Early American Colonial Furniture Wall Furniture of the Eighteenth Century English and Early American Colonial Furniture History

Bureau forms

THE early American colonial furniture in cabinet or bookcase combined with the slant-front bureau belongs more to the Chippendale school than to that of Hepplewhite, whereas the vertical-fronted secretaire, which falls on side quadrants, belongs to the manner of the latter and that of Sheraton which succeed it. These fall-front sc( secretaires, which are only the bureau form thinly disguised, with the front vertical instead of at an angle, are to be found in American pieces almost as frequently as in those of English make. They begin quite early, in the closing years of the seventeenth century, but are improved in the hands of the Sheraton and Hepplewhite and early American colonial furniture schools, by making the entire secretary as a drawer with a hinged front, made to pull out to a certain distance, thereby bringing the inside drawers, cupboards or pigeonholes flush with the front of the piece, instead of being hidden in a cavity, while, at the same time, allowing a greater depth for the writing bed.

Besides the slanted and the vertical fronts, there is a third method which is sometimes (although rarely) adopted, where the top, or shelf to the lower stage, is hinged to unfold forwards, the projecting flap being supported on pull-out slides, or "lopers," in the early American colonial furniture older bureau fashion. With the vertical secretary, owing to the side quadrants, these "lopers" are dispensed with, an obvious advantage, as the support to the front, when down, is self-acting, whereas the slide may be overlooked, with the result that the hinges are often badly strained.

The Early American Colonial Furniture China Cabinet and Bookcase

IT is doubtful whether the china cabinet, enclosed by glazed doors, ever existed in the Chippendale or early American colonial furniture period. Certainly, when Thomas Chippendale illustrates what he calls a "China Case" in the "Director" it is merely a decorative arrangement of open shelving, what we would know, at the present day, as a hanging bracket or an etagere. It is more than probable that china was rarely collected, and the shelves in many of these large cabinets which stand on the floor, and in two horizontal stages, being movable, in lateral grooves, indicate that they were intended for books rather than china or similar pieces. It is not an invariable rule, by any means, for the doors of these bookcases to be glazed; they were often solid-paneled or with glazed lenticles disproportionate in size to the actual door itself. It was an age of good, but not gaudy bindings, although the eighteenth century book is usually sewn on cords, with a flexible hack; an honest genuine binding, whereas the present-day "cased" hook is a sham, often rendered all the more outrageous by a wealth of "blind" and gilded tooling.

Early American Colonial Furniture vs. English Craftsmanship

WHILE much of the early American colonial furniture which was made for the great houses of the Early Republican period is fine in workmanship and in the choice of veneers, it could hardly be expected to possess the traditions of the English work. During the whole of the eighteenth century, the sole arbiter, in matters of proportion, was the cabinetmaker, who had little to guide him other than tradition, which is only another name for inherited accuracy in such matters. Many of the published design books exhibit either execrable draughtsmanship, as with Manwaring, or the utter untechnicality of the engraver. It is in this department of careful detailing, coupled with a just sense of proportion, that the sketches of Robert and James Adam are so supreme, yet even the brothers lacked the understanding of material, the consideration of the realization in woods as compared, for example, with plaster, stone, brick or iron. It is here where the English cabinetmakers of the period excelled, in a way in which their American fellow craftsmen could not follow them. Even the finest pieces, those of Philadelphia, are lacking in such particulars; cabriole legs are overcurved and masses are ill-balanced. Goddard and the Newport School are the striking exceptions to this, and even here it is doubtful whether the block-front is a proper detail for execution in wood.

Recorded in this chapter will show this point very clearly, and neither have been selected with the view of exaggerating the contrast. Had this been the intention, the early American colonial furniture Philadelphia "Dutch," or German examples could have been selected, which would have over-emphasized the distinction. In point of mere elaboration, the Philadelphia high-boys can hold their own with the English work, and it is somewhat curious that the most ornate early American colonial furniture of this period was made for the people of the Quaker City, to whom ostentation was supposed to be inhibited.

