Amusements From an Auction.

With everything going on out there, I thought it might be nice to look at a few (slightly) amusing things I found at a recent auction. First up is this chair:

Pair of Venetian Carved Oak Curule Chairs

Description: Mid 20th century, relief carved crest rail with arms terminating in lions heads and rings, raised on ball and claw feet, crest rail detaching to allow chair to fold.

Size: 34 x 24 x 19 in.

Note: Purchased by consignor in Venice.

This lot has sold for $250. (Pair)

We’ve all seen various versions of this chair and wondered what’s its story.  From Wikipedia:

A curule seat is a design of chair noted for its uses in ancient and Europe through to the 20th century. Its status in early Rome as a symbol of political or military power carried over to other civilizations, as it was also utilized in this regard by Kings in Europe, Napoleon, and others.

My question: Does it fold?

Yes!

And the lions match:

Mostly.

Next, we have:

Antique English Oak Tantalus

Description: Circa 1900, oak case with silverplate mounts, locking hinged handle releases three cut glass decanters.

Size: 13 x 14 x 5 in.

This lot has sold for $320.

An attractive and interesting way to carry and display your best liquor. Then you notice the lock on the handle:

It won’t prevent theft but it might reduce pilferage.

Again, from Wikipedia:

A Tantalus is a small wooden cabinet containing two or three decanters. Its defining feature is that it has a lock and key. The aim of that is to stop unauthorised people drinking the contents (in particular, “servants and younger sons getting at the whisky”),[1]while still allowing them to be on show. The name is a reference to the unsatisfied temptations of the Greek mythological character Tantalus.

Not to be confused with Tantalus, a Greek mythological figure, most famous for his eternal punishment in Tartarus.

(Also, not to be confused with the Tantalus Field of the original Star Trek, season 2, episode 4, Mirror, Mirror. Bad Kirk)

And finally, this:

Cast Bronze Figure of a Rabbit

Description: Late 20th century, patinated bronze, possibly Maitland Smith, unmarked.

Size: 16 in.

This lot has sold for $150.

What was he holding? Could it be a Confederate rabbit? A Federal rabbit?

The Devil is in the Dovetails.

Due to the excitement from The Eclipse Event of 2017, I wasn’t sure I would be able to do a blog today. Locally, the eclipse was only partial enabling me to recover more quickly than expected.

I’m OK. now.

Wandering through my favorite auction gallery, I came across this piece:

Antique Continental Inlaid Dressing Table

Description: 18th century, mixed woods, reverse bookmatched veneered top with geometric banded inlaid edge, two cock beaded drawers, with barber pole banded inlay, raised on later cabriole legs with block feet.

Size: 29 x 29 x 17.5 in.

Condition: Later legs; insect damage; shrinkage crack to top with areas of fill; retains likely original pulls.

This lot has sold for $120.

Here is the reverse bookmatched veneered top.

And the geometric banded inlaid edge.

A cockbeaded drawer with end-grain veneer and barber pole banded inlay.

I opened one of the drawers with end-grain veneer and barber pole banded inlay and was surprised to not see dovetails. My first thought was the applied cockbeading might be covering the dovetails, but that was not the case. It is unusual for a table of this quality not to have dovetailed drawers. Rare but not unheard of.

Look Ma, no dovetails!! But there are nails.

At either end!

Looking for more construction details, I pulled out the other drawer:

There be dovetails here!

 

Dovetails at both ends of the drawer.

I checked the opposite side of the first drawer and found dovetails:

Dovetails on this side of the first drawer.

I went back and looked at the first side of the first drawer and found that:

There probably were pins. You can see the pin residue between the cockbead and the drawer side.

I’m figuring the thin pins failed and the drawer side was replaced with one nailed on.

It happens.

There was another piece there that I ignored at first:

Georgian Hepplewhite One Drawer Server

Description: Early 19th century, mahogany, oak secondary, bow front, single drawer with ebony line inlay to edge, banded line inlay to skirt and square tapered legs raised on brass casters.

Size: 29 x 36 x 19 in.

Condition: Later top; some inlay loss and other restoration.

This lot has sold for $130.

I had ignored it because the top looked too new and was glued up from several narrow boards. The top had no profile or decoration applied, just a plain edge, similar to today’s Bassett or Ethan Allen furniture.

Just to validate my dismissal of this server as new, I looked at a drawer and saw this:

Not at all what I expected.

That’s when I checked the catalog and saw that (part of) it was 200 years old.

Not something I wanted. It did find a home for $130.

I liked the pull, even if not original.

More of the Same Only Different.

I had been struggling for a week with what might turn out to be one of my more interesting blogs. Then I read a new blog from an unusually perceptive blogger that, while not changing the premise of my post, is causing me to rethink the presentation.

I’m going to move on and revisit it when I get a clue,

In the interim, I thought I would share some recent pictures of variations on familiar topics. First, sidelock chests.

I met this handsome Eastlake version at an under-tent antiques fair in Abingdon, VA:

Here’s a form you don’t see every day.

The drawer screams 1890’s.

But is just another sidelock chest with more interesting hardware.

This is another small sidelock with a different execution:

A desktop version.

Here the locking wings are restrained by the bottom drawer and not individual locks:

Not the way it’s usually been done.

Different but it works.

It’s been a while since I featured a gout rocker. I now present two.

First is this conventional one that can hold two undesirable things:

A gout afflicted foot or back issues of National Geographic.

Then there is this fairly modern yet ugly version has no redeeming features:

Made from plywood and non-coordinating fabric,

Lastly, the torrent of Hitchcock chairs continues:

Another Ethan Allen Hitchcock.

Says so on the back.

An undecorated chair.

From High Point Bending & Chair Co.

A rocker in a color seldom seen with uncertain ancestory.

