• Recently Written

  • 17th Century French Antiques
  • Antique 17th Century Jewellery, Embroidery, Fashion
  • 17th Century Silver, Clocks, Watches and Metalwork
  • 17th Century Silver and Clocks
  • 17th Century French Antique Glass, Porcelain, Silver
  • 17th Century Antique English and Dutch Porcelain
  • 17th Century Antique European and Chinese Porcelain and Pottery
  • 17th Century William and Mary Furniture
  • 17th Century Dutch and English Furniture
  • Auction Prices for Antique Trays, Mugs, Snuff Boxes

• Categories

  • 17th Century Antiques
  • Antique Collections and Galleries
  • Antique English Glass
  • ANTIQUE GLASS PAPERWEIGHTS
  • ANTIQUE OAK FURNITURE
  • Antique Walnut Chests of Drawers
  • ANTIQUE WALNUT FURNITURE
  • Antiques Guide
  • Auctions
  • Commodes and Tallboys
  • DELFT WARE
  • FURNITURE: SMALL PIECES
  • Mahogany Chests of Drawers
  • Mahogany Furniture
  • VICTORIAN FURNITURE

• Archives

  • September 2009
  • July 2009

• Blogroll

• Admin

  • Log in
  • Wordpress
  • XHTML

  Search

RSS

FURNITURE : MAHOGANY
MAHOGANY was competing with walnut after the first quarter of the i8th century and had supplanted it for the highest quality work about 1750. From then on its many virtues made it the premier wood in cabinet-making. It had a beautiful patina which improved with age; a metallic strength which led to remarkable advances in carving and outlines; a fine figure which made it equally suitable for veneers; a range of colour from light-reddish to a rich dark shade; and a natural durability which was resistant to decay. It also seasoned readily, and the great size of the trees produced excellent timber for table tops, wardrobe doors and similar pieces. Altogether, for furniture of every kind, for work in the solid, for carving, inlay or veneer, it was an excellent medium for the great cabinet-makers of the Georgian era.
Two main varieties of mahogany were used. One kind (Swietenia mahogani) came from the West Indies, mainly San Domingo, Jamaica and Cuba. The San Domingo timber (usually known as ‘Spanish’, or sometimes as ‘Jamaican’) was prized more highly at first. It was a dense, hard wood, with little figure, and was used mainly in the solid. Then the Cuban mahogany became more popular, as it had two outstanding qualities; it was easier to work and had it fine figure for veneers. The other species (Swietenia macrophylla) came from Central America, particularly from Honduras (whence it obtained its other name of `bay-wood’). It was lighter and softer than the Cuban, and was often used as carcases to take Cuban veneers. There was considerable overlapping in the periods when these various kinds were most in use, but it can be said that San Domingo mahogany was popular until about 1750, when it was replaced by Cuban for best work, while Honduras was found in later 18th-century carcase construction.
Mahogany had been used for shipbuilding since the 16th century, and for inlay and panelling since the 17th. It was known at first as cedar or cedrala. Evelyn referred to its worm-resisting qualities in his Sylva under its French name of acajou from ‘the Western Indies’. The date when it came into use for furniture cannot be given exactly. The story of Dr Gibbons of Covent Garden, who is said to have had some mahogany made into furniture by his cabinet-maker Wollaston about 17oo, and to have thus popularized this wood, has now become a tradition. Its use was no doubt encouraged by the shortage of European walnut after the Spanish Succession War, though supplies of Virginia walnut were to be had. Probably mahogany advertised itself well enough. An Act of 1721 allowed timber from any British plantation in America to be duty free. Another Act in 1724 mentioned mahogany by name; it had a special rate imposed upon it instead of the declared value by the importer, but if it were from British possessions it was included in the terms of the 1721 Act and allowed in duty free.
From the 1720s, therefore, Jamaican mahogany had preferential treatment. This not only assured supplies from British sources but also encouraged timber dealers in the West Indies to send the popular Spanish wood to England via Jamaica and other colonies to avoid the duty. This practice went on throughout the century. In fact, the British Government connived at it, for it allowed, and later legalized, the entrepot trade with the Spanish settlements. There was thus no lack of mahogany, once trade had got under way, as there had been with European walnut. Mahogany was certainly competing strongly with walnut for fashionable furniture by the 1730s. In 1733 the poet James Bramston, in his Man of Taste, written to defend the modes of his day against those who complained of lost hospitality, asked: ‘Say thou that doss thy father’s table praise, Was there Mahogena in former days?’ By that time, also, British logwood cutters in Campeche Bay, Central America, were leaving that area to cut the more valuable mahogany in the Belize district of Honduras, thus provoking a long-drawn-out dispute with Spain. The ever-growing demand for mahogany can be judged in the rise of import values from £276 in 1722 to £77,744 in 1800. In the early 19th century import duties which had been imposed on mahogany during the French Wars began to affect trade figures, but Crosby’s Pocket Dictionary of 181 o still described cabinet-makers as ‘workers in mahogany and other fine woods’.
CHIEF PERIODS AND STYLES
The furniture styles of the 18th century take their names not from the reigning monarchs but from outstanding designers, both craftsmen and architects. In the case of the craftsmen like Chippendale, Hepplewhite and Sheraton this distinction must be recognized as doing less than justice to many contemporary cabinet-makers whose work equalled or even in some cases excelled theirs. Indeed, it is not certain that Sheraton had a workshop or produced furniture of his own. Their claim to fame rests on their famous design books, which interpreted prevailing styles with a high degree of skill, and thus their names serve as a very convenient label for particular phases of development. The whole period showed a ceaseless spirit of experiment and a constant demand for novelties from the upper classes, whose needs were supplied by a succession of great cabinet-makers and upholsterers; some of these cabinet-makers’ shops, like that Of GEORGE SEDDON (1727-18oz), were large-scale businesses. Their products displayed a technical excellence fully equal to the work of the best Continental craftsmen. Their patrons, with wealth from land, trade and industry, showed, in general, a high standard of taste. Much furniture was designed for the many new town and country houses, and this explains the importance of architects like Robert Adam,whose planning of a house covered every detail, inside and
