Antique Home Study Course & Classes - Asheford Institute Of Antiques

Paint For Paint's Sake

 Toronto - Decoration of furniture in the 19th century went far beyond the idea of slapping a coat of paint over a blanket box. All stops were pulled out, and figures, animals and birds joined with fanciful and imitative graining in a kaleidoscopic riot of color and decoration. This is in sharp contrast to the blue, yellow or somber rosewood graining which many associate with painted furniture of the past.

There's no question that on the highest level, some of the most beautiful and fascinating North American antiques in private and public collections throughout the continent are painted and decorated. The painting of furniture, which I suppose you could call "the art of enrichment," began with the earliest settlers in the 17th century and flourished until the last quarter of the 19th.

This sweeping variety of decoration in furniture included

painting used to imitate a finer wood or marble, as well as fanciful depictions of animals and nature.

The many forms of furniture that was painted included chest of drawers, chairs, blanket boxes, tables, settees, beds, clocks, looking-glasses, desks, secretaries - almost every useful and decorative object for the home.

Cupboards Come In A Range Of Styles

    Toronto - Cupboard – originally simply a cup board, a shelf or a stand for plates and cups. This was a common piece of furniture in Tudor and Elizabethan times. Farmers in the 16th century decorated their cupboards with plates and the term cupboard was used for an open structure of this type.

Early cupboards, which had a door, were known as aumbries or almeries. Furniture inventories listed cupboards with aumbries (this term came to mean food stand). The almery was the ancestor of many cupboards where the almoner of a great house kept food for distribution to the poor.

Small hanging cupboards found in churches, which also contained bread for the poor, were called dole cupboards.

A term applied to late medieval cabinets or cupboards on which food was placed ready to be tasted before being served was a credence cupboard.

Food cupboards were also known as hutches and some
had various forms of  ventilation.

The earliest were made by carpenters and were of the same plank construction as the early chests and had doors pierced with Gothic tracery, with decorative patterns with branching and crossing lines, as in the upper part of many church windows.

In Canada, food safes or pre-safes often had metal sheets with punctured holes in their doors. The obvious purpose of the holes was to ventilate the inside.

A court cupboard in the middle of the 16th century was a structure of several shelves (usually three) for the display of plates, while the term buffet was more associated with food. Both of these cupboards varied over the years in design but essentially remained the same for the purpose intended.

It's Inevitable: Old Wood Will Shrink

Toronto - Shrinkage is a factor to be reckoned with in all wood construction. In simple terms, shrinkage is the contraction of wood as a result of a loss of moisture. When a tree is freshly cut, it has a high moisture content which is evident by its sappy nature and extreme weight.

Presuming that wood is dried to a point where it is stable prior to its use (and that's not always a safe presumption), should additional problems be expected?

 The answer is yes. Wood can be brought to a point of relative stability, but the environment in which it is placed is not stable. Invariably wood will continue to lose moisture from years of being indoors. What is more significant is that wood will continue to change with seasons. Wood will gain or lose moisture according to the moisture content of the air. Summer provides high moisture, while winter means low moisture and contraction.     A piece of furniture purchased in a high-moisture area such as London, England and brought to a drier environment such as New York or Toronto often will start to fall apart through contraction.

The degree of shrinkage varies with the age of the piece (how much it has pre-shrunk already), the type of wood, and how it was constructed. There is no mystery to some pieces falling apart.

The move to lower humidity (often centrally heated houses) results in shrinkage. Stress to all the glue lines causes the piece to sometimes come unglued.

The first rule of shrinkage is that all woods shrink across the grain. The second rule is that all wood will continue to shrink to some degree after being employed in furniture construction.     The third rule is that all wood will continue to expand and contract with changes in humidity no matter what you do to it (save shrink wrapping it in an air-tight plastic wrapper!).

The last rule, to complicate matters, is that uneven absorption of moisture (one surface absorbing more than the other surface) will result in warpage. This last point is all too frequently illustrated with tabletops. A craftsman will finish the top surface of a table, for example, but rarely the underside. The finish on the top surface inhibits the absorption of moisture (the primary reason for using a finish) forcing greater absorption from the bottom. The consequence is a warped top leaf. This effect is known as cupping. Understanding and observing shrinkage is at the basis of authenticating antique furniture. Without shrinkage, a piece simply cannot be antique. A piece exhibiting shrinkage might not be unique but it must be old. In some cases, a combination of very well-seasoned wood and a stable climate will result in a minimum of shrinkage to a table and no splitting. But you are likely to encounter more split tops than not.