What Exactly is a Pier Table?

 

QUESTION: I like to visit historic houses. Invariably, the first stop is by a narrow table in the main hall. Next to it usually stands a hall tree. The docent usually begins by telling us that the women of the house would stand in front of this narrow table and adjust their petticoats using the mirror placed behind it. This seems like a plausible explanation. When and how did this practice begin? And why is the table called a “pier” table? According to the dictionary, a pier is a structure leading from the shore out to sea, used as a boat landing or for entertainment. 

ANSWER: The English language can be complicated. There are many words that sound the same but are spelled differently and have different meanings. Over time, the word “peer,” meaning to look through a window with difficulty, may have been confused with the word “pier,” a seaside structure used for landing boats or for entertainment. Since most people coming to the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries spoke a different language—even British English was different than American English—it’s only natural that along the way, the two words got confused. It’s also likely that because a pier table juts out from the wall that it resembled a pier jutting out from the shore.

Docents in historic houses always seem to have interesting stories about the furniture in them. One of these concerns the pier table. Supposedly, Southern women would stop in front of it and check the mirror below it to see if their petticoats were showing before going out. However, there are two things wrong with this story. First, the table did not appear primarily in the South, and second, women of the 19th century did no such thing. A woman of the time wouldn’t have been caught dead adjusting her undergarments in a public area of her house.  Besides that, the architecture of the table, with the top projecting forward, well out over the mirror, prevents anyone, male or female from actually seeing beyond  the area of their feet.

So what exactly is a pier table? Simply, it’s a low, usually narrow table that stands in the pier, or wall section between two windows, often in the parlor of a wealthier person’s house. Cabinetmakers often made them in pairs of expensive woods, such as mahogany, rosewood, and giltwood. Unfortunately, ill informed curators of historic homes—originally wealthy women who joined groups who raised money to restore and manage historic homes—had heard the story of the pier table and placed it in the main hall where it didn’t belong in the first place. 

The pier table first appeared in continental Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries and became popular in England in the last quarter of the 17th century. The first known use of such a table in America was in 1765 and remained popular until the mid 19th century.

During the Regency Period from 1800 to 1830, a pier table had a mirror mounted between its back legs against the wall, or sometimes above it. The purpose of the mirror was to reflect the light around the room, not to check petticoats. The mirrors were often slightly angled towards the ceiling in order to catch as much light as possible, thus precipitating the fictional account. The extensive use of concave looking glasses in the 18th century and mirrors in the 19th century bounced the dim light from oil lamps around the room, increasing overall brightness. The mirror also reflected the pattern in the tile or carpet and helped make the room feel larger.

Eventually, pier tables became symbols of wealth. Reflecting light around a room on highly-polished surfaces, including mirrors, glass, crystal pendants on chandeliers, or fine wood surfaces, was a way of demonstrating wealth. It dazzled the eye and demonstrated a great deal of labor from servants who maintained that high degree of cleanliness.

At the beginning of the 19th century, cabinetmakers around Philadelphia usually produced pier tables in the Chippendale style. They used Chippendale’s English design and traditional construction techniques since most had been trained by English cabinetmakers. The table became an American staple in larger homes during the Federal Period in the early 19th century, primarily in the Northern states, not in the South. 

The most commonly seen example of the table is in the Classical style of the early 1800s, usually with a marble top and columns of some sort—often also marble—at each corner supporting the heavy top. But why a marble top on a hall table? These tables were almost always 30-inches high, the exact height of a dining room table. As such, they could be used in the dining room as an extra serving space without fear of damage from hot plates on the marble top.

The pier table reached it decorative zenith in the Empire period of the 1820s at the hands of such designers as Charles Honoré Lannuier, Thomas Hope and Joseph Meeks. The use of gilded caryatids—winged, female figures from Greek architecture—were frequently used as columns. Meeks used a set of lyres at each end to support the top.

