The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California

Furniture Finishing

MIDDLE

"With the opening of the 18th century the vigour and determination of the colonists who had crossed perilous seas to find civil and religious freedom found new outlets in commerce. Active trade with the West Indies, Africa, Holland, England and France created a well-to-do class of merchants who built spacious homes and furnished them in keeping with their means. The living room was no longer identical with the kitchen, but filled the length or width of the house, and in place of rough plastered walls, appeared paneling in walnut or mahogany carved in the classic spirit and solidly constructed by ship carpenters. Elegant waxed flooring took the place of planks, and smooth plaster concealed the stout oaken beams, while cupboards displayed rare china and silver rather than kitchen utensils. In the same room we may see a towering oriental lacquered secretary mounted on William and Mary inverted cup legs, a gate-leg table of the Jacobean period, a Queen Anne cabriole leg chair with rush bottom and splat back, a squat bunfoot mahogany desk of the Plymouth or Governor Winthrop type, and perhaps a Dutch "kas" or cupboard painted in dull gray or green and decorated with fruits and flowers.

LATE

During the Revolution no good American if he could help it bought anything of English origin, but cabinet makers had no other sources of inspiration and loyalists continued to demand the designs of Chippendale, Hepplewhite and Sheraton. Thus Georgian styles found their way into the new republic and by their sheer beauty captivated the otherwise resentful "Colonials." The list includes tea tables, tilt top "pie crust" tables oriental lacquered highboys and cabriole chairs.

It is during this period that 'William Savery, a cabinet maker of Philadelphia, created some notable styles. Chippendale in spirit, much of the carving shows a decided Louis Quinze influence, the perfect execution of which is singularly rich and appealing. By the end of the century mahogany had won its way to the front, but earlier models were executed in black walnut, an especially fine variety of which grew along the banks of the Schuylkill river.

Curly maple was a popular substitute for satinwood and birch was employed for day beds and the various types of Windsor chairs; hoop-backed, fan-backed, comb-backed, etc. Painting, marquetry and inlay were not greatly favored, for ornamentation in the Colonies was of necessity and of choice far more restricted than in the mother country. From 1790 to 1810 the Sheraton influence superseded that of Chippendale.