out.
The earlier Georgian period, to the mid-forties, when
mahogany was beginning to come in, was dominated by the Palladian revival, largely inspired by Lord Burlington, and interpreted by WILLIAM KENT (1684-1748) and another contemporary architect, HENRY FLITCROFT. Kent was the first architect to include furniture in his schemes of work. He used mainly softwoods to take carving and gilding, but some of his pieces were in mahogany parcel (i.e. partly) gilt. His designs, somewhat modified, appeared in one of the earliest design books, The City and Country Workmen’s Treasury by BATTY and THOMAS LANGLEY (1739). But it is noteworthy that a prominent contemporary cabinet-maker, GILES GRENDEY, produced mahogany furniture in a simpler style, reminiscent of the Queen Anne period.
Palladianism went out of fashion in the mid-century, and was replaced by a diversity of styles, the rococo from France (then called the ‘modern’ taste), Chinese and Gothic. This was the period of THOMAS CHIPPENDALE (1718-79), whose Gentleman and Cabinet Maker’s Director first appeared in 1754• No mention of mahogany appeared in the first edition, and only a passing reference (to six designs for hall chairs) in the third, in 1762. But much first-class furniture was made in this wood by Chippendale himself and the best contemporary craftsmen, such as JOHN BRADBURN, WILLIAM VILE and JOHN COBB (these two in partnership) and BENJAMIN GOODISON. Chippendale’s great service was to apply the rococo style of decoration to a wide range of furniture and generally to curb its more excessive forms. He is now known to have employed on the ‘Director’s’ plates two artists, MATTHIAS LOCK and HENRY COP-LAND, who were pioneers of the rococo in England. The taste for Chinese and Gothic furniture, the former largely inspired by the works of Sir William Chambers, and the latter by Horace Walpole, was cultivated by sections of the upper classes. While rococo relied for its effect on the use of flowing lines, Chinese work was seen in the popularity of geometrical fretwork patterns and Oriental figures and designs, and Gothic in the use of the pointed arch.
The neo-classical revival began in the sixties, inspired by ROBERT ADAM (1728-92). His furniture, beautifully designed and made, was decorated with delicate classical motifs, paterae, pendant husks, urns, fluting, etc. His liking for furniture of a more elegant appearance led to a revival of fine inlaid work, and much use of satin-wood and other timbers. But mahogany, used as a veneer by itself, or with other woods, or for carving the classical motifs, was well adapted to the new mode, shown in the work of Chippendale (who worked for Adam) and Cobb in their later periods, JOHN LINNELL, WILLIAM FRANCE and others. In 1788 appeared GEORGE HEPPLFWHITE’S Cabinetmakers’ and Upholsterers’ Guide, two years after the author’s death. The great merit of this work was to interpret the new classical styles very skilfully for all kinds of furniture. The explanations of the designs in the Guide constantly stress the suitability of mahogany both for small work like cellarets and knife-boxes, and for larger pieces like tables and bookcases.
THOMAS SHERATON (1751-18o6) produced the Cabinet Makers’ and Upholsterers’ Drawing Book between 1791 and 1794 and bridged the gap between the neo-classical and the Regency periods. Sheraton favoured light, delicate furniture, including painted work, and for his finest pieces he recommended satinwood. He also used other tropical woods, popular about 1800, for the best apartments of the house, such as the drawing-room and boudoir. His period is distinguished for the dainty, almost fragile, appearance of some of his furniture. This cannot be said of the final period, the Regency, ending about 183o. There was a renewal of classical forms inspired by the Directoire styles in France, but these were carried out in a strict and narrow fashion, a `chaste’ and literal interpretation of Greek, Roman and Egyptian examples. The designer THOMAS HOPE in his Household Furniture (1807) heralded this stress on an archaeo-logical approach. Furniture took on a heavier appearance. One result was to re-emphasize dark, lustrous or heavily-figured woods, especially to show brightly gilt mounts in the prevailing mode. This explains the popularity of rosewood after I Boo, but there was also a great demand for mahogany because of its suitable colour and grain.
OTHER TIMBERS
The popularity of satinwood from 177o has already been mentioned, paving the way for a lighter, more delicate, aspect of furniture design. This trend, emphasized by a revival of veneers and fine inlaid work, led the cabinetmakers to experiment with a wide range of exotic timbers, brought to them from all parts of the world, especially from tropical areas, by enterprising merchants. Satinwood itself, from both the East and West Indies, was yellowish in tone; so was fustic, from the West Indies, but this faded to a dead brown and was decried by Sheraton. Other woods, which showed rich shades of brown and red, varying from light to deep, included calamander, snakewood, coromandel and rosewood from India and Ceylon, thuya from Africa, ebony from the East, kingwood, partridge wood, purple wood and tulip wood from Central and South America, and amboyna from the West Indies. Camphor from the East Indies was also used for boxes and trunks, and red cedar from North and Central America for drawer linings, trays and boxes. Native woods were not neglected: holly, pear, maple and laburnum were used for inlays on first-rate pieces, and there was a demand for sycamore, which was stained a greenish-grey colour, and known as harewood, for veneers. Mahogany was used with these woods, which led to a closer study of its beautiful figure and fine range of colour, and made it appreciated more than ever. Figure and lustre were fashionable qualities after 1800, hence the importance of rosewood, large fresh supplies of which were now available from the opening-up of trade with South America (particularly Brazil), calamander, coromandel, snakewood, tulip wood and zebra wood: the last, as its name implies, having an effective dark stripe. Imported deal continued to be the favourite wood for carcase work during this period, but from 175o red deal from North America largely replaced the former yellow variety.