One of the greatest designers of pier tables was French ébéniste Charles-Honoré Lannuier, who emigrated in 1803 and became one of the leading furniture makers in New York. Trained in Paris, he rose to fame during the American Federal Period. After the Revolutionary War and War of 1812, anti-English sentiment made French goods especially appealing to Americans. Lannuier imported French pattern books to keep abreast of the latest Napoleonic style. His work featured robustly carved and gilded caryatid supports, carved dolphin feet, and elaborate gilt-bronze ormolu mounts. And while not every wealthy person could afford a Lannuier pier table, his tables reached the height of design excellence in the first two decades of the 19th century.

After the Empire period, the Late Classicism style prevailed in the 1840s and 1850s with its large cyma curves, scrolled supports and undecorated expanses of crotch-cut mahogany veneer. This is the table that was frequently associated with the Southern plantation and the petticoat myth.

After the Civil War, the pier table came to be known as a console table, and that’s when it began appearing in the foyers and front hallways of houses of the wealthy. Generally speaking, console tables stood higher than their pier table counterparts. They also usually didn’t have mirrors behind them as lighting technology had greatly improved since the beginning of the 19th 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 "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.

The Teapot King

 

Aladdin Teapot

QUESTION: My mother was an avid tea drinker. When she was a young woman, she began buying old teapots at flea markets and yard sales. When I grew up and left to go on my own, I started giving her a teapot for her birthday. Over time, she amassed a collection of some 50 teapots. She passed away recently, and her collection has passed on to me. I chose the teapots I bought for her because of their unusual shapes, but I noticed that a good many of them seem to be marked for the Hall China Company. I’d like to continue adding to this collection. Why would so many have been made by Hall China? And as collectibles, are these teapots of any value?

ANSWER: Indeed, the Hall China Company is the king of teapots. Lots of people probably have one and don’t know it.

Gold Decorated Los Angeles Teapot

Albany Teapot

Robert Hall founded the Hall China Company after the dissolution of East Liverpool Potteries of East Liverpool, Ohio, in 1903. Taggert Hall, Robert’s son, became president following his father’s unexpected death in 1904. The company initially made jugs, toilet sets, and utilitarian whiteware. Robert T. Hall’s major contribution to the firm’s growth was the development of an economical, single-fire process for lead-free glazed wares introduced in 1911.

Robert Hall died just a year after founding his company. One of his eight children, Robert Taggart Hall, took it over and immediately began developments to introduce the single-fire process, which had first been used centuries earlier by Chinese potters during the Ming Dynasty from 1368 to 1644. His aim was to change from the two-firing manufacturing method, using first a biscuit firing and then the glaze firing. With the help of staff chemists and ceramic engineers, Hall experimented from 1904 until 1911, when the process was successful. The new process fused together the white body, color and glaze when it was fired at a temperature of 2,400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Pear Teapot

The new glazes allowed the creation of brilliant colors never before seen on American china: 47 colors developed for the new process, which allowed for rapid expansion of the company and its product selections at the onset of World War I. After tepid sales of its new housewares lines in the 1910s, the company tried designing and selling decorated teapots. The teapot business was so successful that the company decided to expand it from the original three designs to a plethora of new shapes and colors. In the 1940s the teapot business began to dwindle. By the 1960s, probably due to the increased preference for coffee by the public, teapot sales had fallen to insignificance.

In the mid-1920s, Hall China began producing a range of ware exclusively for the Jewel Tea Company. Jewel started using Hall teapots as premiums, and then expanded the promotion to include its own line of distinctive dinnerware and kitchenware.

Globe Teapot

Hall’s teapots were durable, non-porous, and unlike other types of china, didn’t craze.  The Hall palette of colors included no fewer than 47 different variations over the years.  The non-crazing process used to manufacture its pieces were made to emulate beautiful wares made in China during the Ming Dynasty, although the shapes and decor didn’t generally show any Asian influence. 

Hall also produced novelty teapots shaped like cars, footballs, and doughnuts that remain popular with collectors although they're often difficult to find today. These include the popular Nautilus and Aladdin teapots.

Nautilus Teapot

A Selection of Hall Teapots
Hall produced over 160 different shapes and color combinations of teapots. The first, the Gold Decorated Teapot line, also known as the Los Angeles teapot, was extremely popular.

