Furniture Decoration Made Easy - A Practical Work Manual for Decorating Furniture by Stenciling, Gold-Leaf Application and Freehand Painting

1840

CHAPTER I

Work does more than get us our living;

It gets us our life.

HENRY FORD

BACKGROUND OF FURNITURE

DECORATION

Evolution of American Furniture Styles

The gradual evolution of styles in furniture design during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was an exact index of the increasing prosperity of the early colonies and the new Federal state. It would almost seem that the increasing skill of the widely scattered local cabinetmakers had a direct relation to this increased flow of wealth.

Cabinetmakers were the forerunners of furniture factories. Prior to the Revolution, furniture in this country was strictly an individual expression of the workman’s skill. No factories had been established. Each cabinetmaker had his individual style. The wainscot and three-slat Pilgrim chairs 1640–1700, the lighter four-slat ladderback 16801760, the bannisterback 1700–1770, the seven and nine spindle hoop and fanback Windsor 1715–1765, were made of local woods. The easiest obtainable were maple, pine, oak, ash and birch. Naturally there was considerable English influence in design, but as the American cabinetmakers developed they leaned less and less on old country influence. The best workmen here evolved an individual utilitarian technique that placed them in the forefront.

Increased commerce and prosperity had a vast influence on furniture styles. When our sailing ships traveled the seven seas they brought back new ideas and new expensive furniture to grace the early mansions of the wealthier merchants. Pine and maple gradually gave place to mahogany and walnut, plain and burled and crotch-figured veneer. With this new mahogany and increased skill American cabinetmakers reached their apex. Men like John Goddard of Rhode Island, William Savery of Philadelphia, and later Duncan Phyfe of New York, of course, were directly inspired by Thomas Chippendale, Thomas Sheraton, and George Hepplewhite, all of England; yet the American cabinetmakers refined and simplified the English designs so skillfully that their pieces today in the museums seem to exceed in charm those of their English masters.

Furniture Painted

It is important to know how and why painted furniture became so universally popular and easily purchased by the not-so-wealthy early Americans. The first painted chairs to make their appearance in the colonies were American Windsor, bannisterback and arrowback chairs as well as the very necessary chests. At an early period they were painted black, or Indian dull red, which often was made of a mixture of red powder and milk, gray in a soft, dull shade, and sometimes a dark green known then as coachpainter’s green. After the light but sturdy rush bottom chairs were originated by George Hepplewhite and Thomas Sheraton in England, the vogue for painted furniture, with slightly less ornate decoration than used in England, rapidly spread over America. American Sheraton chairs were made from 1785 to about 1820.

Old Masters

Influence of George Hepplewhite and Thomas Sheraton; the Adam Brothers; the artist, Angelica Kauffman. The Hepplewhite style, 1785–1810, was earlier than Sheraton, 1790–1820. The chairs were painted an oyster white, a pinkish ivory, soft yellow obtained from England in powder form, now known as India Rubber yellow, which was really arsenic-pentasulphide, light green obtained by mixing this yellow with Prussian blue, and sometimes a soft red, which resembles a lively, deeper terra-cotta. Most of the Hepplewhite influence chairs had square rush seats with very thin finishing bands or no bands at all.

An American adaptation of the upholstered square-seated, often shieldback English Adam Brothers and Hepplewhite chairs was quite varied. The Sheraton rush seated chair became known as Sheraton Fancy chair. Considerable heavier than those of Hepplewhite influence, the rush seat had usually a rounded front known as guitar-bottom. The American cabinetmakers certainly used their imaginations on these Sheraton Fancy chairs. We have personally seen about a hundred different variants: wide and narrow top back panels, horizontal and perpendicular secondary back panels and stretchers, always simple turned legs with gilt turnings, and usually decorated front legs. Bamboo turned Sheratons with gilt balls, usually painted pale yellow with orange and black brush-work decoration, were of Chinese influence. The arms might be delicately turned, but more often were of bent oak or of ash in hoop form. Some idea of the variety is gained by illustrations, page 107.

The front stretcher on these Sheratons was almost always adapted to gold-leaf decoration. See Chapter IX, page 107, for instructions in decorating Sheraton Fancy chairs with patterns.

French Empire Influence

The transition and Empire or Greek Revival Period, 1815–1830; the Regency Period influence merging into the Hitchcock and Hitchcock type chair, 1826–1850. About 1815, influenced by the French Empire period and English Regency classicism, American cabinetmakers adapted the curves and ornate French designs to simpler American living. In place of the applied brass mounts and ormolu elaborations, gold leaf and stenciling were introduced at considerable less cost. The effect was not only pleasing, but far more in keeping with American simplicity.

Here in New York the embellishment of fine mahogany furniture with gold leaf and metallic gold powders was undoubtedly the earliest stenciling done on furniture in this country. The acanthus leaf variations and repeat unit borders, with fruit often combined with flowers, made the Empire pieces distinctive.

Striping on Furniture

Wide and narrow gold-leaf stripes took the place of expensive satinwood inlay strips so common on Hepplewhite pieces. English Sheraton pieces had thin brass lines inserted in the rosewood or mahogany veneers. The Hepplewhite had inlaid satin-wood strips. It seems incredible that this vogue for neoclassic adaptation should gain such universal favor in England during the reign of George IV, which ended in 1830, and that of William IV, which ended in 1837. Yet such was the case, and moreover it took hold here in America with almost as much popular form. The adaptation of the Regency here was of course the parent and immediate cause of the decorated Fancy chair and the Hitchcock and its adaptations.

Periods of Chair Makers

The earliest decorated chairs were the Sheratons or those that show more Hepplewhite influence. They were mostly decorated in gold or metal leaf — a leaf thicker than gold leaf called Dutch metal leaf (an alloy of copper and zinc) and considerably cheaper than gold leaf. Silver leaf was also used, and under many coats of orange shellac it gave the final effect of gold.

