Some Recently Completed Pieces

19th Century English Cherry Dressing Table

I have developed a bit of a backlog of photos of completed work over the past couple of months. In an effort to catch up I am showcasing some of the more interesting pieces that have come through the shop recently. Below I will describe the pieces and the work we did to them.

1. English Lath Back Windsor Chair

 This was one of my favorite chairs to ever come through the shop. It is a Lath Back Windsor made from various woods including beech and elm. It was made sometime in the middle of the 19th century. 

These chairs are great, they have great form and are very comfortable. This one had loosened up so I glued the loose joinery. The wear on the chair was wonderful, especially on the arms, so we simply cleaned and waxed the finish.

2. Four Ladderback Chairs
 
These chairs are pretty run of the mill, and were probably made around 50 years ago. I chose these to showcase the great job my caner did on the rush seats! Beyond the seats, I glued the loose joinery, and cleaned and waxed the finish.

3. Parquet Table with Draw Leaves
I have written about draw leaf table before on this blog. All of the examples that come through the shop seem to be from the early part of the 20th century. This one was made form European walnut and beech. It had a French country style, and was probably made in France or possibly another country on the European continent. This table was in pretty rough shape, so we removed the finish and refinished it with a French Polish finish.
  

 4. Walnut Breadboard End Table 
This table came from Switzerland and was made from old boards of European walnut. That being said, it was made fairly recently. I liked this table a lot because it reminded me of the first dining table I made, which was also of walnut. The finish was in bad shape, so we refinished this with a French Polish finish.
 

 5. English Cherry Dressing Table
This was a sweet little table, made from European cherry in the early part of the 19th century. Despite the cabinetmakers attempts to use good straight grained wood, the back legs had warped severely! Because it was stable and there is no real way to fix this, I left them as is. This piece was refinished with a French Polish finish.

6. Walnut Drop Leaf Table
This table had some beautiful walnut veneer, as seen in the photo below. It was made in the 1930s and I refinished it with a French Polish and found a new walnut knob for the drawer.

7. Reproduction John Shaw Four Drawer Chest
This chest was a lovely reproduction of  a chest made by John Shaw (1745- 1829), a cabinet maker from Annapolis, Maryland. The reproduction was made by Biggs Furniture of Richmond, Virginia. The chest, like the original, had beautiful crotch mahogany on the drawer fronts. Quite a lovely piece, reproduction or not!

8. Mahogany Display Stand
 
This stand had a lot of work put into it. The top was edged with inlayed banding, some of which was missing and we had to recreate. We also glued the loose joinery, replaced some of the glass, covered the bottom with felt, and refinished the entire case.
  

 

 

I am sure I have more photos like these so I will probably be putting together another post soon of pieces that were recently restored.

Late Classical Mahogany Chest of Drawers (ca. 1830)

The Completed Chest of Drawers

A recent restoration project was a chest of drawers from the Late Classical period of American Furniture. I say in the title that the piece was made of Mahogany, but in truth there were several other woods used both in primary and secondary settings. The entire front facade of the piece is made up of Mahogany and all of the other woods used in the manufacture of this piece play a supporting role. Before delving into the woods used, it would be useful to pin this chest to a specific time period to see how it plays a role in the evolution of style from Federal New York to American Empire and the larger  Late Classical period. 

In researching a piece, I often ask the customer what they know about the piece. In this case the customers indicated that the piece was bought in New York some years ago. While pieces can move around a lot, I decided to look at other examples of chest of drawers from this period that are known to have been made in New York. Many pieces exhibited carved columns and similar drawer configurations. Upon further research, I looked at a book I have on Scottish cabinetmakers in Federal New York. The book is entitled "Scottish Cabinetmakers in Federal New York" and is written by Mary Ann Apicella. I referenced this book before in researching a Federal arm chair and have found it a good source of information on a variety of furniture forms. In her section on chest of drawers, Ms. Apicella takes a look at the styles of chests that emerged in early 19th century New York and cross references those styles with English and Scottish examples from the same period in an attempt to isolate the design elements that are unique to Scottish cabinet making. She speaks of the emergence of a wide frieze above the top set of drawers in English 19th century chests. This frieze was purely decorative and was typically veneered or sometimes fluted. Scottish examples have short glove drawers set into this frieze. According to Apicella, This is unique to Scottish chests.

American examples in Federal New York made by Scottish Cabinetmakers exhibited this same drawer configuration and also placed the deepest drawer above the other drawers. This deep drawer was often decorated with crossbanded veneers or oval inlays in the drawer front. A piece attributed to Richard Allison ( a contemporary of Duncan Phyfe and a Scottish New York Cabinetmaker) can be seen in this link:

http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/2504363

The piece in the link has many similarities to the chest I worked on. That being said, there are many notable differences. In terms of design, The piece I worked on has as much to do with later examples of an American Empire chest as it does with the earlier Federal example. To illustrate this, here is a link to a later American Empire Chest of Drawers:

http://www.cowanauctions.com/auctions/item.aspx?ItemId=19343

In this example, The top set of short drawers are entirely missing and the long deep drawer is on top. One point of interest is that the drawers below the top drawer are inset between the columns. The same is true of the example I worked on except all of the long drawers are inset between the columns and only the two short drawers are overhanging.

