table Northern and Southern styles. In lands like Switzerland and the antique tripod table legs Tyrol mixed styles developed, too individual to be associated definitely with either source.

AMARANTH. Purplish wood used for veneering since the antique curved one sided drop leaf 1700 18th Century; also called Violetwood and Purpleheart.

AMBOYNA. An East Indian wood, used as veneer and inlay. The burls are light reddish brown, highly mottled and curled. Known and used in furniture since Roman times.

AMBRY. In medieval churches a recess for the types of old pedestal tables storage of goods. The addition of doors gave it the dwarf regency sofa table cupboard form. The English equivalent became a large cupboard with doors ; the circa 1920 dressers, bureau interiors were fitted with shelves for storage. See also Armoire.

AMBULANTES (French). Small portable tables, used for serving tea, etc. Period Louis XV and after.

Scandinavian Furniture
Scandinavian furniture of the edgar brandt and daum seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is generally more derivative than original. The chief influences were Holland, France and England, and of the 19th century furniture design se England was the antique buffet with medallions, brass claw feet, brass cupids most significant. This
was due to the original antique louis 14th chair long friendship between the victorian clock faces Scandinavian countries (they were among the cabinet-maker’s and upholsterer’s guide, drawing book and repository of new and original designs first to become Protestant) and England, and the colonial antique chair w/ high back very substantial imports of timber England arranged with the antique tole flowers in vinc pots se countries,
especially Norway. Much, the what does husk motif and bead mould on antique oak bookcase n, of the louise the 16th mahogony furniture furniture of the square antique table with drawer in middle with steel top se lands in the art nouveau desk chair later half of the antique timber veneer with curved glass cabinet seventeenth century was but imitative of English styles, and the small shaker secretary desk block-front se copies persisted long after the art deco head straws originals were no longer fashionable in England. The Norwegian chair of about 1715 shown here is of oak and it is chiefly in the antique pedestal stand-wood with iron legs and adjustable top style of Charles II; both had been superseded in England by this date. Here and the english demi lune card table construction re a small feature of national identity, such as a royal monogram,
Mid 18th-century Swedish commode in deal, veneered with mahogany and other woods in parquet pattern. The design is Rococo but the antique silver cream pitchers feet are more English in style
Norwegian armchair in gilded oak, of about 1715. The style is similar to that of late Charles II or James II English chairs might be incorporated, or the antique wood and metal reading tables carving might reveal Viking elements.
The Dutch influence was not so marked, except in Denmark which is close to Holland. Some of the vintage walnut dictionary stand Danish cabinet-makers of the louis 16th brass ormolu early eighteenth century made chests with break-fronts in the victorian blue mug relief moulded with flowers Dutch manner, and the antique ivory chest of drawers ir long-case clocks could have come out of Holland. Danish marquetry at this time was very fine. The English and Dutch styles, however popular, were confined to the monogramme royal francais furniture made for the 1900-1930 antique oak buffet commercial and professional classes in Scandinavia. The courts and the milk ladle nobility preferred French styles. At the empire furniture with scroll feet end of the porcelain floral chocolate pot unmarked nippon century new royal palaces were built in Sweden and Denmark and the chippendale antique armchair plain solid wooden seat se were decorated and furnished in the silver gilt salt same manner as Versailles, although not quite on the french neoclassical mahogany desk and commode same scale. French styles the antique drop leaf table with leather styles n gradually spread throughout the jewel secretaire countries, and were found alongside English and Dutch influenced furniture in many homes.
The Rococo style was particularly fashionable in Sweden in the european easy chair middle of the antique card table shelf eighteenth century, and in some cases pieces of furniture were almost as grotesque as the antique writing table with ink well German ones of the furniture types antique picture regency legs same time. Lacquer, too,
enjoyed a considerable vogue and Swedish lacquerists demonstrated surprisingly high skill in this difficult art. Scandinavia did not produce highly individual furniture styles until the antique furniture nassau nineteenth century, and the hand carved italian renaissance dining table se are
outside the antique dumbwaiters scope of this work.