While on the subject, it may be as well to point out that practically all of the distinctive names used to describe early American colonial furniture pieces are of comparatively modern origin. As far as I know, such terms as "high-boy" and "low-boy" are not to he found in any contemporary document, bills, inventories or advertisements. They are useful "tags," but they do not belong to the period of the furniture itself.

Hepplewhite Chairs: English Early American Colonial Furniture

Hepplewhite's "guide"

GEORGE HEPPLEWHITE, cabinetmaker of Cripplegate Ward, in the City of London, died in 1786, and his book, "The Cabinetmaker and Upholsterer's Guide" did not appear, in its first edition, until two years later, issued by his widow, Alice, under the style of "A Hepplewhite & Co." Thomas Chippendale had died in 1779, and the last edition of his "Director" had been published in 1762, so the Hepplewhite style had a clear field.

Unlike the "Director," where the designs were too often unworkmanlike, and certainly not the work of a practical cabinetmaker, those in Hepplewhite's "Guide" are technically accurate, and represent, for its date, a distinctly new style. The school of makers which followed the Hepplewhite traditions (it is obvious that the pieces in this manner, which have survived to our day, are not the work of one man or a single workshop) carried on those of the earlier Chippendale period, especially in wall furniture, and it is often difficult, if not impossible, to postulate where the one style ends and the other begins. In chair models, however, there is a distinct line of demarcation.

Early American Colonial Furniture Classification of Chair Styles

The chair style of the Hepplewhite school may be resolved into several classes, as follows:

The serpentine top rail, with pierced central splats.
The hcop back, also with cut-through central splats.
The shield back, in various forms, either solid, upholstered or with splats or balusters, including the heart-shaped interlaced back.
The oval back, upholstered or splatted.
The kidney-shaped French Louis XV back, usually upholstered.
Various forms or combinations of the above.
The legs of these Hepplewhite chairs are of four kinds: the straight, the tapered (both of these with stretcher-underframing, a revival of the Early Queen Anne traditions), the turned and the cabriole (the two latter borrowed from the Louis XVI and the Louis XV respectively). These are called in the "Guide" "French chairs."

All the above details overlap, in certain models, and mark no progression in the development of the style itself. It is rare to find stretchers in the turned leg chairs, and they never occur in the cabriole form. The seats are either upholstered over the seat rails (the "stitched-up" seat as it is termed) or made loose, to drop into the framing. At one period these were known as "Trafalgar" seats, a name which obviously dates from the early nineteenth century.

Early American Colonial Furniture Hepplewhite

The Hepplewhite style permeates the Eastern States of America very thoroughly, and these American chairs are difficult to localize. On the other hand, they are easy to distinguish, especially in the shield-back form, as the shields are nearly always over-large and disproportionate. The American Hepplewhite chair is generally an early nineteenth, rather than a late eighteenth century production, as one would expect, considering how near to the close of the century was the publication of the "Guide." I am inclined to think that the manner was adopted north of the Hudson, in New York and in New England up to Boston; I have never seen a Hepplewhite chair which bore any indications of Pennsylvanian origin, although I have seen others which may have originated in Maryland, Virginia and the Carolinas.

A good deal of the Hepplewhite-Sheraton early American colonial furniture (the two styles intermingle, especially in America) was made in New York State, principally between New'York City and Albany, but it does not appear to have ever appealed to Duncan Phyfe, who seems to have concentrated on the English Empire style.

With the Hepplewhite chair, in its various forms, English chair-work reaches its decorative limit, and the possibilities of construction in wood are exploited to the full extreme. It may be that the return to the square-back of the Sheraton school marks a development towards rationalized design, but the limitations of the latter do not permit the grace and fantasy which is so integral a part of the Hepplewhite style. How great was the reciprocating influence between Hepplewhite and Robert Adam it is difficult to surmise, but the manners of the two definitely overlap, while the designs of the latter steadily improve in practical character, so one can make a reasoned guess.

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