It is my opinion that this chest has one foot in each period and in it is seen a transition in design from the late Federal to the late Classical or American Empire. The other indicator of this is that the side construction on this chest is solid, where later examples (after 1840) show a frame and panel construction, as seen in the second link. This adoption of the frame and panel construction was to reduce the risk of the sides cracking, because the large panel is floating in the frame and is free to expand or contract. The solid side is fixed at its outer edges and as it expands and contracts the side cracks down the middle. The chest in question suffered from this fate many years ago and Mahogany wedges were glued in place to fill the crack.

Now that that is cleared up, onto the specifics! The chest was made primarily of Poplar and Cherry. The poplar was used exclusively as a secondary wood in  the case construction. The Cherry was used for the top and sides and the upper edges of the drawer fronts. This is typical of pieces from this time as decent Mahogany was expensive and often hard to come by in wide widths. Cherry, sometimes called the "poor man's Mahogany" was often substituted and stained to match the Mahogany sections. 

The front of the chest was veneered with a West Indies Mahogany, probably from Cuba or the Dominican Republic. The columns and the knobs were made from Honduran Mahogany, which was typically used for these purposes due to its availability in wider widths. Other stray woods used in the piece were Pine in the case construction and Oak for the interior drawer slides. The columns and feet were both highly carved, the columns with Acanthus Leaf and spiral reeding and the bun feet were also reeded. The inclusion of these well carved elements points towards a city center, such as New York City, as a place of manufacture, but it is difficult to say. Perhaps this was made by a Scottish Cabinetmaker in New york later in his career. One other element that would pont towards a Scottish or English hand were the atypical small pins in the dove tail construction on the drawers. American Dovetail pins are usually wider than their British counterparts. The inclusion of these small pins in an American chest may point towards an immigrant cabinetmaker. There are many clues, but just as many questions!

The condition of the chest was pretty good when it came to me, but the majority of the finish had been ruined with repeated application of Linseed oil. This caused the finish to crack and soften. The exception to this was the carved elements, which were in much better shape. Because of this I decided to remove the finish from the top, sides, and drawer fronts and leave the carved elements with the existing finish. This allowed me to also remove some black rings on the top of the chest and repair loose and missing veneer. Below are some photos of the restoration process.

These first few photos show some repairs. The first photo shows veneer being glued down and patched. The following photo shows one of the feet removed which was later glued back in place. The third photo shows more veneer repair.

This photo shows veneer repair done to the large crosbanded drawer as well as a repair to one of the short drawers.

This photo shows the chest repaired and with all of the repairs in place. You can see that I manitained the existing finish on the carved portions of the chest.

These next two photos show the side construction from the inside of the chest. There were metal brackets which spanned the cracks in the sides. These were put in during a previous restoration in an attempt to stabilize the cracking sides. I figured that they did more good than harm, so I decided to leave them. The second photo shows how the drawer supports were dovetailed into vertical stiles which supported the carvings in the front and acted as legs in the back of the chest.

The next two photos show the chest during the finishing process.

These last few photos show the completed chest of drawers.

Walnut and Chery Empire Pembroke Table (ca. 1840)

A table I recently worked on had a very interesting history that was revealed to me as the work progressed. The table is a Pembroke or drop leaf stand with one drawer. What was odd about this table was that the top had too much overhang, so much so that when standing next to the table you could not even see the drawer below. Here are three photos showing the table as it came into my shop. The finish on the top was damaged and needed to be refinished, but the base was okay so I decided to restore this finish. The photos show the condition of the piece.

This first photo shows the drawer concealed by the top.
Here is a photo of the drawer and the legs. Looking at the style of the turning on the legs, I was able to identify this piece as originating during the American Empire period.
This photo shows the damage to the top.
The first thing I noticed about this piece as I started to take it apart was that the top was made of Walnut and the base out of Cherry. The second was that where the leaf supports were cut out of the apron I noticed a pocket hole that was useless and pointed towards a previous application. Below is a photo of that pocket hole. The screw next to the hole holds the swinging leaf supports in place and has nothing to do with this pocket hole.
As I looked over the top I found some writing on the underside. it read:

"Repaired by R H Siler
Dec. 5th, 1935 West Manchester Ohio"

Here are three photos of the writing.

So the table was repaired in 1935. What I figure is that this table was originally a one drawer stand That was made entirely from cherry. I saw no evidence that it had originally been a Pembroke. In addition, the drawer sides and bottom as well as the knob and possibly the drawer front were all replaced. The drawer front was cherry, but it did not have any evidence of being re-purposed. The knob was oak. Why the top was made to overhang so much is beyond me, but perhaps the owner had a specific reason to have this done and had the top replaced.

Mr. Siler did a lot of work to this table.The base was loose and when I took it apart I could see that it had been loose before and all of Siler's repairs were evident. In some places the joinery was tight so I left it alone. Here is a photo of the base dismantled for cleaning.

This photo shows the base being glued up.
The top was made from a single board of Walnut. it had a nice dark color to it which matched the base very well so no stain was needed. The leaves were reclaimed wood that had been patched in places where there were nail holes. They needed to be stained to match the top. Here is a photo of the entire top after it was selectively stained.
The rest of the photos show the table after it was refinished. There are a couple of photos of the table with the top down and some with the top up. It is interesting to note that the table was made around 1840, repaired in 1935 and repaired again in 2011. Obviously this has been a very useful table over the years and hopefully my repairs will last at least 76 years!