AMERICAN BOOKCASES AND CABINETS
About 1760-1840
Federal mahogany bookcase with butler’s fall-/root desk drawer, about 1790-1810.
Adesk in the antique square table with lift top, sliding leaves under top base would suggest the want to sell antiques case was intended for books, but in its absence it is difficult and a little pointless to distinguish arbitrarily between display cabinets and bookcases of the bookcase glass doors diamonds antique Chippendale, Federal and Empire periods.
See also CORNER CUPBOARDS AND CABINETS, p. 285 and secretary desks under DESKS, p. 313
Dignified, often massive; the marquetry with birds rococo element played down in the how to tell the difference between an antique and reproduction victorian cast iron fireplace Chippendale period, the antique china chocolate pot pot tea neo-classical style asserting itself in the antique grundig radio Federal and Empire periods.
Mahogany for sophisticated pieces; pine, poplar, for country pieces.
Chippendale breakfront: Centre section deeper back to front than wings; upper stage glazed, shallower back to front than lower, usually with cupboards and/or drawers, but sometimes on a stand e.g. the antique buoys cabinet on Marlboro’ legs made in 1771 by J. Folwell, Philadelphia, to house an orrery.
Federal breakfront: As above, but lower stage sometimes serpentine-fronted.
Empire: Sophisticated bookcases often in one piece with doors glazed with single sheets of glass, flanked by classical columns or pilasters.
Country: Pennsylvania produced two-stage types, glazed doors above divided into square panes; many made 1830-1840 appear earlier, stylistically.
Chippendale: Carving mainly confined to blind fret on friezes and, if on stands, the antique boat grady white legs. Fine fretting within scrolls of pediments.
Federal: Marquetry in the types of antique chair backs Sheraton style.
Pennsylvania German: Carved demilunes arranged in series around door panels.
Painted bookcase.
Mahogany types waxed or, later, French polished. Country types often painted and grained or painted in contrasting colours, with the antique dresser curved occasional motif — e.g. an eagle — in gilt.
Good examples much in demand both for books (especially in lawyers’ offices) and for collections of ceramics, so prices are high, even for cases too large for normal.
CABINETS AND WARDROBES
About 1840-1890
The battles of the antique bar glasses styles is followed by an attempt to discipline design and introduce new ideas.
Many pieces were nondescript – no style at all; but the antique dish ebay more fashionable cupboards and cabinets in the antique frying iron pan mid-19thC were influenced by the antique weather vane passion for reviving, and often debasing, historic styles. Serpentine-fronted ‘Louis’ display cabinets had large glass doors and vernis Martin panels (see EUROPEAN, p. 213). Massive wardrobes and bookcases were built to look like Renaissance palaces or medieval fortresses. The Eastlake style of the hepplewhite mahogany poster bed 1870s purported to follow the antique blue bird perched on tree trunk structural honesty of the martin taylor antiques Gothic period, and was seen at its best in pieces, including bookcases, designed and made by the antique rug blue floral 100 years artist-craftsman L. E. Scott, but at its worst led to such travesties that in 1878, Eastlake disowned them.
The House Beautiful (1878) by C. Cook praised furniture of the refrectory table spanish colonial Colonial period, provoking an antique-collecting craze and some Below ash side-cabinet, with wooden inlay and brass mounts, mid-19thC
CABINETS, CUPBOARDS, BOOKCASES AND WARDROBES
Ebonised cerrywood cabinet, about 1876.
copying of Early American cupboards. The book included furniture in Japanese style designed by A. Sandier and made by Herter Brothers of New York. It has some affinities with European art nouveau, as have cabinets produced in the drop leaf decorative card table 1880s by L. C. Tiffany.
Nondescript: Mahogany.
Louis: Kingwood.
Renaissance: Walnut.
Gothic: Oak.
Colonial: Oak, walnut, mahogany. Japanese: Cherry, various woods for marquetry.
Left, ebonised side-cabinet about 1865.
Fine craftsmanship using orthodox joinery, for best items in Gothic style, some with exposed joints, e.g. through tenons. Increasing use of machined dovetails for commercial products.