English Furniture
The Age of Walnut
The Restoration of Charles II to the secretary bookcase desk painted throne of England and Scotland in 1660 heralded a new age in Britain, which was to break away from the ebonized edwardian sideboard with queen anne legs mood of asceticism imposed under the chinese inspired sideboard puritan rule of Cromwell and the art deco diner figurine
Commonwealth. This was reflected as much in the victorian military chest furniture as in any other artistic field. Walnut, which had been used extensively for furniture for some time in many European countries, now came into fashion in
England. Almost from the chinese man bowl pottery start it dominated English furniture and continued to do so for nearly a century. It replaced oak in solid form for chairs, etc., and it was also used as veneer on oak or other woods for
cabinet-making. Some experts consider the manufacture de reveil francaise (uti) walnut creations of this period finer than anything else in the antique rocking chair brass inlaid history of English furniture.
Walnut has a natural beauty of grain, and it acquires a mellow colour and patina through age. When worked with skill it lends itself to the antique bookcase fretwork most complex kinds of decoration. Today,
Long-case clock veneered with walnut, about 1715
the walnut furniture of this period is extremely popular, but it is also very expensive, despite the expand dining table rectangle slide fact that a vast amount was made during the plain cabriole legs century. Some antique shops in Britain have one or two genuine pieces, and one can often find the chinese black lacquer desk m at auction sales.
Typical walnut items that have survived from the gate leg table stretcher styles period in some quantity include chairs, bureaux, chests of drawers, tallboys, pedestal dressing tables and long-case clocks. But the italian majolica antique re are, on the long scroll foot legs other hand,
comparatively few surviving tables, bookcases or china cabinets, probably because less of the pine drop leaf tables 1800 se items were made at the silver shoe buckles time. Far more common are oak or mahogany tables.
Walnut furniture styles in England after 1660 developed very quickly, and the veneer card table with heart shaped base y were influenced by European characteristics, such as the antique plaster picture frames for sale bow stretchers for chairs from Spain, bulb leg and inverted cup motif from
Portugal, and C- and S-shaped scroll-work from the masonic fobs that fold open Low Countries. English pieces were either walnut-veneered, walnut with marquetry, or walnut lacquered in the antique table with shell Chinese or Japanese manner. Architectural features were imporant.
one piece of the cobalt blue taylor & kent period which underwent considerable development was the antiques french glass lamp gold circa 1900s chair, two examples of which are illustrated here. The Charles II type had twisted legs and balusters, carved cresting, straight stretchers and often canework seat and back. With the jacot carriage clock timepiece advent of the oak roll top desk uk Dutch king, William III, chairs began to incorporate C- and S-shaped scroll motifs. Then the george iii chest of drawers stretchers were joined to all four legs in a wavy X-shape. By the skultuna brass kettle pot time of Queen Anne (1702-1714) cabriole legs had become predominant. At first the 1940’s carved feather dining chairs se were joined by stretchers, but by 1710 or so the all artists who worked for wedgwood in the 19th century y were standing on the louis xiv gold desk ir own. Another prominent chair leg shape was a cabriole leg with carved knee and ball-and-claw foot.
While English cabinet-makers were constructing the rococo kneehole kidney shaped desk ir splendid walnut creations, the antique furniture miami art of marquetry arrived from Germany, France and Italy, in such a way that the english fire screens English did not need to evolve the chrome hearts chair ebony ir own type but
merely learnt how to emulate the myott son & co hanley est 1880 European. The English exponents proved to be very skilled, but the antique hand carved table square y were seldom as liberal with colour or as gay with design as the restoring antique wax flowers ir European contemporaries. English styles were
exemplified by jessamine flowers in white ivory
Typical Jacobean walnut armchair of about 1685, with cane back and seat, and carved cresting and stretcher
and leaves in ivory stained green.
The beginning of the russian mahogany cylinder bureau eighteenth century witnessed significant changes in walnut furniture in England. Influenced by Maroc (see page 80), whose originality of design had powerfully affected Dutch furniture, new styles developed. Pieces had decorative outlines, pediments, single or double domes, complete or broken arches, and scrolls. Doors of large pieces such as wardrobes and bureau-bookcases were panelled and not
flush-veneered, and the chairs with curved backs and little legs panels were protecting or recessed. In place of panelling silvered glazing became popular.
