A new chronology for English walnut - veneered furniture 1670 - 1740

Magazine Antiques, June, 2002 by Adam Bowett

It has long been recognized that the construction of English case furniture during the so-called age of walnut followed a discernible pattern of development that can be used to approximately date individual pieces. Thus, we know that bun feet preceded bracket feet and that through dovetails were succeeded by lapped dovetails. The sequence was first codified by Robert Wemyss Symonds in his seminal English Furniture from Charles II to George, II, published in 1929, which established new standards for the analysis and interpretation of English furniture. (1)

The chronology proposed by Symonds is still used by many today, despite the fact that the research on which it was based is now three-quarters of a century old. In the intervening period our knowledge of early eighteenth-century English cabinetmakers and their work has expanded enormously, and the corpus of documented and attributed furniture for the period is very substantial. As a result of this increased knowledge it has become apparent that Symonds's chronology is in need of considerable revision.

Cabinetmaking, as opposed to joinery or carpentry, can be defined as the use of flush-surfaced, dovetailed cases in combination with veneers of decorative wood. The origins of the craft lie in continental Europe, and much research is still needed to illuminate its early development in England. The evidence so far suggests that cabinetmaking was not common in England before the 1600s. (2)

From about 1660 artisans calling themselves cabinetmakers begin to appear in the documentary record in England, among them Edward Brodstock, John Burroughs, Thomas Malin, and Edward Traherne. (3) A pair of cabinets made for Henrietta Maria (1609-1669), the dowager queen, may well have been supplied by one of these men. (4) French influence is very apparent in these early cabinets, not only in their external appearance (see Pl. II) but also in their construction. A particularly telling detail is the use of mitered corners where drawer sides join the drawer front (see Pl IIa). This refinement is found on contemporary case furniture made in Paris.

By the mid-1670s, English cabinetmakers had established a style and system of construction recognizably their own, constituting a clearly defined first phase of English cabinetwork A typical London chest of drawers was made in the following way: the case was softwood or, on fine quality pieces, quartered oak The sides, top, and bottom were formed of boards between seven-eighths and one and one-eighth inches thick, butted together and joined at the corners with dovetails. Lateral rigidity and support for the drawers was provided by half-inch thick dustboards glued into grooves cut into the sides of the case (see Pl. I and Fig. 3, A). The back was composed of softwood boards nailed into a rabbet cut into the top and both sides of the case. It overlapped the case at the bottom. The large top and bottom moldings were of cross-grained wood glued to a softwood core, and the drawer openings were defined by cross-grained half-round moldings glued directly to the case. Turned feet were doweled into blocks glued to the case, with the dowels frequently extending into the case itself (see Pl. I).

Drawers on high quality work were usually of oak, often with a softwood front. The joints between the front, sides, and back were all through dovetailed with either two or three dovetails being the norm. The bottom boards were glued into rabbets all the way around to make a flush bottom (see P1. III, A). The tops of the drawer sides were cut square and were usually level with the top of the drawer front.

This sort of construction remained standard for London work until at least 1700, and, indeed, small interior drawers continued to be made with flush bottoms throughout the eighteenth century. However, large drawers were troublesome because of the friction between the drawer bottom and the dusthoard, so in the 1690s some cabinetmakers began to raise the bottoms of the drawers to clear the dustboard, or to eliminate the dustboards altogether. The latter expedient, common in North America, was much less so in England. The initial method, adopted by a few first-class makers, such as Gerrit Jensen (or Johnson; w 1667-1715) and John Guilbaud (w 1693-1712), (5) was to set the drawer into a deep rabbet and glue slips of softwood or oak to all four sides to act as runners (see Pl. V). The cabinet shown in Figure 1 has this construction. It is rare to find this method after about 1710 because of the amount of work involved, and beginning about 1700 a simpler method was adopted. This was to nail the drawer bottom to the sides and then glue runners below Drawers constructed this way are easily recognized by the three-part construction revealed in a side view (see Pl. III, B). The nailed drawer bottom with runners, which represents a well-defined second phase of drawer construction, was considered an inferior method by Symonds, who wrote that they were "seldom found on pieces of high quality" (6) This was manifestly not the case. Not only was it the method most commonly used by London furniture makers between about 1700 and 1725, but it is found on work of the highest quality The same construction was widely used in provincial England and in North America, where in both cases it persisted much longer than it did in London. By dismissing this phase of English cabinetwork as second-rate, Symonds announced the next phase about twenty years too soon.