An outline index of the sequence of chair manufacture in this country is:

American Sheraton, 1785–c. 1820

American Empire, which includes the so-called Baltimore Hitchcock, 1814–c. 1835

Lambert Hitchcock, 1826–1829

Hitchcock and Alford, 1829–1843

Union Chair Company, 1843–1850

American Chair Labels

Signatures on various forms of Hitchcock and other types have been found stenciled on the back of the seat as follows:

Hitchcock, Hitchcockville, Conn. Warranted.

Hitchcock and Alford Co., Hitchcockville, Conn. Warranted.

Union Chair Co., West Winsted, Conn.

D. Churchill & Co., Curtisville, M.

William Moore, Jr.

Holmes and Roberts, Colebrook, Conn. Warranted.

Only a very few stenciled chairs have been signed by W. P. Eaton; (see article in Antiques Magazine, August 1949, by Olive C. Robinson).

The American Sheraton chair was made principally in New York, although L. Hitchcock is credited with making at least the knocked-down parts to be locally assembled.

CHAPTER II

Real joy comes not from ease or riches or from praise of men,

But from doing something worth while.

SIR WILFRED GRENFELL

EARLY CRAFTSMEN —

HOW TO EMULATE THEM

Brilliance of Early Stenciling

Early stenciling was executed meticulously with real gold powder, then obtainable at sixteen dollars an ounce — and an ounce went a long way. This use of real gold powder accounts for the almost miraculous brilliance these early pieces have after nearly one hundred and fifty years. Moreover, the varnish used was a superior coach varnish made by secret processes and unobtainable today.

Example of Early Craftsmanship

Most craftsmen who read this book are familiar with the work on the early Hitchcock chairs. But if interested in the real acme of stenciling, it would be worth their while to visit the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. An excellent example is the piano in mahogany by John Tallman dated about 1835. It might very well have been stenciled by Thomas Gildersleeve, the American pioneer in stencil art.

Need for Inspiration Today

The stenciled piece is an inspiration. The workmanship shows the values of light and shade gradations — the texture of stenciling as a fine art in itself. The stenciling contrasts vividly in depth with the more definite, harder gold leaf, which was etched. An amateur looking at this masterpiece will certainly strive harder for perfection, and realize that the hasty methods used in the later mass production period are no criterion to follow in his own work.

Strive for the Best Grade of Work

It has been our idea all these years of commercial stenciling to copy and follow only the best and early patterns and methods. We can say at the outset, if you do not Hitch your wagon to a star you will not go too far in the ancient art of stenciling. It always pays to pick the best patterns, which might or might not be the most intricate. They can be used over and over again, and if executed properly, the work will have a high standard. On the other hand, if you use a rather cheap one-piece design, so often seen and copied, it will inevitably lower your standard. Contrary to some of the books on the subject, stenciling is not primarily an easy way to have fun. It is rather a serious business, or a creative hobby.

Progress in Perfection

Constantly strive to approach the early masterpieces. Try to make each piece you work on a little better than the piece done before. The early workmen spent long tedious years of apprenticeship before they arrived at such perfection. By no means is this meant for discouragement, but rather it is intended as a guide for your interest in this most satisfying of the truly American arts. If this idea of betterment is kept in mind you will be amazed at the progress made. You will look at last year’s work, and at the year’s before that, and realize how far you have progressed. Quite possibly you will wish to do some of your pieces over. If so, you are decidedly on the right road to perfection.

Pieces often Decorated

In addition to the thousands of chairs turned out from 1828 to after the Civil War, and stenciled in widely separated factories, many other pieces of furniture have the same patterns identical or in variation: beds, bureaus, two-level washstands, stools, settees, cradles or rockers, bellows, boxes large and small, all found a ready market in the public eager to buy anything that was decorated.

ANATOMY OF CHAIR

TWO TYPES OF STENCILING

A. THE FLAT NO SHADE ONE-PIECE STENCIL

This depended on its outline or silhouette for interest. It was applied principally on front seat rolls of Hitchcock chairs and on the side posts or stiles; on top panel corners of Boston rockers and on the front seat roll; on rockers with arms and the armless sewing or nursing rocker. It was used not so often on Sheraton chairs, which usually had etched gold leaf. It was widely used in conventional borders on dressing tables around the top edges and anywhere the intricate cutting in solid gold powder would embellish the effect. These borders were often used on the better-executed Boston rockers along the back of the seat. Only in the later mass production or decline of the art were these one-piece stencils with no shadings used as a central motif on a chair splat.

William Page Eaton

The one exception to this general observation was the intricate and interesting occupational stencils cut by the great master of the art, William Page Eaton, born in Salem, Massachusetts on April 2, 1819, died near New Boston, New Hampshire, in 1904. His animals, men in boats, horses and carriages, and interesting local activities were cut with great precision of action and natural motion.

These one-piece silhouettes in gold powder placed as a central motif on any piece would readily draw attention. They added greatly to the popularity of all stenciled furniture of that period. Eaton’s fiddleback or bannister single piece stencils were masterpieces of intricate cutting. Eaton had as many as twenty odd patterns for the back splat of a fiddle. Strange to say, only a very few of these have ever turned up today. We have seen only three that we could identify.

B. THE SHADED METHOD OF FRUIT AND FLOWER GROUPINGS WITH LEAVES; ALSO, LESS OFTEN SEEN SHELL GROUPINGS

The pineapple (symbol of hospitality) was often used as a central unit; see illustration on page 32. It was composed of two or more parts: the base, the fruit section and the top spines. Around this were often massed pears, peaches, plums