Loc Angeles Teapot

The second, the Boston teapot, which also began production in 1916, came in two styles, the Boston Knob, included here, and the Boston Sunken Lid. Both came in seven sizes from one cup to seven or eight cup. The Boston is one of Hall China Company’s earliest and most enduring styles. In 1916, the McCormack Tea Company purchased the Boston in the seven cup green. The seven cup green and brown Boston teapots were the first ones carried by the Jewel Tea Company in 1924.

Boston Teapots

Philadelphia Teapot

Another teapot Hall introduced in 1916 was the New York teapot and was one of Hall’s longest running styles, available from 1916 through 1989. It was originally and continually produced in nine different sizes for the Hall hotel ware line but was also added to the Gold Decorated line in 1920.  

The Philadelphia  teapot, produced during the 1920s, came in seven different sizes, ten, seven, six, five, four, three and one and a half cups. Later in that same decade, Hall introduced the Hollywood teapot which came in four, five, six and eight cup sizes.

Tea-for-Two Teapots

From 1930 to 1996, Hall produced the Tea-for-Two, a combination teapot and a hot water pot, It’s distinguished from the Twin-Tea set by the sloped shape of the body, It can also be found as a Tea for Four set. 

Musical Teapot

From the late 1930s to the 1940s, Hall produced one of two Globe shaped teapots. The No-Drip is a Globe shape teapot with a different spout and decoration. The Globe teapot, introduced in the late 1930s, was usually found with the gold decoration pictured. By 1942 it was available in black, blue, brown, cadet, canary, delphinium, Dresden, emerald, green, green luster, ivory, marine, maroon, orchid, rose, turquoise and yellow. 

Hall’s Musical teapot, made in the 1930s, wasn’t a success. The music box, which played “Tea for Two,” sat under the teapot in a “well,” held in place with a spring clip. Often, users would wash the teapot without removing the musical box, causing damage to the mechanism. 

In 1937, Hall added the Streamline to the Gold Decorated teapot line. It featured the standard gold decoration around the top, edge, and spout found on other teapots in the line.

Streamline Teapot

Doughnut Teapot

The Automobile was one of the Hall China Company’s Novelty teapots introduced in 1938. Although it has a very unusual shape it was very popular. Introduced in 1938, the Basket was another Novelty teapot that included the Doughnut, the Birdcage, the Football, and the Basketball. In 1982, Hall was commissioned to make a caricature teapot of newly elected President Ronald Reagan. After a partial delivery the customer defaulted on the remaining order and subsequently the teapots were sold at the local Hall Closet store.  

Automobile Teapot

Rhythm Teapot

Hall China produced some of its most beautifully designed teapots in the 1930s, many of which featured Art Deco styling. Introduced in 1938 in the 8-cup size with the 6-cup introduced the following year, the Airflow was colored marine in its standard design. It was perfectly balanced and was as simple to lift as a purse, easy to pour, plus the lid wouldn’t fall off.

Hall introduced the Rhythm teapot in 1939. Originally introduced as a gold decorated teapot with gold dots on the upper two drapes, it was later a part of the Hall American line and came in over 100 different colors. That same year, Hall produced a special souvenir teapot for the 1939 New York World's Fair.

1939 New York World's Fair Teapot

Twinspout Teapot

Designer Oscar Ottoson invented the Twinspout teapot for which he received a patent in 1938. Hall China produced it for the Twinspout Pottery Company of New York.  When a user removed the lid, there were two openings, the larger for the tea and the smaller for the hot water. 

Produced from 1939 to 1963, the Aladdin teapot was one of Hall’s most popular shapes. It came with either a round or an oval opening, both with and without infusers, and in narrow and wide bodies.

Sani-Gold Teapot

During the 1940s, Hall came out with the Sani-Gold teapot. It first appeared in the 1941 Hall China Special Catalog #4. The firm made it in three and six cup sizes, with grid in the spout  to catch the tea leaves which was also shortened for easy cleaning.. The style, often referred to as “pert” was also easier to store. 

Introduced in 1940, the Hook Cover teapot, produced only in the six cup size, had a lid that wouldn’t fall off when pouring. The body has a hook over which the lid fits, thus the name.

Hook Cover Teapot

Windshield Teapot

The Windshield teapot, introduced in 1941, had a collar similar to the one worn by Queen Elizabeth I of England.

