Showing posts with label furniture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label furniture. Show all posts

Saturday, February 10, 2024

Art Deco vs. Art Moderne

 

QUESTION: I’m a great lover of all things Art Deco, although I don’t know much about it. I’ve heard some people refer to this style as Streamlined Modern while other call it Art Moderne. Can you please tell me a little about this style? And what about Streamlined Modern? Is it related to Art Deco?

ANSWER: Art Deco and Art Moderne overlap, both stylistically and chronologically. Both were in vogue in the first half of the 20th century. But it's more a question of style than dates. While Art Deco emphasized verticality and stylized, geometric ornamentation, Art Moderne was a horizontal design, emphasizing movement and sleekness;.

The Art Deco style made its debut at the 1925 World's Fair in Paris—the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes or the International Exhibition of Modern and Industrial Decorative Arts—but the term Art Deco wasn’t used until 1966. A group of French architects and interior designers, who banded together to form the Societe des Artistes Decorateurs, developed the style to incorporate elements of style from diverse modern artworks and current fashion trends. Influence from Cubism and Surrealism, Egyptian and African folk art can be seen in the lines and embellishments, and Asian influences contribute symbolism, grace and detail.

Art Deco was already an internationally mature style by 1925—one that had flourished in the years following World War I and peaked at the time of the fair. The enormous commercial success of Art Deco ensured that designers and manufacturers throughout Europe continued to promote this style until well into the 1930s. 

Sometimes Deco designers applied ornamentation to the surface of an object, like a decorative skin, but at other times the utilitarian designs of bowls, plates, vases, and furniture were themselves purely ornamental. These objects weren’t intended for practical use but rather created for their decorative value alone, exploiting the beauty of form or material. Among the most popular and recurring motifs were the human figure, animals, flowers, and plants. Abstract geometric decoration was also common. 

Victorians loved to apply ornamentation onto furniture, to embellish basic frames and shapes. With Art Deco, the texture and embellishment came from contrasts in a variety of colored woods and inlays or in the material itself. Designers often used burled or birds-eye or visibly grained woods, tortoise shell, ivory, tooled leathers. Lacquered glosses accentuated color differences. Animal skins and patterned fabrics in bright colors were also popular as upholstery.

Though it spread to other countries, Art Deco was a distinctively French response to the postwar demand for luxurious objects and fine craftsmanship. French designers utilized lavish materials and such rich, traditional decorative techniques as inlay and veneer on streamlined geometric forms.

Art Deco reflected the general optimism and carefree mood that swept Europe and the United States following World War I. Hope and prosperity are represented in sunburst designs, chevrons and references to the good life in the elegant figures depicted in casual, sensual poses, often dancing or sipping cocktails. The modern influences heralded a bright and shining future outlook that found its way to architecture, jewelry, automobile design and even extended to ordinary things such as refrigerators and trash cans.

Exoticism also played a role in Art Deco. During the 1920s and 1930s, the French government encouraged designers to take advantage of resources—like raw materials and a skilled workforce—that could be imported from the nation's colonies in Asia and Africa. The resulting growth of interest in the arts of colonial countries in Asia and Africa led French designers to explore new materials, such as ivory, sharkskin, and exotic woods, techniques such as lacquering and ceramic glazes, and forms that evoked faraway places and cultures. 

Art Moderne
 Moderne, also called Streamlined Modern, was an American invention that first appeared in the 1930s and lasted into the 1940s. Although taking its design concepts from Art Deco, it was a completely different style It was bigger and bolder. While Art Deco placed an emphasis on shape, Art Moderne was streamlined. Unfortunately, this is the style most Americans confuse with Art Deco.

Think of Art Moderne as Art Deco on steroids. Moderne was positively streamlined—at the time a new scientific theory that shaping objects along curving lines to cut wind resistance would make them move more efficiently. The furniture in this style was much more pared down, making its outline more geometric in sleek curves like a tear drop or torpedo. Moderne designers often conceived pieces as a series of escalating levels- similar to a staircase or the setback effect of skyscrapers that were rising in every city.

While rich colors, bold geometry, and decadent detail work characterized Art Deco, evoking glamour, luxury, and order with symmetrical designs in exuberant shapes, Art Moderne was essentially a machine-made style focused on mass production, functional efficiency, and a more abstract look coming from the Bauhaus in Germany.

