QUESTION: I have a four-piece bedroom set that I believe may be Cottage Victorian. My mother bought it in a second hand store in Pennsylvania over 56 years ago, when I was around 8 years old. I still use it, but I have considered letting it go. But before I do anything with it, I want to learn more about it. Can you help? ANSWER: Your bedroom set is in exceptionally good condition. It’s made in a style known as Cottage Victorian. What’s also interesting is that you have the entire set. And because it has been in constant Victorian furniture became popular in the United States, particularly along the East Coast, after the Civil War. Pieces began appearing in workshops and then homes of the wealthy in places like Martha's Vineyard, Cape May, and the Berkshires. But the popularity of these items didn’t remain exclusively with the upper class. As the middle class grew, equally elegant, but relatively reasonably priced versions began to appear in the homes of the nation’s growing work force, particularly in Pennsylvania and New England.
Homeowners purchased Victorian Cottage furniture in mostly bedroom "suites,"sold as coordinating groupings consisting of a double bed, a washstand, a dresser or vanity with an attached mirror, a small table, a straight chair and a rocker, and often a wardrobe. In this case, the set consists of four pieces. Cabinetmakers used pine or other inexpensive wood, then painted the entire piece with several layers of paint. The finished sets were colorful and whimsical. But not all sets were painted.Cottage Victorian beds have high, decorated headboards, some as high as six feet. Finials and medallions constituted what little carving there was on most pieces. Most of the decoration took the form of painted flowers, fruit, and other plants, featuring a large painted bouquet-like medallion in a central panel on the headboard and a smaller, matching one on the foot-board.
Originally, local cabinetmakers, most of whom didn’t have any formal training, built these pieces from designs in pattern books, but towards the last two decades of the 19th century, manufacturers began to mass produce them. This set is one of those.
Those made by untrained cabinetmakers had decoration applied to them in a primitive, folk art sort of way. More expensive sets featured scenes of sailing ships or local wildlife. The same decorative motif appeared on all the pieces of a furniture suite. Those that were painted had a background color of tan, pale blue, pale green, pink, mustard yellow, and sometimes chocolate brown.
One of the biggest misconceptions was that Victorian homeowners loved the appearance of natural woods in their furnishings. That preference didn’t appear until the early 20th century. Cottage Victorian furniture was usually painted to brighten people’s dark, oil-lamp lit homes. As a result, many pieces of painted furniture have been stripped and finished to the often not so beautiful bare wood by well-meaning dealers and collectors.
Cabinetmakers fitted drawers and cabinet doors with wooden knobs instead of metal hardware. Even the boldly colored paint, didn’t have the look of value to it. Those pieces of Victorian Cottage furniture that have survived intact usually have a crackled surface from age-shrinkage, with flakes in spots due from dryness.Manufacturers produced sets like this one as cheaply as possible. Made usually of pine with machine turned legs and finials, they featured as little structural decoration as possible. Even painted motifs were kept to a minimum to reduce the time it took to do them. Some even feature stenciled designs, so that the maker didn’t have to pay more for trained artists.
To the untrained eye, Victorian Cottage furniture looks as if it should be sold as junk or stripped to the bare wood. But this style of furniture has a charm all its own.
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