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Early American Colonial Furniture and English Dado Furniture Commodes, Chests of Drawers, Low-Boys, Bureaux History of Early American Colonial Furniture

The Restoration and Early American Colonial Furniture Bedroom

IN FRANCE an expressive term, meuble d'appui, is used to describe all wall furniture of leaning height, and for this we have no equivalent in English. This meuble d'appui includes chests of drawers, commodes, low-boys, side tables, bureaux and desks, so it is fairly comprehensive. For want of a corresponding term in general use, I have coined the one name to describe early American colonial furniture of "dado furniture" which is clumsy, and far from being clear in it’s meaning, without explanation, but which is employed in this chapter for want of a better.

In England, the commode practically coincides with the mahogany years, from about 1'735 onwards. It begins as a bed room piece, for use as a dressing table with separate swing toilet mirror above. Since the Restoration and early American colonial furniture, the bed room had become one of the important rooms in the house, in which the lady held formal morning receptions, perhaps because it was the only room in which one person, at least, (the occupant of the bed) could be assured of keeping warm. It was anything but a private chamber, as the huge elaborate bedsteads of the period indicate. It maintained this importance-and publicity-until almost the close of the eighteenth century, after which the "four-poster" went out of fashion. These draped bedsteads were devised for semi-privacy rather than as a defense against draughts, and they must have been horribly stuffy in summer weather. At the same time, they are decorative pieces of furniture, especially those of the Restoration  and early American colonial furniture period, in their glory of velvet, silk, fringe, braid and tassel, and they remained in favor with the settlers of New England, (hut probably for other reasons) until nearly  1800. Three examples are illustrated here to give some idea of the amount of work which was lavished upon them. Those of the eighteenth century, shorn of valances and curtains, have an attenuated and unsatisfactory appearance, but one can imagine them in all their glory-like Solomon.

MANY of these mahogany commodes are extremely elaborate, not only those made for the early American colonial furniture state rooms, but others which must have been intended as dressing tables or chests. Thus, in the latter, we find pedestals with a central cupboard (the latter sometimes made to pull forward on runners or slides and fitted inside with one or two shelves for shoes) which effectually denote the purpose for which the piece was made. This, pedestal-and-cupboard, or "knee­hole" table as it is known, begins in the early walnut years, and one sometimes finds the Queen Anne pieces with lifting lids and fitted inside with a hinged and strutted mirror, powder and patch boxes, and other articles of the toilet. In the later mahogany years, after about 1750, this lifting lid was replaced by a top drawer made to pull out on runners (to support it when fully extended) with similar fittings inside. The separate swing dressing glass, on side pillars with cross stretcher, is a rare piece of furniture be­fore the late Hepplewhite period, circa 1788-95. Another ex­ceptional article before 1785 is the cheval glass, but Chippendale  and early American colonial furniture gives designs for screens on this principle, known at the time as "horse-screens."

To the same family of early American colonial furniture as the commode belongs the pedestal
writing table, especially of the kind made with drawers on the front only, to stand against a wall. As a rule, however, these tables have drawers or cupboards both at back and front, and in
the Metropolitan Museum is a superb table (it is illustrated in this chapter) which is "four-way," probably made for the use of four partners in a business. It is to be hoped they did not quarrel;
friction at such close quarters might be disagreeable, and persistent. The commode being merely a glorified chest of drawers, persists in an unglorified form, although in Pennsylvania these chests of drawers are often fine examples of craftsmanship, detail and proportion. At the same period the lower drawer is removed and replaced by carved cabriole legs, and we get the low-boy. These pieces appear to have had a triple use; they served as dressing tables in the bed room, as side tables in the dining room, and, in New England, the top drawer is sometimes hinged on the front, to fall down, and pull out, for use as a secretary, the interior being fitted with small drawers, pigeonholes, etc. Philadelphia held the high position with these cabriole-leg low-boys, those from Connecticut or Massachusetts being usually crude copies, and with light woods, such as maple, substituted for mahogany. There are some pieces, and the high-boy and the low-boy are examples, which lose much of their fine character when translated into light woods, even when the same quality of detail, proportion and workmanship is retainedearly American colonial furniture from Rhode Island and Newport, the home of a fine school of makers, of whom John Goddard is generally regarded as the apostle, do not appear to have taken kindly to the low-boy form, preferring either the chest or the pedestal table as being better adapted for the display of the block-front. The slant-front desk, or bureau, also reaches its finest limit in the work of this school.

Early American Colonial Furniture Accuracy Terms

THE bureau begins as an English or early American colonial furniture piece, in the first years of the seventeenth century, although, at this date, writing could not have been a common accomplishment. At first it is merely a small desk with a lifting lid, made to stand on a table.

To keep terms within comprehensible limits, I object to the name "desk," as used in America, to indicate pieces as varied as a writing table, a bureau, a secretary or a slope-fronted chest with an upper part in cabinet or bookcase form. This is the country of precise expression, par excellence, and it were time that the word "desk" were used to indicate one piece, a slope-fronted box made for writing, where the slope is hinged at the hack, and made to lift up. Where the sloping fall is hinged at its base, made to be supported on pull-out "runners" or "lopers", I prefer the term "bureau."Where the fall is upright, when closed, made to let down on side quadrants, that is a secretaire or secretary. A flat­top "desk" is a writing table: when supported on pedestals instead of legs, it is a pedestal writing table. Thus we get secretary or bureau cabinets or bookcases, the former where the doors are solid paneled, or, if glazed, where the interior is shelved for china or similar objects, the latter where the doors have glass, either in latticed panes or in one sheet, with shelves made movable in grooves, or on pins or slips, to accommodate various sizes of books. It is only by the use of such precise terms that confusion can be avoided. early American colonial furniture AMERICA’S BEST ALTHOUGH these Philadelphia high-boys and low-boys bring enormous prices at public auctions, if I were asked to select the finest examples of American furniture, in the last half of the eighteenth century, my choice would fall on the block-fronted bureaux from Newport and Rhode Island. To my mind they are at once the best and the most logical of all the American pieces, with the exception of similar, and plainer pieces early American colonial furniture, made on the banks of the Delaware at about the same period, in which the walnut of the locality was substituted for the imported mahogany.