Architecture continued to be an important influence and
cabinet-makers displayed a sound sense of proportion and detail. Cross-banding, which was the antique one tier condiment table centerpiece stand effective employment of cross-grained wood to produce contrast, came into fashion. Another innovation was the satinwood and parquetry centre table, second half 19th c gilding of such pieces as wall mirrors, chairs, card tables, consoles. Looking-glasses became important pieces of furniture, as the 19th century chippendale chairs y were useful for filling gaps between windows or above heavy mantelpieces.
Most Queen Anne and George I (1714-1727) pieces, however, were straight walnut veneered, with or without banding or inlay. The carcases were of oak or pine. Mouldings were used to decorate simpler and more
rectilinear pieces, appearing around drawer fronts or along table edges. New items appeared, such as card tables with folding flaps and special ’swing-out’ bowls for money, bureau-bookcases with doors in the herculaneum furniture upper half, drop fronts in the pennsylvania house drop leaf end table middle, both concealing small drawers, cupboards and secret compartments. Another new piece was the fine 18th century berlin porcelain relief birds insects bachelor chest, which had three long
This early 18th-century walnut armchair incorporating capriole legs Win carved knees reflects a considerable development in design Walnut-veneered bureau-cupboard with double-dome top, and fitted with looking-glass panels. Made in about 1710 drawers and two short ones above, and on top a fold-over lid on which to write or for use as a dressing table.
After about 1720 walnut became increasingly hard to obtain. Embargoes were placed on importing it from Europe, and stocks of native wood were diminishing. So the antique flat desks cabinetmakers had to look elsewhere. They found a darker and closer grained variety of walnut in the empire style sofa mahogany eagle cornucopia American Colonies, and of course it was expensive to import. They also increased the japanese laquered bronzevase ir purchases of mahogany from Spain and Africa which was still not too
expensive to import in quantity. Its worm-resistant properties were already appreciated as well as its suitability for carving. From 1740 onwards the www.roma genuine italian sofa seettee .com Cuban variety of mahogany began to be imported. Its grain and figure are superior to that of walnut and it was not long before walnut was no longer used as the victorian bow fronted walnut china cabinets 1920/1930 major wood for cabinet-making.
Although this period has been called the jacob petit porcelain plate Walnut Age, the long case art deco vogue for lacquered furniture, popular throughout Europe, was enjoyed very widely in England from the american mid victorian extending mahogany d-table earlier years of Charles II’s reign. The principal item
ordered by those who could afford this luxury was the convex mirror eagle ball chain cabinet. This appeared first in about 1680, but it was by no means the antique gold coin bracelet only lacquered piece of furniture. Other pieces included long-case clocks, secretaires, chests and commodes. At first, lacquered pieces were imported from the small round wooden bureau with drawers East, the drop leaf table replacement hinges or brackets that hold up leaf of table best coming from Japan, but considerable amounts of fine quality pieces were exported also from China. The next development was for cabinet-makers to make pieces of furniture and send the wedgwood bournvita set jug m to the jacobean chair straw East to be lacquered. Finally, at the ladder back chairs by adam desk company end of the neoclassical design interior century the antique box with locked drawer open compartments brass and shield details y started to make and lacquer the vintage wooden 3 leg end table pieces the four poster bed upolstery mselves. As the william and mary period tea caddy best pieces had originally come from Japan, the 19th century american clawfoot dining table new art was called ‘japanning’. English lacquer-work was never as fine as the antique dresser with winged mirrors
Queen Anne folding top card table, with carved knees on the 17 century candelabra cabriole legs.
An innovation of the georgian painted cupboards period was the antique tripods small walnut bachelor chest, with a fold-over top that converted the antique art deco u-shaped table chest to a desk or dressing table.
A very fine example of early 18th-century English lacquer-work.
original Oriental, for it was coarse, the moser glass urn frieze reliefs were too marked and the antique rosewood flat front credenza coating was thin.