From the mid 1950s through the 1960s, Hall produced the Parade teapot as one of its Gold Decorated teapots.. It had a hook cover lid and a non-slip handle.

Hall produced the E-Style Cameo Rose teapot, designed by J. Palin Thorley, another of Hall’s top designers, exclusively for the Jewel Tea Company from the 1950s to the 1970s. Another of its noted designers was Donald Schreckengost who designed the Pear teapot, first introduced in 1970.

E-Style Cameo Rose Teapot

Airflow Teapot

Hall China produced so many teapots during its existence that it’s nearly impossible for a collector to collect them all. 

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.

The Devil with a Hammer in His Hand

 

QUESTION: I’ve always been fascinated with decorative ironwork. Seeing it on my first trip to New Orleans got me hooked. Ever since, I’ve sought out decorative gates, window grills, and railings. Most of this ironwork is unsigned, thus the creators remain anonymous. Recently, I heard of a especially talented metalworker named Samuel Yellin. What can you tell me about this artful metalworker?

ANSWER: Few people think of hand-wrought iron as being an art form, but metalworker Samuel Yellin produced an incredible amount of forged ironwork he designed and executed along with talented craftsmen trained by him. His designs followed the concepts of the Arts and Crafts Movement in the first quarter of the 20th century. Although he was knowledgeable about traditional craftsmanship and design, he championed creativity and the development of new designs for both intimate or monumental scale, for private homes or large institutions. .

Born in Russia in Mohyliv-Podilskyi, Ukraine in the Russian Empire in 1884, he apprenticed to a master ironsmith at age 11.  In 1900, at the age of 16, he completed his apprenticeship. Shortly afterwards he left the Ukraine and traveled through Europe before emigrating to America in 1900. He headed to Philadelphia where his mother and two sisters were already living. Yellin took classes at the Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Art and within several months began teaching a class in wrought iron work, a position he maintained until 1919. 

He opened his first shop in 1909 with three assistants. Through recommendations by architects with whom he worked, Yellin built an appreciative clientele. He soon received the first of many major commissions, the palatial gates of J.P. Morgan's Long Island estate. To keep up with burgeoning business, the firm of Mellor & Meigs Architects, for whom Yellin had designed and created many commissions, designed a new studio for him on Arch Street in Philadelphia in 1915.

As a material, iron lacks intrinsic value and has little aesthetic appeal. The color is coarse, and it’s often used for the most utilitarian items.. Yellin's ironwork is endowed with a great deal of character and appeal based largely on the visual evidence of its having been crafted by hand. 

Yellin believed there was only one way to make good decorative metalwork and that was with the hammer at the anvil. He was adamant about working from traditional designs. He saw the poetry and rhythm in iron.

He also believed his ironworks should harmonize with their environment. Iron window grilles naturally restrict access and provide security, but Yellin insisted that ironwork must not be seen as a barrier. Ironwork should instead create a visual bridge between people and buildings, and to the space beyond it.

Yellin's gates, railings, lanterns, doors, grilles and numerous other creations not only adorned and decorated the buildings and rooms for which they were created, but also are among the finest in artistic achievement in ironwork.

His decorative ironwork is reminiscent of that in the Middle Ages. Yellin preferred to be called a blacksmith, not an artist or metalworker. He believed a metalworker needed to be both designer and smith, for every hammer stroke became an integral part of the design. His railings were tactile as well as visually appealing. He turned,, twisted, and pulled the iron, demonstrating the physical process involved in manipulating the challenging material. Tenons were important in Yellin's work. He used them to show how he joined the pieces together. These were part of the design, providing texture and dimension to the tops of the handrails or edges of the gates. 

Forging is the process of shaping metals by hammering or pressing them after making them pliant by the application of heat. Forging improves the structure of the metal by refining the grain size thus making it stronger, more ductile, and more resistant to fatigue and impact. Hand-forged iron reached its peak during the 13th and 14th centuries in Italy where ironworkers used it in many chapel screens and window and door grills. 

French and Spanish artisans were responsible for much of the early ironwork in New Orleans, while early ironwork in the northeast U.S. is due to English and American metalworkers: By the Industrial Revolution, cast ironwork replaced hand wrought iron.