Double Chests, High-boys and Cabinets

Classifying Furniture

FOR the sake of convenience of classification, furniture may be divided into four main categories: (1) that made to stand against the wall, (2). that made to hang on it, (3) that made to stand on the floor and away from the wall, and early American colonial furniture like chairs, sofas, settees, stools and the like. We may call the first "wall furniture" and the second "mural furniture." The third comprises tables of all kinds, writing tables, desks, bureaux and similar pieces, and the fourth is obvious.

The early American colonial furniture wall furniture can be subdivided into high pieces, and those of dado or chair-rail height. The former comprises double-­chests, wardrobes, bookcases, china cabinets, corner cupboards, bureau and secretaire cabinets and what are known in England as "tallboys" and in America as "high-boys." Furniture and wood­work merge, almost insensibly the one into the other, and if we include the latter, the field can be widely extended.

Early American colonial furniture Dado furniture consists of certain slant-front or fall-front writing desks or chests (in England these are known as bureaux and sect, (secretaires respectively), side tables, sideboards, serving tables, dressing and washing tables, chests of drawers, and that typically American piece, the low-boy, which is midway between the chest and the table. To include dressing or washing tables in this category is straining a point, perhaps, as the definition of a wall piece should be one where the hack is left, more or less, in an unfinished state; not polished like the front?

 Early American Colonial Furniture the Chest-On-Stand

IN SPITE of the obvious inconvenience of mounting one chest of drawers on another (which necessitates the use of a step-ladder to inspect the contents of the top drawer) this piece, whether as double chest with base or plinth, or elevated on a stand or on legs (the high-boy in early American colonial furniture, the chest-on-stand of England) seems to have enjoyed a wide popularity in the two countries from the last quarter of the seventeenth almost until the close of the eighteenth century. It is to be found, in England and early American colonial furniture, in oak, walnut and mahogany, (rarely, if ever, in satinwood) and in America, especially in the New England states, in the same woods, with maple, cherry, butternut, elm and other woods, used almost haphazard, and often assorted in the one piece.

In England, in the first years of the eighteenth century, when the cabriole had just come into fashion, it is not unusual to find these double chests on cabriole legs, but the fashion was only a short-lived one, and. belongs only to the country districts, especially of the Midlands. Such pieces are never found in mahogany, yet they served as the prototypes for the later examples of early American colonial furniture New England and Pennsylvania high-boys, although it must be pointed out that it is only the idea which is adopted: there is little or no kinship between a Philadelphia high-boy and anything ever made in England.

The English seventeenth century model of chest on a stand with drawers, shaped apron, turned legs and flat stretcher was often copied with the utmost fidelity in the early American colonial furniture like the New England states, and such evidences as wood and constructive methods are often the only indications of American workmanship in origin there is no doubt that some of these pieces were actually imported from England in the later years of the seventeenth century, as household chattels which served, at a later date, as models for the woodwork­ing settlers. From these up to the high-boy with cabriole legs (nearly always made from mahogany) of Rhode Island and Phila­delphia, there is almost an unbroken evolutionary chain. The earliest of the New England pieces are those with the drawer fronts enriched with elaborately mitered mouldings, in the late English Jacobean manner, the next development being where forms of the inverted cup-turning are used. The latter is a typical Orange detail, beginning in England, about 16go, and, in that country, nearly always associated with walnut; very rarely with oak.

Woods for Interiors

ONE striking difference between the English early American colonial furniture in the New England chests, whether low or high, is that the interiors of the drawers in the former arc invariably of oak, and quarter-sawn lumber of fine figure, whereas the latter are nearly always of pine or deal, rarely of poplar or maple. In this respect the early American colonial furniture pieces copy from the original Dutch prototypes, where white pine was the usual wood for interior and carcase work.

During the latter half of the eighteenth century, especially in Rhode Island and Philadelphia, this early practice was often aban­doned, and one finds drawer sides of oak, mahogany and even walnut, no rule or fashion appearing to govern the selection of carcase woods.

It is hardly necessary to point out that the use of deal or pine, in this chest furniture, is a proof neither of nationality nor date, as the "early American colonial furniture" piece made the day before yesterday does not err in this particular.

American High-Boys

THE high-boys of early American colonial furniture from Philadelphia and Rhode Island stand in a class apart, shared only with the low-boys which were often made as pendant pieces, and of identical design. There is some evidence to show that, in certain instances, the high-boys began as low-boys, the upper stages being added later, probably to order. In both localities these pieces were of the finest quality, workmanship and material. The wood nearly always was a fine close-grained Cuban mahogany, of great weight and free from figure. In rare cases, cherry was substituted for mahogany, either wholly or in part.

Early American colonial furniture like High-boys and low-boys were also made in Connecticut and in Massachusetts, but these examples are greatly inferior to those of Philadelphia or of Newport, and curly maple was generally used instead of mahogany. The hardware, the drawer and cupboard brasses, is also inferior and of lighter weight.