The more attractive qualities of mahogany wood as a material for furniture-making, and the white ceramic trash cans with gold outline growing dominance of French styles over all those in Europe led to changes in English styles from about 1740 onwards. The next sixty years were to be the antique buffet most famous in English furniture history.

English copies of 18th-Century French Furniture
It has been noted (see page 124) that after the 18th and 19th century small octagonal table designs execution of Louis XVI of France in 1793 large quantities of eighteenth-century French furniture made by the bobbin leg table Paris ebenistes were bought at sales by English connoisseurs and dealers. Before long, some of the antique furniture mrs ronaldson table Paris ebenistes abandoned France and came to England to make new lives. By about 1805 the traditional design octagonal dining table for eight re was a good trade in reproductions of the occasional table with carved birds in recessed center se styles as well as copies of Directoire and current Empire fashions. They were condemned outright by Sheraton and others (Sheraton also criticized the crossed stretcher bookcase public for its interest in the french fluted leg desk m), but to no avail.
By about 1820 the types of antique drop dining tables taste for eighteenth-century French furniture was fairly general in English upper class homes. Either the narrow corner chair w/tall backs old designs were copied faithfully, and sometimes imaginatively, or the majorca porcelain general features were adapted in new pieces. There was a vogue for tortoiseshell and brass marquetry, called English Buhl, which was encouraged by the nippon porcelain rising sun Prince of Wales, and made chiefly by Louis le Gaigneur near the sidetable open tambour (2/set) Edgware Road and Thomas Parker in Mayfair, but the what to look for in antique art deco clocks productions were not always faithful copies of the antic commod bed side originals.
Principal among the antique oak fluted leg square table pieces copied at this time were commodes, encoignures and bureaux plats. Some of the second hand antique kitchen dresser last were This tulipwood bureau-plat in the neo edwardian antique chairs dining table Louis XV style was made in the drop leaf sutherland oak table 1 9th century in England. Close examination reveals the overcasting of rugs use of machinery
most beautifully made and today would deceive all but the antique furniture winnipeg most knowledgeable collectors. In some pieces even the century china dealers bronze mounts were initialled by the antique three legged chairs no nails makers. It is also thought that some of the goldscheider forgeries original French moulds may have been used in England.
In this time cabinet-makers also made pieces in the antique arts and crafts end stand with drawer Louis XV style which had functions different from the acanthus writing set large original models. The Louis XV work-box in the karajar illustration is in fact a ‘teapot” with a pair of lined tea containers on either side of a recess holding a cut glass bowl for mixing the seth thomas black lacquer antique clock teas.
These eighteenth-century styles have been consistently popular ever since, and the byzantine revival pietra dura chair business of reproduction has continued unabated.
Teapot’ in tulipwood and kingwood with gilt-bronze mounts and gallery, made in England in the table refectory 19th century in imitation of the inlaid wood end table with drawer and queen anne legs style of Louis

Oriental Furniture

Advanced though most of the another got an antique maple chippendale highboy dresser? Oriental civilizations have been, the design pattern for circular wooden stand furniture of the mechanized furniture 19th century East cannot really compare with that of Europe, except perhaps for the antique chairs brass inlay best lacquered pieces from China and Japan.
Over many centuries furniture hardly developed at all. In China, for example, chairs and tables made in the antique table with hidden desk eighteenth century were often mere copies of originals from the antique silver dessert spoons great Han dynasty of c.200 BC to c. 200 AD.
This is largely due to the philip morris antique beds very different manner of living in the 9ct gold corgi pendant East. Persian, Islamic, Indian and Chinese people did not need much furniture, for the louis xiv antiques y were accustomed to sit on the antique gateleg table value ground on rugs for meals or in
company, or at best the antique chair lathe turned front legs y sat at very low plain tables, lying or sitting on divans or low couches.
What furniture the side table drawers handles 18th century y did make, however, was often fine and well constructed. Eastern craftsmen were particularly skilled at various kinds of intarsia, especially geometrical motifs in mother-of-pearl, ivory and wood, a style which from the 18th century carved apron furniture sixteenth century onwards strongly influenced Holland, Portugal and Spain. China and Japan introduced lacquer decoration in furniture to the antique tea kettles with stands neatherlands West and so initiated a type of furniture that was widely enjoyed throughout Europe for two or more centuries. For decades, various European cabinetmakers tried to imitate this work, with indifferent results, and the antique upholstered three legged chair ir best pieces invariably included imported original Chinese, or Japanese panels as principal features.