Much of it was designed to be mass-produced, but even if it wasn't, it looked as if it could be: Art Deco's balance and proportion extended to regularity and repetition. Much of the decorative interest in a Moderne piece comes from the precision of line and duplication of functional features. Art Moderne designs often conveyed a sense of motion.

Art Moderne designers favored simpler, aerodynamic lines and forms in the modeling of ships, airplanes, and automobiles. In the modern machine age smooth surfaces, curved corners, and an emphasis on horizontal lines came into fashion. Streamlining appeared on everyday objects and buildings such as roadside diners, motor hotels, movie theaters, early strip malls and shopping centers, seaside marinas, and air and bus terminals. Trains, ocean liners, airplane fuselages, as well as luxury automobiles all sported the Moderne look.

People often refer to furnishings and buildings from the 1920s through the 1940s as Art Deco. Understanding the difference between Art Deco and Art Moderne isn't always easy, especially since Art Deco was originally called Moderne.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about "The Age of Photography" in the 2023 Holiday Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.


Thursday, October 12, 2023

Shaping the Modern American Lifestyle

 

QUESTION: For the last several years I’ve begun to purchase various pieces of Mid-Century Modern furniture and accessories. While doing so, the name Russel Wright has come up frequently. I understand he was one of the more influential industrial designers of the 20th century. I’d like to learn more about him and his designs, so that I can be on the lookout for them as I browse thrift shops and used furniture stores. What can you tell me about Wright and his designs?

ANSWER: Russel Wright was indeed a master of modern design. He created dinnerware, glasses, spun aluminum, wooden tableware, stainless steel flatware, textiles, and furniture, giving a sense of style to the modern American home. Wright was one of the premier industrial designers of the modern era.

He first began to work in silver and chrome, creating small decorative circus animals for gift shops. His later work in chrome came after he signed a contract to design for Chase Brass & Copper, which he did from 1935 to 1946. Wright's designs for Chase are hot marked with his name.

Wright’s early gift items were expensive, and being in the midst of the Great Depression, he found it necessary to develop items that were more affordable. So he instead turned to spun aluminum, actually manufacturing items in the basement of he and his wife’s home.  He created around a 100 items, including stove-to-table items, a concept which doesn’t work well in aluminum but which was later expressed in other materials. Wright combined aluminum with wood, rattan, or cork, enabling the resulting pieces to be combined in a variety of ways.

From aluminum Wright moved on in 1935 to create the Oceanic line of woodenware for Elise Wood Working Company. For these designs, he used naturalistic the forms of leaves, snail spirals, starfish, and water ripples. Even though they were all machine made, these products had a handmade look and feel.

Wright's first furniture designs, for Heywood-Wakefield in 1934, made use of curved veneers and looked more Art Deco than his later furniture. Unfortunately, these pieces didn’t sell well and weren’t durable enough to use constantly. But they showed Wright's early interest in open stock pieces that could be used in a variety of ways.

The breakthrough in furniture design for Wright came with his introduction of American Modern, a line manufactured in American rock maple by Conant Ball, which sold the pieces in both dark and "blonde" finishes. Wright’s wife, Mary, coined the name "American Modern," which was later used for other products for the home. Macy's was so enthusiastic about the furniture line that they constructed a nine-room house in their New York store to display the furniture in room settings.

Wright also worked with the Old Hickory Furniture Company in Martinsville, Indiana on unique rustic furniture featuring his modern stylings. The Old Hickory line first appeared in 1942 and some of the designs stayed popular through the 1950s.

In 1939, Wright introduced a colorful line of American Modern china, the most widely sold American ceramic dinnerware in the country’s history, made by Steubenville Pottery, of Steubenville, Ohio. But American Modem china was low-tired, thus subject to chipping and crazing. After World War II, Wright introduced Iroquois Casual China, made with a high-fired glaze, suitable for dishwasher use, that came with a three-year guarantee. 

He followed his successful china line with glasses, flatware and textiles. This was the beginning of Wright’s American lifestyle, as he offered consumers a way to create a comfortable home with a unified look as they put it together, piece by piece. American Modern china, in production from 1939 until 1959, was the country’s all-time biggest selling line of dishes.