From 1921 to 1924, Yellin worked on what was probably the largest commission of wrought iron work: 200 tons of wrought iron for the Federal Reserve Bank in New York City. This massive project required expansion of the shop to 60 forges and 250 workers.

At the firm's peak in 1928, Yellin employed 268 men. The studio received over 1,200 commissions in the 1930s alone. 

Although a heart attack in 1930 slowed his pace and he concentrated on experimental techniques. He died suddenly in 1940 at the age of 55. 

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.

The Democratization of Ice Cream

 

QUESTION: When I was a kid, my family had an ice cream machine. Just about every Sunday afternoon, especially when it was really hot, my father would get out the machine and make ice cream. And I helped. We made all different flavors, depending on the kind of fruit that was in season. My job was to crank the machine. Boy, was that hard because I had to keep going for at least 45 minutes. When I got tired, my dad would take over. I haven’t had homemade ice cream for a long time but recently saw an old ice cream maker for sale at a flea market. What can you tell me about antique ice cream makers. Are they worth anything or are they just junk?

ANSWER: There’s nothing like homemade ice cream. With electric ice cream makers, it’s easy to make it. But there’s a nostalgia connected to the old hand-cranked machines. 

Until the early 19th century, ice cream remained a rare and exotic dessert enjoyed mostly by the wealthy. Ingredients and technology, including ice harvesting and the invention of the insulated icehouse around 1800, plus the increased affordability of sugar made making ice cream at home for ordinary people more affordable.

In 1843, New Yorker Nancy M. Johnson applied for a patent for her hand-cranked ice cream freezer, called the Artificial Freezer. It had a movable crank that rotated two  adjacent broad, flat slates containing an array of holes, which assisted in churning the cream, making the mixture more uniform, while also making it easier to remove the ice crystals in the interior walls of the cylindrical container in which the spatulas fit. These metal spatulas, attached to a pipe called the “dasher,” were then attached to the handle crank protruding out from the Artificial Freezer. And by inserting a border into the container that held the mixture, Johnson made it possible to create two flavors at the same time.

She invented her ice cream churn to cut down on the time it took to make ice cream, which was originally a labor intensive process involving many steps. President Thomas Jefferson used an 18-step recipe. However, the resulting ice cream had to be eaten immediately since people had no form of refrigeration at the time.

The machine sold fast, but despite Johnson’s success with the Artificial Freezer, she sold the rights of her patent to William G. Young from Baltimore for $200. He then improved on its original design, and others soon followed with 70 improvements of their own. 

Smaller domestic ice-cream makers made from the 1880s usually had a metal inner pail fitted with a paddle attached to a crank handle, which sat inside a wooden bucket containing a freezing mixture of ice and salt. The user poured cream into the inner pail where it was beaten and churned as it froze.

The same year as Nancy M. Johnson filed her patent, London resident Thomas Masters created the Ice Cream Apparatus which featured interchangeable parts. The machine could be set up for home use, producing blocks of ice, ice cream, flavored ice, and cooling drinks and wine. Thomas added special churns to his ice cream maker to ensure a proper beating process, creating the smoothness and fineness necessary to ensure the ice cream and flavored ice didn’t separate. The Ice Cream Apparatus had separate ice preserving containers for butter, fish, game, etc., plus cold storage spaces for beer and wine.

To make ice cream with one of these antique ice cream makers, the user needed to pour the ice cream mixture into the inner pail where it was churned and beaten as it froze. When filling the bucket, the user needed to layer the salt and ice, going heavy on the salt between the layers.

Mixing ice with salt lowered the ice’s melting point, so even when the ice melted, its temperature remained below the normal freezing point of 0 degrees Celsius---32 degrees Fahrenheit.

After adding the ice cream mixture and closing the metal canister, the next step was cranking to help aerate and smooth the mixture. This also prevented the separation of the ice cream’s  ingredients.

Ice cream makers stamped with the designer’s or manufacturer’s mark have a higher value than identical items with no signature. Antique White Mountain ice cream makers, for example, carry the company’s name. The manufacturer’s mark verifies that the antique ice cream maker is genuine and not a copy.