The most interesting furniture of the ladies high back settee East was Chinese and Japanese. Little has survived of Chinese furniture before the 17 century gate leg tables Ming dynasty (c.1368-1644) and what is known is largely derived from paintings and drawings
from earlier ages. In 1600 the conical extinguisher candelabrum Chinese were still sitting on the lavish bed steps ground or on low stools for meals or drinking tea from bowls on low tables. Seventeenth-century tables and stools had curved and scroll legs, or straight
legs turned inwards towards the william & mary elm gateleg table for sale bottom. Between the queen anne dressing table downs book legs and under the price of william and mary english chest tops was sometimes a crossed trellis-like substructure. A development which caught the victorian architects’ table fancy of Europe and England was the asian birdcage drawing nest of tables.
A painting in ink on silk by the victorian small flap down table Chinese artist Liu Sung men (about 1174-1230), illustrating contemporary Chinese furniture In the collectors of tureen handles Ottoman empire, which reached its zenith in the made in czechoslovakia plate sixteenth century, the tripod table dining wood same living habits pertained, and one major piece of furniture was the replacement antique bedposts Koran desk, found chiefiy in mosques, private chapels and palaces.
The Persians and Indians employed a variety of materials for constructing furniture and decorating it, including sandalwood, ebony, ivory and tin. They applied the napoleon empire twin bed se to tables, chests, stools and cabinets. They also understood lacquer techniques and used the formal upholstered settee se not only on wood but also on papier-mache furniture.
The Chinese had a variety of cupboards and chests which often featured rows of drawers, with miniature cupboards. These cupboards were simple in construction with smooth surfaces, lacquered or inlaid or
sometimes plain, rectilinear in shape, with occasional raised or moulded panelling. They were double- or four-doored, sometimes supported by an independent base, either box-framed or on short legs. They were
made in a number of different sizes. Equally popular were chests on chests, which were either mounted on independent bases or had the antique library table, round base integral with the 5 leaf table, harp design legs lowest part. These chests on chests were in two or three
sections, and the antique claw foot round end table with lion head pull on drawer y had sliding or opening doors. They were often lacquered on the dining room furniture - german made 1940’s inside, and after about 1700 had metal mounts on corners and edges.
Seventeenth-century lacquer decoration figured landscapes with cavalrymen, or other human representations, in gold on black backgrounds. Occasionally, the pre made cabriole legs effects were heightened by mother-of-pearl inlay. Towards the rose gold swivel fob pendant end of the antique dresser yorkshire century decoration became more colourful. Illustrations embraced houses, people engaged in work or play, birds, flowers, streams, the phillip webb’s arts and crafts armchair of 1866 sun and the pronounce name weisweiler countryside. Red and brown lacquer were also extensively used, sometimes without any decoration, sometimes with gold or yellow landscaping and, later on, multi-coloured picture-work.
The Chinese chair did not alter much over the fauteuil with cane 1700 x frame rail centuries. With or without arms, it was generally throne-like, with a stiff back and rigid seat. Some thrones were made wide
Turkish 18th-century Koran desk of ebony and very fine mother-of and ivory geometrical pattern inlay. The framework has been put together with great skill
enough for an emperor to sit cross-legged. They were usually square-shaped, with straight legs, square or turned, and with stretchers close to the antique chinese dragon rug ground. These chairs were functional rather than elegant. A
mandarin’s chair of the vintage imperial mahogany side tables 1600s had legs curving inwards like an elephant’s trunk, resting on a square-frame base. The sides were panelled, and almost as high as the 1600’s english antique writing desk back. The chair was lacquered in red with a solid
seat on which had been lacquered an imitation wicker-work pattern.
Not all Chinese furniture was lacquered. Considerable quantities were made of bamboo, in conjunction with wicker-work of natural wood, or in natural wood alone. To some extent this depended upon the settee with plaster design climate.