In addition to ceramic dinnerware, Wright also designed several popular lines of Melmac melamine resin plastic dinnerware for the home and did early research on plastic Melmac dinnerware for restaurant use. Beginning in 1953, Northern Plastic Company of Boston began production of his first Melmac line of plastic dinnerware for the home, called "Residential."  

As with his ceramic dinnerware, Wright began designing his Melmac only in solid colors, but by the end of the 1950s created several patterns ornamented with decoration, usually depicting plant forms.

Wright's approach to design came from the belief that the dining table was the center of the home. Working outward from there, he designed tableware to larger furniture, architecture to landscaping, all fostering an easy, informal lifestyle. It was through his popular and widely distributed housewares and furnishings that he influenced the way many Americans lived and organized their homes in the mid-20th century.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about "Coffee--The Brew of Life" in the 2023 Summer Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.






Wednesday, June 21, 2023

Horn a Plenty

 

QUESTION: I’ve always been fascinated by antique items made of horn. I see them in cases at antique shows all the time. I’ve even purchased a hair comb or two and a walking stick with a horn handle. But I have no idea how these items were produced. I assume most of them were made in the 19th century, but I’m only guessing. Can you give me some insight into the production of products from cow’s horn.

ANSWER: Horn has long been used to make various utilitarian objects. Ancient people blew through it to call meetings and such. Other horns held gun powder for muskets. And ornate hair combs made of horn were all the rage in Victorian times.

Long before synthetic materials like Celluloid, Bakelite,  and Lucite came on the scene,  Mother Nature provided an interesting assortment of moldable organic materials. These unique substances from plants and animals are known as "natural plastics."

Thermoplastics are materials that are made pliable by the application of heat, then molded with pressure or by casting in a cold mold. Additional applications of heat will subsequently re-soften thermoplastics and distort the original molded shape of an object. Though many modern thermoplastics are recyclable, antique thermoplastics can be permanently damaged by heat. Testing methods, such as exposure to hot water and the ever-popular hot pin test, can ruin valuable antique objects that are very often irreplaceable. So caution should be taken when trying to identify the materials from which some antique molded items are made.

Collectors seek objects fashioned from natural thermoplastic materials like cow horn in the 18th and 19th centuries. Over time, people used horn for a .variety of useful and ornamental applications. It required persistence and hard work to understand its unique properties. Through trial and error, ingenuity and luck, horn smiths developed successful fabricating techniques for working with horn.

Horn is a form of a protein called keratin, the same type of material as in fish scales, bird feathers, human hair and fingernails. Tiny compressed hair-like fibers, which can be seen with a magnifying glass, make up the structure of ' horn. Because of its unique protein formation, horn frays easily and has a tendency to split and crack during fabrication, making it difficult to work with. 

Horn smiths harvested, cleaned and fabricated horn into a variety of useful and ornamental objects such as dressing combs, hair ornaments, buttons, jewelry, decorative inlaid frames, trinket and snuffboxes. Because of Its beautiful pale translucent quality, they used horn extensively during the Edwardian Era for producing Art Nouveau accessories that depicted the dragon fly motif. 

Horn was a plentiful by-product of the meat and leather industries. It had been used for centuries n its raw state to make objects like powder horns and for fashioning common utilitarian items such as serving spoons and shoehorns. Oxen, steer and cow horn ranged in color from pale cream to light mottled gray. Buffalo horn, obtained from India, Thailand, and China, was dark brown. Domestic cattle horn vas plentiful and ranged in color tones from pale grayish green to streaked dark brown.

Manufacturers used raw cattle horn to make pressed rattans, umbrella and utensil handles, jewelry items and dressing combs. But Before these finished products could reach consumers, they had to first be fabricated. This process actually began with the meat industry.

Slaughterhouses had a surplus of raw cattle horn, which they stockpiled into various sizes and colors. This they sold cheaply to manufacturing companies or merchants who were in the business of applying horn to fabricators. A representative from the fabricating company would carefully select horn for specialty items like ornamental hair combs. Some representatives traveled the world searching for fine horn. When color wasn’t a consideration, the horn went for making common utilitarian objects like utensil handles or buttons.

After sorting, fabricators prepared the raw horn for the first step in processing. Workers trimmed the ends away by means of sawing two cross cuts—the first called the "head" or "rootº cut and the second the "screw" or "tip" cut. They then gathered the tips  to make utensil handles and buttons and used the ragged edges of the head cut to produce fertilizer.

