AMERICAN TABLES
Among collectors in America there is an ever-increasing interest in
“things American.” One of the most attractive fields in which one’s
hobby may browse is that of old furniture. Nearly every one appreciates
the early furniture of good design and cares to know something of its
history. America, both in colonial times and in the period following the
Declaration of Independence, produced pieces of many sorts. Some of it
was excellent, most of it was good, and a little of it was wholly of an
indifferent quality. As table-makers the early American craftsmen
exhibited much skill, and such examples of their work as are to be met
with cannot fail to attract the attention of the alert collector who,
having a house of his own, knows that by some mysterious providence, no
matter how small that house may be, there will always seem to be room in
it and need in it for “just one more table,” if the table is a “find”
and of interest as an American antique of genuine authenticity.
With tables, as well as with other pieces of furniture, the early
American craftsmen who produced the finer examples did not allow
themselves any decided departure from European models that were
sufficiently numerous with the American furniture-makers by the close of
the eighteenth century and at the beginning of the nineteenth.
Naturally, much furniture from England came into the colonies throughout
the period of settlement and development, followed by many pieces of
French design and manufacture.
If we turn now to English reflections in American work we shall find
comparisons of decided interest. There is often little or nothing to
distinguish early American pieces from their English prototypes.
However, there was no “slacking,” in quality of material, workmanship,
of finish in American furniture. The colonial cabinet-makers were
thorough and conscientious, although not always “artistic,” perhaps.
Certainly these craftsmen had at their command the finest woods--maple,
pine, walnut, birch, chestnut, and the ships brought in quantities of
mahogany. Extant examples of this early craftsmanship show at once the
intrinsic merit of stanch construction and virile line that makes them
so much sought by collectors. Their sincerity of design, while not
always accompanied by the refinements of striking grace, compels our
attention and respect.
Previous to 1776 we must expect American native furniture to run
parallel in style (with natural lagging tendencies, of course) to the
English periods with which they were contemporary. In earliest colonial
times, times when voyages were few and far between, large shipments of
furniture were not to be considered. As the wealth of the individual
colonists increased, luxuries came to hold a place in trade which they
could not have held at an earlier day in the New World. With the advent,
too, of colonial officials, fat of purse, sent over by the mother
country, came articles to enhance as well as to continue their comfort.
One could be more contented with an easy-chair than without, and little
by little the rude bench furniture of the Pilgrims was locally developed
(reverting to English patterns) into a more attractive and acceptable
sort of furniture, or was augmented by importations. At the same time
this increased demand for cabinet-making invited English craftsmen to
seek their fortunes in the New World, and before long a very respectable
home industry, both in the North and in the South, was making its
influence felt.
Fortunately New England thrift (or perhaps it was conservatism) has
preserved to us many pieces of this early American furniture, some of it
dating back to the time of King James II. These New England Jacobean
pieces follow simple lines in general, with here and there a piece of
ornate type. In the reign of William and Mary and that of Anne a rapidly
increasing number of English craftsmen migrated to the American
Colonies, where they helped to perpetuate the styles of this period. It
is not at all uncommon to meet with very fine examples of the Queen Anne
period which were contemporaneously produced by American craftsmen; in
fact, some of the New England cabinet-makers became so proficient that
the products of their shops rivaled the output of British makers both in
staunchness of construction and accuracy of contour. The
well-proportioned cabriole legs of many pieces of this description
extant--the generic term for furniture with a “knee,” derived from the
French _cabriole_ (goat-leap)--are as well designed as any of the
examples then being produced in the mother country by the skilled
English cabinet-makers. Naturally, the local colonial production of
Chippendale, Adam, Hepplewhite, and Sheraton styles was supported by the
affluence to which the colonies attained. During the troubles of the
Revolution the importation of mahogany by the colonies was diverted by
Great Britain. Substitutes, for the time--and this began to mark a
decline, with fluctuations in the materials used--had to be found, such
as that of the sweetgum tree, _Liquidambar Styraciflua_, which in
appearance and general character is very similar to mahogany, its
distinguishing features being a slightly lighter color and grain.
The Dutch influence seems less to have entered the traditions of
American furniture than that of England or of France. A fair amount of
furniture was imported by the Dutch of New Amsterdam from Holland, and
numerous authentic pieces of this Dutch furniture have come down to us;
such, for instance, as the gate-leg table which is preserved in the
Manor House at Croton-on-Hudson. But local cabinet-makers soon came to
blend features of the English styles with those of the Dutch designers
and finally purely English styles superseded the others.
Still another local division of colonial furniture was that introduced
by those settlers known as the Pennsylvania Dutch. This type of “Dutch”
must not be confounded with the Dutch of New Amsterdam. Coming to
Pennsylvania, these immigrants brought with them their gaily painted
peasant furniture, and in the early days of the colony they produced
much of that sort for their own use. Hence their furniture cannot be
said to have been a product designed for the market. Examples of it did
not stray far from the locality of their production, save in those
instances where the settlers emigrated to other parts of the country.
Even then it appears to have exerted little or no influence outside
Pennsylvania territory. Stiff, conventional flowers and fruits, birds,
and decorative bands characterize the decorations. Pieces of this sort
are still to be found in central and southeastern Pennsylvania, although
the majority of such decorated wood antiques extant consist of bridal
chests and small boxes.
In the North much of the early furniture, especially tables, was made of
maple, pine and birch. Walnut, of course, was a great favorite,
particularly with the earlier cabinet-makers of Pennsylvania, where
superb slabs of beautiful black walnut were milled from the wonderful
old trees, that so soon disappeared through this demand.
We must not be surprised to find so little early furniture of the South,
for, despite the wealth and culture of Virginia, the Carolinas, and
Maryland in colonial times, these Southern colonists were equally
fashionable, and discarded the old for the new before the dawn of the
nineteenth century, earlier than did the Northerners. A search of the
southern states will scarcely yield one piece of Jacobean design. A hunt
for original William-and-Mary will be equally fruitless. But in the
style of Queen Anne, many excellent pieces will be found.
No story of American furniture, no matter how brief, can be written
without mentioning the name of Duncan Phyfe, the New York cabinet-maker
whose artistic products justly won him the sobriquet of “The American
Sheraton.”
The period between 1795 and 1830 was marked by a persistent disinterest
in all “things English,” and an ardent admiration for all “things
French,” and this prejudice showed itself in the furniture. American
cabinet-makers adapted these French designs according to their lights,
and the result was not always unsuccessful. At the very end of its
influence the work sank to a low level of artistic merit. Before that
time it had known the apex of artistic line in the works of Phyfe, and
if we are to judge American Empire, it were better to use the high
standards set by his famous productions.
The tables of this period were usually made with square ends, the
dining-tables being of the extension type having drop leaves and other
leaves which could
[Illustration: _Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_
American Walnut Gate-Leg Table, 1675-1700]
[Illustration: American Pine and Walnut Chair-Table, _cicra_ 1700]
[Illustration: American Cherry and Maple Gate-Leg Table, 1675-1700]
[Illustration:
_Courtesy Mr. Frederick H. Howell_
Late 18th Century English Tea Caddy
Late 18th Century English Tea Caddies
Ivory Tea Caddy and two Tortoise-shell of 18th Century]
be inserted on pedestal tables. At this time centre-tables came into
vogue. These were ordinarily circular in shape and usually rested on
ornate pedestals rising from a plinth supported by winged claw feet.
Some of these tables were rectangular and some had double tops that
folded out or could be turned up against the wall. The “sofa tables” of
Phyfe’s design were oblong and had narrow drop leaves at both sides, the
ends supported by the _Lyre_ motif.