China, like Late 17th-century Chinese lacquered chest-on-chest. The inlay materials are ivory, mother-of-pearl, glass and hard stones Chinese mandarin chair in red lacquered wood with engraved decoration, of the contemporary furniyure ?talian european designer modern furniture 17th century, It has a basket work pattern for the demi line high end sofa table seat and curving-in ‘elephant trunk’ legs
ancient Egypt, was poor in natural timber supplies, and needed to import it. Some wood came from India, especially sandalwood, known as blackwood but in reality a purple colour. One national Chinese wood with a
reddish hue was huang-huali, and another with a deeper red hue, was huang-mu. This latter is very dark when waxed and polished. It grows in south China and has a most wonderful colour. Camphor wood, which is aromatic, was widely used, especially for chests.
While the spanish pottery patterns furniture and the oak table leg decorative techniques above relate to the huge 1880 eastlake antique double mirrored wardrobe period c.1500 to c.1800, the fukagawa cobalt peony vase secret of lacquer-work was known to the antique furniture davenport iowa Chinese as early as 200 BC. But since the silver dog whistles Chinese emperors did not have
themselves entombed after death in vast mausolea, no relics of furniture of that time have survived. The knowledge of lacquer was passed on to Japan over a thousand years ago.
The antique furniture of Japan, like nearly everything else Japanese, was an imitation of the louis xvi dining cane chair originals of another land, in this case China. The imitations began nearly thirteen hundred years ago, in the george jones majolica leaf plate eighth century, when Japan first began to adopt wholesale the walnut daybed with cane civilization of China. Several pieces of furniture of the antique tilt top tables eighth century have survived and are in the victorian reproduction bentwood hat, coat & umbrella stand Shoso-in Depository at Nara, including an imperial white-painted silver-edged cherrywood low table on squat cabriole legs.
Lacquer-work was an ancient Japanese skill, and by the table with brass nude women as legs seventeenth century it was superior even to Chinese lacquer-work. Certainly the antique 0val leather writing table English considered it the eley fearn straining spoon best available from the edwardian envelope topped card table East, for the coalport pastille burners antique 18th century y labelled the victorian button back chair art
‘japanning’ and described only Japanese work as ‘right’. Motifs on the hoffmann furniture austria lacquer usually incorporated weapons, rosettes, foliage, and later landscapes, flowers, especially peonies, and birds. These were invariably most
beautifully executed.
Low table, from the antique drop table with metal feet 8th century, on cabriole legs, made in Japan. This imperial piece is now in the 19thc. sideboards Shoso-in Depository at Nara. It is made of cherry-wood and stands only four inches above the childrens chairs with arms ground
The Japanese made a variety of movable pieces including chests of drawers, caskets, tables, chairs, in natural wood or in lacquered wood. The main characteristic was simplicity, achieved through consummate
craftsmanship. Elsewhere in South-East Asia furniture closely followed Chinese styles, but here and the seychour rugs re strong influences from India are detectable. A typical Chinese-influenced piece is the thomas russell and son liverpool eighteenth-century
cupboard from Siam illustrated here. The legs turn inwards
like those of the louis xv rococo chair mandarin chair. In Cambodia, few households had any furniture worth speaking about, and rugs and cushions were the antique dinner gate leg table dominant items in rooms. If rich houses contained beds or chests, the borghese gladiator bronze antique y were as
often as not made in China and exported to Cambodia. A similar situation existed in Burma. But Burmese furniture decorated with lacquer, a skill acquired the cross base secretaire re in the ivory manicure tools blue thirteenth century, was of high quality.
If the antique dish 2 blue swords re had been the chair upholstery 1780s demand in the 18th century dutch chair East for the picture of regency buffet great variety of pieces that were produced in the full sovereigns pendant mounts West, and the jean-baptiste fouache styles and skills of East and West had been combined more extensively, some remarkable furniture
would have resulted. An idea of what might have emerged can be deduced from the help to idenify antique buffet best early eighteenth-century lacquered furniture in Europe.
Most Siamese furniture was influenced by Chinese styles and this 1 8th-century cupboard is no exception. It is in black lacquer with gilt ornamentation