They then sent the trimmed horn to the "opening department" where they soaked it with water and heated it over an open fire until it became softened. Another method commonly employed by fabricators involved softening the trimmed horn in huge vats of hot water or oil.

Nevertheless, once sufficiently pliable, the horn was ready to be split open. In order to prevent waste and in an attempt to end up with a rectangular piece of material, workers made an elongated, spiral cut beginning from the widest part of the horn up through the narrow section. After slitting, they forced the  horn open using tongs, and then placed it between screw plates to flattened it.

Fabricators often performed special finishing techniques on raw horn to change its appearance. They frequently clarified and sometimes stained it. The clarifying process involved squeezing the cleaned and flattened material between heated and oiled iron plates under tremendous pressure until it became translucent. Lantern makers used clarified horn, which had a slight greenish hue, as a "glaze" instead of glass in lanterns throughout the 18º and 19" centuries. Another use for ultra thin, translucent sheets of horn was to layer them between the pages of important documents in order to protect them from damage caused by bleeding inks. But the most important application of clarified horn was in the production of fancy ornamental hair combs.

Horn smiths stained clarified horn to resemble expensive tortoiseshell by first exposing it to diluted nitric acid which turned it a pale yellow. Once they achieved the desired amber color, they sprinkled and streaked the horn with a mixture of caustic soda, litharge, or lead monoxide, and dragon's blood, a colored resin derived from the rattan palm. This solution reacted with the nitric acid in the treated horn and turned the affected areas orange. The end result was a mottled imitation of tortoiseshell in mellow shades of amber and orange. Records show that in the late 1880s the comb factory of Stewart & Company of  Aberdeen, Scotland, used 3.5 million horns to only 600 pounds of authentic tortoiseshell per year.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about "Advertising of the Past" in the 2023 Spring Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

Tuesday, June 6, 2023

Those Happy Days

 

QUESTION: After the death of my mother, I’ve started to clear out my parent’s house to get it ready for sale. Among the items I’ve been sorting through were a good number of what I believe were things from the 1950s. Since I was only a small child during that time, I’m really not exactly sure what is from back then. Can you give me an idea of the type of things that might have some resale value and where I might sell them?

ANSWER: The 1950s were a time of relative prosperity after the end of World War II. However, items from back then fall into two categories—higher end pieces like futuristically designed furniture and accessories and everyday items like kitchen and household wares. And collectors are pretty much divided into these two groups, also.

Many people, especially younger ones, view the 1950s as a time of carefree happy days. The T.V. show “Happy Days” did a lot to help that a long. But, in fact, the decade was filled with rules and restrictions, the result of which caused the backlash among younger people in the 1960s.  But recently collectors have been resurrecting and rediscovering the era, albeit while wearing rose-colored glasses.

However, the 1950s was a decade of creative solutions and bold designs. Objects once outdated, corny and embarrassing, whose final resting place was yard sales and thrift stores, are now found in pricey shops in major cities. This serious second look from dealers,. collectors and architects transcends all the outlandish fads, weird shapes, silly ideas and annoying colors. What they’re now seeing are progressive designs and superb workmanship, mostly on the high-end pieces. 

Transitional best describes the Fifties decade. America was passing out of the dark, serious, wartime 1940s into a colorful era of discovery, experimentation, and prosperity. Veterans were starting families in the suburban developments like Levittown in both Long Island and southeastern Pennsylvania. Mom’s found themselves bound by their apron strings in the kitchen while dads went off to work. Dwight Eisenhower led the country while Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle dominated centerfield. And automobiles were large, showy, and powerful.  

Designers, fueled by the exploration of outer space, applied the graceful, soft curves and lines of Art Deco to furniture and appliances, which took on streamlined, futuristic shapes. When the Russians launched the world’s first satellite, Sputnik, in October 1957, merchandise that resembled sleek spacecraft seemed all the more apropos for the times.

News broadcasts came over Bakelite and C radios that sported rounded, curved lines and often bold coloring. Designers adopted shiny chrome for lamps, table and chair legs, blenders, toasters, and waffle irons. Tubular steel added simplicity, beauty and durability to furniture and accessories. Lighting fixtures and clocks sprouted appendages resembling sparkling celestial bodies or satellites.

