He used mahogany for dining-room, library, and bedroom furniture; and rosewood, satinwood, and painted furniture for the drawing room. Inlay was his favorite method of embellishment, with turning, some carving, ornamental veneering, and painting. His ornaments included swags, the star, cockleshell, fan, and disk.
Notwithstanding its apparent delicacy, Sheraton's furniture was structurally sound. The legs were very slender, usually round but sometimes square, tapered, and often reeded. Some of his later pieces have spiral-turned legs. The feet were inconspicuous, usually spade or straight and collard. Chair backs were characteristically square, with a central panel rising slightly above the top rail, and the lower rail kept the back well up from the seat.
For upholstery Sheraton used plain, striped, and flowered silks, and gold and silver brocades. He was especially fond of blue as a color, three of his favorite schemes being in blue and white, blue and black, and very pale blue and yellow.
The Hepplewhite and Sheraton styles are similar and cannot always be distinguished without careful study. Sheraton used more underbracing, and his sideboards have convex instead of concave corners. Beside the characteristic difference in chair backs, Hepplewhite pulled his seat covers well over the apron, while Sheraton permitted a part of the seat frame to show.
AMERICAN STYLES
The early colonists came from England to Virginia, New England, and parts of Pennsylvania; from Holland to the Hudson River country and Delaware; and from Germany to parts of Pennsylvania. The little furniture brought with them, as well as the ideas upon which they proceeded to build and furnish their homes in the New World, were representative of the common houses of the small towns and countryside of their native lands. (See fig. 45, see page [212].)
The interest in Early American art is now so widespread, and the sales of Colonial furniture so great, that every salesman should have sound working knowledge of the subject. Many books are available, a few of which are mentioned in the reading list. One of the most useful is A Handbook of the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum[12]—a book every furniture store can well afford to own.
THE EARLY COLONIAL PERIOD
The earliest New England houses were solid but simple and primitive. Walls were of whitewashed rough plaster or of wide molded boards, which were used vertically to form partitions; ceilings of wood, with exposed joists resting upon heavy supporting beams; and floors of plank.