More than anything else, demand determines the value of an antique ice cream maker.  A 170-year-old antique ice cream maker could be worthless if no one wants it. However, a 120-year-old ice cream maker could have a higher value if demand for it is higher.

Condition is also very important in determining the value of an antique ice cream maker. It needs to be checked for flaws, including cracks, missing components, and excessive wear. And while a minor nick may be negligible, a major crack on the bucket that holds the ice may lower the value considerably.

Antiques made in the early 1900s may be less valuable than those made in the 1850s. The reason for this is that the antiques from the 1850s are rarer than those made in the 20th century. More antique ice cream makers from the early 20th century that are in good condition are available than are well-maintained antiques from the mid 19th century.

The White Mountain brand dates back to 1872 when Thomas Sands made improvements to Johnson’s design and started his company in Laconia, New Hampshire. White Mountain antique ice cream makers currently available date to 1923 and sell for $100 to nearly $400.

Acme started making ice cream makers in the early 1900s. Going by the name “Acme Ice Cream Freezers,” the brand featured a metal can surrounding the ice cream canister. Models currently on the market range in price from around $20 to $125.

As long as an antique manual ice cream maker is in good shape it can still be used. However, those that are part of a collection shouldn’t be used to make ice cream. In that case, it’s better to let the more efficient electric models to the work.

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 "The World of Art Nouveau" in the 2022 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.

A Question of Time and Age

QUESTION: I have inherited a very plain tall clock supposedly made in Philadelphia. It doesn’t seem to have any markings on it. How can I tell how old it is?

ANSWER: To tell the age of a tall-case clock, or grandfather clock as it’s more commonly known, you need to first look at the dial. The early ones at first showed 24-30 hours. Owners wound them at the end of that time by pulling the driving cord down.

In the earliest clocks—those dating from the 17th to early 18th centuries—the hour circle appears in a silvered ring with a doubled circle appearing within the numeral circle.

Many old clocks have only an hour hand. Some have both an hour and a minute hand. Even though clockmakers had used minute hands since 1670, most clocks, except the most expensive ones, didn’t have them. Early tall-case clockmakers gave their hands a fine finish and often made them the most decorative part of the clock. The hour hand was often the most elaborate and the second hand, if the clock had one, was sometimes long and graceful. Later, when clockmakers introduced white dials, the hour and minute hands became even more ornate and some even had a smaller second hand.

Originally, tall-case clockmakers made their dials of metal with a matt center circle. By the mid-17th century, they added ornamentation around the edge of this matted center, engraving birds or leaves to form a border showing the days of the month. They brightly burnished this date ring as well as the rings surrounding the winding holes. Silvered dials, containing no separate circle for the hours and minutes, appeared in 1750. Instead of a matted center circle, these dials featured an engraved overall pattern in the center circle. Many early tall-case clocks also had a small separate dial showing the days of the week.

Dials remained square until the beginning of the 18th century, at which time clockmakers introduced the arched dial. Dutch clockmakers found good use for this extra space, filling it with decorative figures and animated devices such as a see-saw or a shipping rolling at sea. They also added a moon dial, thereafter common on many tall-case clocks, which displayed the phases of the moon under the dial’s arch. English clockmakers, mostly in Yorkshire, went one step further, creating a globular rotating moon dial.

Clockmakers usually only made the works of tall-case clocks. They subcontracted the making of the cases to coffin makers, who used this as supplemental income when business was slow. During the second half of the 17th century, casemakers employed walnut to build mostly plain cases. The Dutch introduced marquetry to the fronts of the clock cases, using woods of different colors and grains.  Mahogany didn’t come into general use for tall-case clocks until about 1716. At first, casemakers imported it from Spain, then after that supply ran out, from Brazil.




Before 1730, the doors of most tall-case clocks were rectangular, but around that time casemakers included an arch in them to match the arched dials. The earliest clocks didn’t open with a door. Instead, the entire hood–the top part of the clock–slid backwards revealing the works.

To learn more about tall-case clocks, read “Grandfather Time” in #TheAntiquesAlmanac and also visit the Bowers Watch and Clock Repair Web site and read about the works of tall-case clocks in their clock section.