19thC copies of Federal bookcases can be very deceptive. The give-away in some examples is the chinese drawers writing box hinged lid -jewelry antique use of mahogany instead of oak for the antique fence in lowell picket shop sides of large drawers.
Nondescript: Fretted shelves, carved brackets, turned spindles.
Renaissance: Broken arches, split banister turnings (machined).
Gothic: Carved and pierced tracery, inlay of stylized flowers, birds and animals.
Colonial: Often inaccurate renderings of Early American decoration.
Japanese: Flowers in marquetry.
Heavy-handed varnishing and French polishing. Herter’s Japanese-style cherrywood pieces ebonised. Ormolu mounts on Louis cabinets.
Louis cabinets sought after and expensive. Large cases of this period, out of fashion until 1980, now wanted.

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18th Century EUROPEAN CABINETS AND CUPBOARDS About 1775-1800
Right, ormolu mount on neo-classical cabinet.
Transition from rococo to neo-classicism (see GUIDE TO PERIODS AND STYLES, p.194) complete in Paris by accession of Louis XVI, 1774, and further encouraged by Marie Antoinette.
Other royal families patronize Parisian cabinet-makers (many of them German) and style soon becomes international, with increasing use of straight legs, flat fronts and tops to cupboards, cabinets, glass-fronted
Louis XVI mahogany jewel cabinet.
vitrines for porcelain and free-standing bookcases (still mainly built-in fitments).
Leading makers in Paris include Oeben, Riesener, Leleu, Weisweiler, Beneman, Stckel, Carlin. In Turin, Bonzanigo, sculptor Above, Dutch marquetry corner cupboards, dating from about 1790.
and cabinet-maker, produces finely carved and painted cabinets, some mounted with busts of Bourbons. Haupt returns to Stockholm from Paris, 1769, versed in neo-classical trends.
Copenhagen requires cabinet-makers to submit designs for test-pieces to the antique roll top pigeon hole desk design Academy, and in 1777 established Kongelige Meubel Maagazin as retail outlet for Danish cabinet-makers buffet, about 1775.
Louis XVI provincial mnoh: about 1780.
Cupboards: Local timbers, e.g. oak, pine, walnut, cherry.
Cabinets: Exotic veneers e.g. kingwood, tulipwood, satinwood, amboyna. Mahogany used in Paris after 1780. Porcelain, bronze, shell, used for plaques and inlay.
Flush surfaces simpler to construct by existing methods because fewer complex curves to contend with when bombe carcase and cabriole leg got out of fashion. Low, rectilinear meuble d’appui (pier cabinet placed against narrow wall between pair of windows)
is outwardly similar to a type of commode with drawers enclosed by doors (see CHESTS AND CHESTS OF DRAWERS, p. 241); larger type has rounded ends or breakfront (middle section projects slightly). A Dutch type has a hinged, lift-up top and a sunken basin for washing drinking-glasses in living-room.
Cupboards: Carved rococo scrolls and flowers abandoned in favour of plainer style in some areas but retained in others (e.g. Normandy) regardless of city fashions.
Cabinets: Until 1780, extravagant use of marquetry, lacquer, boullework (revived by Leleu and others), caryatid figures in ormolu. Doors inset with plaques of Sevres porcelain or bronze. Marie Antoinette fond of inlay in mother-of-pearl. After 1780, fashion for plain mahogany – supposedly prompted by need for economy but huge sums still spent on furniture. Marquetry on Dutch and Spanish examples usually fine.
In France, more restrained use of vernis Martin. In Italy, painting of mythological figures, medallions, urns and wreaths.
Decorated Louis XVI cabinets expensive, especially those with Sevres plaques; plainer ones much less so. Severe Louis XVI provincial armoires cheaper than showier, florally carved Louis XV types.
DUTCH MARQUETRY
Dutch marquetry cabinets in neo-classical style seem to have been reproduced far less often than those with traditional floral marquetry; pale veneers used for ground make refreshing change.
Essential break-front shape.

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