For the growing middle class, manufacturers employed chrome's step-sister, aluminum, to mass-produce inexpensive tumblers, goblets, cocktail shakers, trays and ice buckets. Plastic, especially red, could be found in most kitchens in condiment containers and curtains. Cabinets contained Fiesta ware, simple, pastel-colored dishes for everyday use.

Decorative figurines became popular. No living room was complete without a black ceramic panther slinking on a tabletop or used as a lamp base. Small ceramic lamps with a doll, animal, or other figure, marketed as the perfect little glow to set atop the TV, supposedly helped to save viewers’ eyesight in darkened rooms.

Coffee tables assumed the shape of boomerangs. Wall clocks looked like exploding, atoms or models of molecular structure. Kitchen tables, made of durable Formica in bright red, yellow, and often turquoise, complemented shiny white enamel hanging cabinets. Builders of new suburban homes tiled the bathrooms in black and pink or sea green. 

In the better part of towns, a sophisticated 1950's home might contain a pair of Eero Saarinen's all-enveloping womb chairs in bright red, or had as its piece de resistance a free form, walnut and glass coffee table designed by Isamu Noguchi. 

Baby boomers, looking to recall items with which they grew up, have fueled the current interest in what’s now commonly referred to as the Mid-Century Modern style—taking in the 1950s and 1960s. They perceive the Fifties as an innocent time compared to now.

Manufacturers designed products for the Machine Age, using mass-production and assembly line methods. Thus, many of today’s collectors seek pieces developed by specific designers whose creations bring higher prices.

Charles Eames worked for the Herman Miller Company of Zeeland, Mich. He popularized furniture made of laminated plywood and bentwood. George Nelson, also of Herman Miller, designed clocks and furniture. Paul Frankl designed furniture from the 1920s to the 1950s. Influenced by Art Deco, he used both geometric and curved shapes. His simple, black and white, curved lacquered pine tables and desks today sell for several thousand dollars each.

Knoll International of New York employed Eero Saarinen. Best-known for his molded plastic womb chair, he worked also in cast aluminum. Italian immigrant and sculptor Harry Bertoia also designed for Knoll, where he pioneered in using metal rods and wire in side and lounge chairs. And Gilbert Rohde, also associated with the Herman Miller Company, combined traditional mahogany and maple with chrome and glass.

Russel Wright worked in glass, plastics, aluminum, textiles, pottery and furniture. He designed tableware for the Steubenville Pottery Company, Iroquois China Company, and Harker Chinaware. And he developed furniture for Knoll and Heywood Wakefield.

Unlike painters, these artists didn’t sign their work, so collectors need to learn to identify furniture by shapes, materials, and quality of workmanship. Although the furniture usually had manufacturer data on paper labels, many of the labels have long since fallen off.

Other companies mass-produced less expensive look-alike imitations of designer furniture. And the U.S. courts refused to allow the original designers to legally. protect their work, which further complicated matters.

Fifties merchandise sells consistently well, especially chrome kitchen appliances, decanters, cake covers and lazy Susans. During the 1990s, items from the 1950s was cheap by today’s standards. But as the popularity of these items has grown, so have the prices. Aluminum Christmas trees, illuminated by a revolving color wheel, are a good example. Once castaways, they now sell for over $150.

And while Fifties kitchen appliances are still popular with collectors, especially if they’re in excellent condition, the market for them has softened somewhat.  However, colorful Bakelite and Catalin radios still sell for three figures.

As far as selling items from the 1950s, both eBay and Etsy are probably the best bet. Selling them at yard or garage sales or fleamarkets won’t really yield much of a profit. Regardless of the site, the Internet offers a global market with the possibility of selling at higher prices.   

The consensus among dealers today is that a lot of 1950s furnishings sit in attics, basements, and thrift shops waiting to be purchased for a song by the wise buyer who has memorized the music. And that means that happy days may be making comeback.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about "Advertising of the Past" in the 2023 Spring Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.



  




Monday, March 27, 2023

Maintaining Antique Furniture

 

QUESTION: I recently inherited a number of pieces of antique furniture from my grandmother. They range from just under 100 years old to around 200. She loved nice things and was always on the lookout for interesting pieces. Unfortunately, as she got older, she was unable to care for them as well as she had in the past. I’m new to antiques and have no idea what to do to care for these pieces. Can you help me?

