The German Influence in American Furniture

QUESTION: My husband and I recently discovered an antique wardrobe at a house sale and fell in love with it. We purchased it but have no idea what style it is. The wardrobe is about six feet tall and has large raised diamond shapes on its doors. There’s an additional diamond panel across the top. Can you tell me what this might be?

ANSWER: It looks like you just bought yourself a fine example of American Biedermeier furniture.

The Biedermeier style, itself, was a neoclassic style that originated in Germany in 1815. Popular until about 1850, it was a potpourri of classic features taken from French Empire, Sheraton, Regency, and Directoire styles.

The style’s name derived from Ludwig Eichrodt and Adolf Kussmaul, who depicted the typical bourgeois of the period in the caricature of a well-to-do man without culture under the name “Gottfried Biedermeier.”—“Gott” meaning “God”;  fried” meaning “peace”; “Bieder” meaning “commonplace”:_meier” meaning “steward”—in their Fliegende Blatter  Pamphlets,  a Viennese journal of the day. Critics adopted this name to describe furniture that represented the unimaginative taste of the average person.

However, the style wasn’t called Biedermeier until 1886, when Georg Hirth wrote a book about 19th-century interior design, and used the word "Biedermeier" to describe domestic German furniture of the 1820s and 1830s.

A simpler version of the French Empire and Directoire styles, Biedermeier furniture was comfortable, unpretentious, and spare and was especially suited to the rising European middle class.

By  the 1840s Biedermeier gradually gave way to the curves and flourishes of the neo-Rococo revival in Vienna. Early pieces were generally rectilinear, undecorated, and simple. Towards the middle of period, craftsmen employed curves more in chair backs, legs, etc. Scroll forms became popular after 1840 on bases and legs often with upper terminal animal heads which were sometimes gilded.

When German immigrants came to America in the mid-19th century, many headed for the middle of the country around Missouri.

In the Missouri settlements, the German cabinetmakers modified the sophisticated Biedermeier motifs to fit the simple tastes of their customers. The style's characteristic decorative veneers, curved legs and chair backs, and geometric shapes on flat surfaces were maintained, but the features were simplified. Countrified versions of Biedermeier chairs typically had outsweeping saber front legs and backs made of two horizontal rails.

Simple examples have wooden seats while more elaborate ones are upholstered. Biedermeier influences in wardrobes include raised-panel doors enhanced by diamond motifs and deep cornices. They would have called these chifferobes.

Newlywed Furniture

QUESTION: My parents bought a bedroom set when they got married. They kept it all their married life. Now that they’ve both passed on, it’s come to me. It’s of a very unusual design with lines that look similar to Art Deco, with curves and veneer decoration. Can you tell me what this is?

ANSWER: The photos you sent identify your bedroom set as what was commonly referred to as “waterfall” furniture. Because it was relatively inexpensive, it became the style of choice for middle class newlyweds. In 1930, a set like this would have cost between $19.95 and $39.95. More luxurious sets sold for slightly more.

In the late 19th century, most American furniture makers produced pieces from solid wood. This continued until after World War I when the conservation movement, led by Teddy Roosevelt, gained prominence and the invention of lumber core plywood signaled the end of this practice. Plywood consisted of four layers of wood, two on each side, glued to a core of inexpensive lumber. Makers glued the layers at right angles to each other for added strength.

Before 1930, manufacturers prided themselves in producing pieces with sometimes up to 11 layers of wood, especially for curved door panels. Working with curved surfaces was up to this time a very painstaking and expensive process.

But then came the Great Depression. With so many people struggling just to get by, furniture makers had to adapt. Families continued to grow and there became a demand for furniture from the newlywed market. Most new couples couldn’t afford to guy their own house, so all they had was a room in usually the bride’s parents house. The "Bedroom Suite" was probably the only thing that they owned, resulting in inordinate sentimental attachment to the furniture and a reluctance to change even when finances improved.

Because of the furniture’s free-form and curvy lines, people called it “waterfall” furniture. There are all types of pieces, including chairs, desks, end tables, clothes chests. Waterfall furniture doesn’t have a  frame. It relies on the strength of the molded plywood to give it structure, enabling makers to also give it  curved or rounded horizontal edges. Manufacturers employed an unusual veneer design called bookmatching on the fronts of pieces and ran the grain of the veneer from front to back on the top surfaces. Drawers featured Bakelite handles.

The inspiration for waterfall furniture came from handmade furniture emanating from the modernist movements in France, Austria and Germany, known as Art Moderne. Makers copied the designs of the ultra-exclusive French firm of Sue et Mare. Early examples, designed to appeal to broad audiences. mix Victorian motifs with modernist themes,  .

The style is most frequently seen in Bedroom Suites, although manufacturers produced dining sets and even billiard tables. A basic bedroom set included a bed, vanity and bench, and chest of drawers. More deluxe, thus more expensive, sets included nightstands, a dresser, a cedar chest, and a armoire/chifferobe. A full dining room set included a table with removable leaves big enough to seat six people, five chairs, china cabinet, and buffet, all of which sold for $103.50.

Today, a complete basic bedroom suite sells for $800-$900 in reasonable condition. The hardest pieces to find are nightstands and vanity benches. Cedar chests go for $400 and up.