Undecorated with parts reordered.

Still not sure who makes it.

And even two authentic ones:

Green with an eagle.

The backwards N’s mean something. I just can’t remember what.

Black with a flower motif.

More backwards N’s. I believe this is the mark of the last release.

Have You Even Seen Period Furniture?

Some of the best furniture ever made is being made today.
Steve Latta,  6/24/2017

Steve Latta actually said that. Or something real close to that. That certainly is the gist of what he said. Might even be the exact words. I can’t remember.

Steve Latta is a professional furniture maker, teacher, scholar, author and star of several Lie-Nielsen instructional videos. He teaches full-time in the furniture making program at Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology in Lancaster, Pa. He also teaches at nearby Millersville University and conducts workshops at woodworking schools across the country.

He made this statement at the beginning of a breakout session on Rustic Inlay he was giving at the Mid-Year Conference of SAPFM (Society of American Period Furniture Makers) in Winston Salem, NC this past June.

On the drive home, I thought about what he said and decided he might be right. I have been to three SAPFM events where members displayed and explained their creations. Most were not professional furniture makers but highly skilled and motivated other-than-professional furniture makers. (I couldn’t come up with another descriptor that wouldn’t alienate someone.)

These people do have some advantages over those working in the past. A few members went on for a bit about procuring just the right wood. Checking with all the hardwood dealers with an email address looking for just the right pair of matching 14 inch wide by 11 foot mahogany boards for a secretary for their niece as a wedding present. This is a luxury not enjoyed by those working in the past. You can argue that they might have had better wood but I believe they didn’t have the access to any and all wood that we have today.

Information. You can learn how to do anything you can imagine by watching a video, reading a book or magazine, taking a class, or asking your local neighborhood expert. This might not be equivalent of an apprenticeship but we have the advantage of only building what we want to and not having to learn things we don’t care about.

Controversially, tools, both power and hand. Many of the presenting SAPFM members use power tools. Past furniture makers did make fabulous furniture using hand tools alone but there are advantages to power tools. Starting the annual Toys for Tots build, I have to process a few hundred board feet of 4/4 poplar into 1/2″ stock which will then be cut to size, rabbeted, have sliding dovetails installed, drilled and rounded. I can and have done all this with hand tools but am grateful for things that plug in.

Good furniture can be built with either type of tool. On some level it has become a religious discussion. No right answers. Whatever works for you and is within your comfort level.

I do cut dovetails by hand for reasons of aesthetics. Those machine cut dovetails look too industrial and I can’t afford the Leigh jigs. (I can, I choose not to.)

The biggest advantage some have is time.

If you’re not getting paid, it’s practice.
Chuck Bender, Some time in the recent past.

When I heard this, I made Mr. Bender repeat it. It was a bit of a slap in the face but I got his point.

We were taking one of his classes. Some members of the class were not happy with the quality of their work. (My standard line from any class is alway: Not my best work.) Frustrated, Chuck was trying to make the point that it really didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. We are there learning new skills and attempting techniques for the first time. There should be no expectation of perfection. However, regardless of how badly things work out, we will probably still be able to make our mortgage payment. Our livelihood is not dependent making a salable piece of furniture. Furniture makers in the past  needed to produce to pay for food, supplies, employees and apprentices. We have the luxury of time. It would be interesting to discover when in time did the hobbyist woodworker become a possibility.

Your niece’s wedding date is important but if you miss is but a week or so, you might be embarrassed but no long-term repercussions. Your spouse already knows better than to take any promised delivery date too seriously. Career furniture makers actually have to deliver. For the rest of us, it’s a matter of pride, self-esteem and perceived worth as a human being. That and we just invested a great deal money and time in a another pile of firewood.

Having delivered the sermon, I will now show an actual piece of period furniture. If you only see period furniture at museums and historic house museums, you are not getting to see the full range what was made. More and more, museums are thinning their collections so they just contain the best of the best. A few organizations, like MESDA (Museum of Southern Decorative Arts), do have some vernacular furniture, but that is an exception.

Let’s look at this piece from a recent auction:

Pennsylvania Chippendale Walnut Chest on Frame
Description :  Circa 1770, poplar and white pine secondry, later applied cove molded cornice to the dovetailed case, three upper side by side lipped drawers above four graduated lipped long drawers, on a later but appropriate styled frame with a scalloped skirt, cabriole legs and trifid feet.

This lot has sold for $900.

Embarrassingly, in my zeal to get lots of pictures of construction details, i neglected to take a picture of the whole piece. This is their picture.

A look at the top reveals they only used the finest of hardwoods in the case construction:

A few knots but it looks flat. Made from a traditional Pennsylvania hardwood, pine.

Their picture shows the attention to detail given to the back of furiture:

No finish and only roughly planed.

The back of another chest shows rotary planer marks. Power tools were in use way back when.

In a previous blog, I asked the question:  Would Duncan Phyfe have used Masonite® or Luan? Maybe not Duncan Phyfe but certainly some lesser makers might have. The function of the back is to provide structure and to keep dust out. Plywood would have worked as well as some of the wood actually used.

The trifid feet are nice.

The drawers are..

Dovetailed but overcut. Not that there’s anything wrong with that…

Drawer interiors have not been introduced to a smoothing plane.

Drawers bottoms, only a scrub plane.

And the not-veneered drawers fronts, gasp, a knot. Looks to be a stable knot.

Another drawer, another knot.

And the same care and attention to detail was followed on crafting the interior of the chest.

Furniture from the past might not be as finely built as the best furniture being built today but there were different expectations and different pressures on the furniture makers. Modern customers also have different expectations. For the money they are paying for period furniture, I do not think they would accept the furniture as it was built back then although some of them might also buy IKEA furniture.