Articles from the Founder of the Asheford Institute Of Antiques

Articles From The Founder...

Asheford founder Peter Green, is an internationally renowned syndicated antique columnist, dealer and one of the original founding members of the Asheford Institute of Antiques. A true industry insider, Mr. Green has written numerous books and essays on the decorative arts over the years (including much of the school's training Courseware), and has traveled the world as a featured lecturer, international panelist, and recognized appraiser.

Today, Mr. Green remains active with the Institute as the school's senior member of the Research & Evaluation Team. He also continues to provide upper-tier consultancy services to many of the major auction houses and art galleries in North America and Europe. When time permits, Mr. Green is also a contributing panelist for a number of international forums devoted to the decorative arts, as well as a renowned guest lecturer at universities and museums both here and abroad. Educated at Pickering College, Mr. Green completed his post graduate work in Fine Arts at the Sorbonne in Paris. Below, you will find a reprint of some of Mr. Green's articles on a variety of subjects related to the decorative arts industry.

ARTICLE 1 - Volume 1 Issue 7

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. Perhaps the most famous of all the

painted furniture belongs to the Pennsylvania German Cabinetmakers, who are mistakenly referred to as Pennsylvania Dutch. They were distinguished for their industry, temperance and economy. They perpetuated a great many of their traditions from the old country. Yet they also had to become self-sufficient and they did this by borrowing from English influences in stylish Philadelphia.

Floral spreads and birds were painted on plain backgrounds of dark green, red and so on. They made some lovely examples of painted furniture, which can be found in homes and museums today.

In closing it should be remembered that the idea of "embellishment" is just that - the adding to, and enriching of… not the "covering" up!

ARTICLE 2 - Volume 1 Issue 8

Cupboards Come In A Range Of Styles

New York - 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.

A press was a completely enclosed cupboard with fitted door or doors and sometimes referred to as a “close press.” Early very large presses were also called armoires, after the French term.

One form of press used in the hall or dining room had large doors on the lower shelf, while the upper part was slightly recessed.

The later larger press had a flush front, usually broken up by paneling, with one central door or two doors hung at the sides. This was for storage of linen and eventually became what we now call a wardrobe or armoire.

In America and to some extent in Canada, the press was known as a Dutch – a solid type of cupboard similar to the flush-fronted English press. Also the German and Swiss settlers in Pennsylvania had a massive cupboard called a shrank, which was often painted with colorful designs of fruit and flowers.

The last two cupboards I will mention are the small hanging cupboard with doors of course, the corner cupboard. The corner cupboard came in various designs, some flat-fronted and some bow-fronted, usually with doors at the top and bottom and often with drawers in the middle area. Both of these cupboards were very popular in the country areas of the US and Canada.

ARTICLE 3 - Volume 1 Issue 9

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.

Over the years when I have found harvest tables in barns, deserted houses, and old sheds, I have invariably had problems with shrinkage and splitting when the items are refinished and moved into a heated home or cottage. Tables on pedestal bases are less likely to split because the manner in which they are attached allows greater latitude for the movement of the wood.

There are numerous examples of shrinkage. In an old schoolmaster's desk the cross member shrinks and leaves a shrinkage ridge where it is mortised into the 1eg post. With ladderback chairs the slat will shrink leaving a portion of the empty mortise showing. In addition, the glue holding the chair together will dry and crumble with temperature and moisture change. Everyone has experienced a chair coming apart.

The important thing with shrinkage is the simple principal that it shrinks across the grain. The nailed blanket box will not change because all sides are continuous and they will shrink the same. After a hundred years or so each will have shrunk to approximately the same width. The key to shrinkage in this case will be the bottom of the box. Considering the bottom board is fixed at several points it will either have cracked or pulled away at one side.

So, the next time your newly purchased antique shrinks in the winter, don't blame the dealer - check your heat!

Like What You've Read? There's More Inside...

You'll find a lot more writings from Asheford founder, Peter Green, within the pages of the Course itself.

Articles on antiques and vintage items, travelogues and guides on hunting for antiques in strange and exotic places, along with tips on what to buy and what not to buy, are all part of Mr. Green's lifetime of experience as one of the world's foremost experts within the world of the decorative arts. These valuable insights and informative guides can all be found within the Asheford curriculum.