Tags: 16th century, 1809 myott.son&co, 1830's ebony table inlay with mother of pearl, 1840's porcelain occasional table, 1850 antique american four poster bed, 1850s corner cupboard, 1851 crystal palace jug, 1860 cir settees/seatings, 1860 writing desk wales, 1861 antique chairs, 1870 dressing table brass inlay, 1880 corner cupboard, 1882 omega copper pocket mechanism watch, 1890s birds eye maple vanity dressing table, 1893 furniture makers oak, 1899 potter rocking chair indiana, 18c english mahogany wardrobe, 18th 19th century jacobean, 18th bristol porcelain marks, 18th c. american chippendale fret, 18th century, 18th century glass fronted cabinets, 18th century antique furniture silver table, 18th century antiques brass knobs, 18th century arched top german sideboard, 18th century candelabra, 18th century chamber pot, 18th century chippendale ladderback chairs, 18th century derby porcelain jugs, 18th century dressing chairs, 18th century dutch silver cake spike, 18th century english arched glass corner cabinet, 18th century english creamware jugs, 18th century epergne glass, 18th century ersari, 18th century french open latticework larder cupboar, 18th century funriture - plate warmer, 18th century georgian wood tripod table, 18th century mahogany english grandfather clock peter w, 18th century meissen candlesticks blue insects, 18th century meissen porcelain, 18th century occational table, 18th century pennsylvania chairs, 18th century portuguese furniture, 18th century portuguese table, 18th century round drop leaf gate leg table replica, 18th century round refectory table, BENJAMIN GOODISON, cabinet makers, central america, Chippendale, cuban mahogany, dark shade, evelyn, first quarter, furniture, GEORGE HEPPLFWHITE, GEORGE SEDDON, Gothic, Government, HENRY COP-LAND, HENRY FLITCROFT, Honduras, Horace Walpole, hospitality, inlay, James Bramston, JOHN BRADBURN, JOHN COBB, Lord Burlington, Mahogena, patina, quality work, Queen Anne, remarkable advances, revival, ROBERT ADAM, san domingo, shipbuilding, Sir William Chambers, table tops, THOMAS SHERATON, Upholsterers, veneer, virtues, wardrobe doors, west indies, WILLIAM VILE