Furniture of the Olden Time

by Frances Clary Morse

Illus. 34.—Swell-front Inlaid Bureau, about 1795.

Illustration [35] shows the styles of handles chiefly found upon pieces of furniture with drawers, after 1770. A is a handle which was used during the last years of the Chippendale period, and the first years of the Hepplewhite. B and C are the oval pressed brass handles found upon Hepplewhite furniture. They were made round as well as oval, and were in various designs; the eagle with thirteen stars, a serpent, a beehive, a spray of flowers, or heads of historic personages—Washington and Jefferson being the favorites.

Illustration 35.

D is the rosette and ring handle, of which E shows an elaborate form. These handles were used upon Sheraton pieces and also upon the heavy veneered mahogany furniture made during the first quarter of the nineteenth century. F is the brass knob handle used from 1800 to 1820. G is the glass knob which, in clear and opalescent glass, came into use about 1815 and which is found upon furniture made for twenty years after that date, after which time wooden knobs were used, often displacing the old brass handles.

Looking-glasses made to swing in a frame are mentioned in inventories of 1750, and about that date may be given to the dressing-glass with drawers, shown in Illustration [36]. It was owned by Lucy Flucker, who took it with her when, in opposition to her parents’ wishes, she married in 1774 the patriot General Knox. It is now in the possession of the Hon. James Phinney Baxter, Esq., of Portland, Maine. Such dressing-glasses were intended to stand upon a dressing-table or bureau.

Illus. 36.—Dressing-glass,
about 1760.

A bureau and dressing-glass owned by the writer are shown in Illustration [37]. The bureau is of cherry, with the drawer fronts veneered in mahogany edged with satinwood. A row of fine inlaying runs around the edge of the top and beneath the drawers. This lower line of inlaying appears upon inexpensive bureaus of this period, and seems to have been considered indispensable to the finish of a bureau. The dressing-glass is of mahogany and satinwood with fine inlaying around the frame of the glass and the edge of the stand. The base of the bureau is of a plain type, while that of the dressing-glass has the same graceful curves that appear in Illustration [34].