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Tips
some rantings exposing our founder's great, great
wisdom
Tips on telling
the age of pine furniture
Dating furniture is generally easier than dating
people because:
a) you don't have to buy it expensive
cocktails
b) it won't mind you getting in its
drawers.
Haha. But seriously though, ladies and gentlemen, there
are a number of fairly reliable clues as to the age of a piece.
There's no substitute for experience when it comes to getting an
overall feel for a bit of furniture, but if you can
identify several of the following features you should get an
idea:
~ How wide is the
timber? Generally, the
wider each separate piece of wood, the older the item. It's just a
rule of thumb but useful. Check where the joins are between
planks on any wide surfaces. Typically, a late Victorian chest
of drawers might have two or three pieces making up its top and a
couple on each side. If they're one piece its probably older or
higher quality. If the drawer bottoms or backboards are one piece,
or made up of pieces larger than about 8", that's an even
better indication of age; early victorian or before. Think how wide
a tree would have to grow to produce boards that wide. These days,
most commercial pine trees are quickly grown and harvested
before reaching any great size. 150 years ago there were still a lot
of giant trees being felled and cabinet makers could afford to
use wide timber, even for the less important parts of their
creations. Gradually, this resource became more and more scarce and
this is reflected in the board width. 1920's and 30's furniture
often has 3" or 4" planks while today even large table tops are
invariably constructed from 2" batons or less.
there's
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this victorian door panel
was made from one piece
of
timber
~ How close is the
grain? Each grain line in a bit of timber represents a year's
growth. The closer and more numerous the lines are, the slower the
tree was grown before it was felled. It depends which part of the
tree was used; the middle grew faster and more open grained but, in
general, large areas of close grain with 15 - 20 years of growth per
inch indicates those old giants felled by the Victorians. Modern
pine is often very open grained, 5 lines an inch or less, and
consequently softer and lighter.
and
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late victorian chest showing
fairly close
grain
~ What are the
dovetails like? If the piece has drawers they will often have
fan shaped joints at the sides which fit like a jigsaw and keep the
front in place. These dovetails can tell you a lot. From the 1920's
they were increasingly cut by machine and today only high end
furniture features hand made doves. Machined examples are easy to
spot because the two parts of the joint ( the pins and tails) have
identical fan shapes. Handmade joints from late Victorian onwards
have much smaller pins than tails and no two are exactly alike. The
English trend for cutting smaller and smaller pins culminated in a
fan shape which actually ended in a point (a London pin). Craftsmen
wanted to show off their skills and also to show that their work was
still done by hand in an age where mechanisation and mass production
were becoming widespread. Ironically, earlier dovetails were more
like modern ones, being equally spaced. These were large, rustic
affairs though and easily identified as being hand cut. Continental
European pine doves were made in this style much later than in
England, so it's more difficult to date them.
bit more
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victorian dovetails with london
pins
~ how much work is in
it? Labour got increasingly expensive through the 20th century
and consequently furniture was made ever more cheaply. Machines also
did a lot more of the work and hand made features became rarer. Even
the most modest pine kitchen cupboard made before 1900 would
probably have a rounded groove running around the door frames.
Turned chair legs would be bulbous with many deeply shaped rings and
grooves. Carved pieces were painstakingly crafted with swags and
bows flowing everywhere, often virtually three dimensional
(see the corner cupboard detail on the furniture
page).
Edwardian furniture, after
1900, tended to lose a lot of this detail. As more people got out of
poverty the demand for mid-priced, semi-quality items grew. Turned
legs became simpler, featuring shallower rings and grooves. Carvings
were more primitive and roughly cut, more stylised than realistic. A
lot of decoration disappeared altogether.
This trend
continued throughout the 20th century and styles got plainer and
plainer. Not only was it cheaper to make and sell but it suited
changing tastes, as people wanted to forget the old fashioned
melodrama of Victoriana. 1930's decorations were usually pared
down to the bare essentials and the 40's and 50's saw utility
furniture; cheap, often stylish pieces with little or no
decoration to detract from the basic function.
that's enough
for now...hope it
helps |
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