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

Magazine Antiques, June, 2002 by Adam Bowett

Second-phase drawer construction initially had no impact on dustboard construction, and a number of documented pieces of furniture made between about 1710 and 1720 combine second-phase drawers and first-phase cases (see PL IV). However, the use of meant that the dustboards no longer had to bear the weight of the drawers across their whole width, and consequently the dustboards could be much thinner. It became usual to have a half-inch-thick drawer blade extending up to three inches into the case, and behind that thinner dustboards either butted or lapped onto this drawer blade. At the junction there was a palpable step on the underside, but the upper surface was made flush (see Fig. 3, B). The introduction of the stepped dustboard was dated to 1680-1690 by Symonds, (7) but no documented examples are known before 1710. Stepped dustboards are rarely, if ever, associated with flush-bottomed drawers, implying that the introduction of stepped dustboards must postdate the introduction of second-phase drawers.

The combination of second-phase drawers with stepped dusthoards characterizes London case furniture made between about 1710 and 1725 and constitutes a fully fledged second phase of English cabinetwork This type of construction was used, for instance, by John Coxed who worked at the White Swan in Saint Paul's Churchyard between about 1705 and 1718 (see P1. VII). (8)

It is important to recognize that the technical changes involved in second-phase construction did not alter the external appearance of case furniture, so that the only reliable way of distinguishing between, for instance, a chest of drawers of about 1690 and one of about 1715 is to examine its drawer and dustboard construction. The only exception to this is the change from half-round molding to doublebead molding on the case (see Fig. 3,B). No documented case pieces with double-bead molding are known before 1700, and doublebead molding is almost invariably associated with second-phase construction.

The 1720s were years of rapid change, both stylistic and technical. One of the first indications of this was the introduction of rabbeted drawer runners. Ordinary second-phase drawers tend to look crude because the drawer bottoms and runners are exposed to view. A neater and stronger solution was to rabbet the drawer sides to accept both the drawer bottom and the runners (see P1. III, C). Symonds dates this method of construction to the end of the seventeenth century (9) but it does not appear to have been generally adopted until about 1720 to 1725. It is found frequently on furniture made by John Coxed's successors at the White Swan--George Coxed and Thomas Woster (w. together 1718-1736)--as well as such of their contemporaries as Peter Miller, John Belchier, and William Old and John Ody (w together 1723-1738. (10) Significantly through dovetails were still used with the new rabbeted construction.

Symonds suggested that lapped, or blind, dovetails (see P1. III, D) were generally introduced about 1690. (11) Conventional wisdom holds that lapped dovetails came into use to prevent the veneer on the drawer front from being loosened or split by movement of the joint underneath. However, there is no contemporary evidence for this, and even the top furniture makers continued to use through dovetails into the 1720s. Before this, lapped dovetails were generally found only on japanned furniture or furniture made from solid wood on which through dovetails would be visible on the drawer front.