ANSWER: You’re very lucky that she thought that much of you to leave you her prized pieces. Over time, antique furniture accumulates dirt and grime. Even if she dusted it often, doing so grinds the dirt in, believe it or not. So the first thing you need to do is clean your pieces.

Cleaning is a simple process but you must be careful not to hurt the finishes. One of the best products to use to clean antique furniture is Murphy’s Oil Soap which comes in a concentrated liquid and also in a spray bottle. The best material to use for cleaning is an old washcloth with a bit of nap left on it. If you’re using the concentrate, mix with water following the directions on the bottle. Dip the washcloth in the mixture and get it nice and soaked, then wring it out as much as you can. If you’re using the spray, apply some onto a wet, wrung out washcloth. Clean a small section of a piece at a time, drying immediately with an old towel. You’ll have to rinse the washcloth often as it will pick up a lot of dirt. When you’ve washed the entire piece, let it dry for at least 24 hours. You’ll notice that your pieces are beginning to look a lot better already.

But cleaning is only the beginning. After a piece is thoroughly dry, you’ll need to apply a protective coating. 

The most common finishes found on antique furniture are waxes, oils, shellacs, and varnishes. Not only do these finishes bring out the beauty of the wood's grain and color, but they also protect the wood from moisture and heat changes that can cause shrinking, swelling, crazing, and cracking. Finishes seal the wood pores against dirt and grime, too.

But in order for a finish to protect the wood, the finish itself must be protected. This can be done by polishing the finish with either a wax or an oil.

You can find waxes in liquid, aerosol spray, and paste forms in hardware and home supply stores. Look for products that contain carnauba wax, a natural substance from a palm tree native to Brazil, that’s especially durable and produces a glossy shine when rubbed vigorously. Minwax is one of the best on the market. 

Another reliable and popular polish is beeswax, which has been available for many years. You’ll find a variety of paste and liquid polishes containing beeswax in hardware and home supply stores. 

Apply either type of wax with an old athletic sock. Rub it in thoroughly and wait at least 30 minutes before buffing it with #0000 steel wool. Don’t worry, this grade is as soft as fabric. Wait 24 hours and apply a second coat. But this time, buff it with an old towel.

Oils such as tung, linseed, and lemon oil have been used for centuries to preserve and polish furniture finishes. They're often mixed with absorption promoters, so they actually sink into the wood pores rather than remaining on top as waxes do. Oils leave a lustrous shine that’s softer than a glossy wax shine, and they provide good protection against moisture. However, they tend to darken the wood slightly over time. And as with applying wax, use a piece of old athletic sock to apply the oil. Since you'll need to give your furniture a second coat of oil in most cases, place the cloth you used in a plastic bag and then in the freezer. When you're ready to apply an additional coat, take it out 30 minutes before you plan to begin so that it can thaw.

Regardless of whether you choose to use a wax or oil, always use the same type that has been used previously on a piece of furniture. Finish surfaces that are accustomed to one type of polish won't accept another type. For example, an oil applied to a finish that had been previously waxed will remain on the wood surface and won't soak in.

If you don't know what type of polisher has been used on a piece—apply a small amount of an wax or oil to an inconspicuous spot on the piece. The wood should accept one of them and that is the one you should use.

How often you need to clean and polish your antique furniture will depend on the kind of heating and cooling system in your home, its geographical location, how you use your antique pieces, and the type of cleaner/polisher you're using.

Avoid using spray oils or dusting helpers like Pledge on your antique furniture. The oil in them will only build up on the piece, attracting more dust and grime. Generally, you’ll need to reapply a wax or oil every six months or at least once a year. A light dusting in between applications will keep your pieces looking good.

Besides regular dusting and waxing or oiling, you also need to provide the proper environment, paying close attention to heat, humidity, and light. 

It’s important not to keep your rooms too warm. Extreme fluctuations can harm antique furniture, loosening joints and veneers. During the colder months, depending on your geographical location, keep pieces away from radiators, warm air vents, and fireplaces. Too much heat can rob the wood of vital moisture.

Keeping a relative humidity level at around 55 percent at 65 degrees F. is also important. Purchase one or more inexpensive digital barometers and place them in rooms with your antique furniture. 

Lastly, avoid placing antique furniture, especially older more valuable pieces in direct sunlight or artificial light, especially with today’s LED lightbulbs. Over-exposure to either is harmful.  

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about "folk art" in the 2023 Winter Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.