Who's for a Game of Cards?

 

QUESTION: Recently, while browsing though an antique shop, I came across two tables. Both had fold-over tops. One seemed like it was from the 18th century, the other from the Empire period of the 19th. The dealer unfolded the top of the older table to reveal a green felt cloth inlaid into it. He said that this was a card table. When he unfolded the top of the second table, it had no felt inlay and was plainly finished. He told me the second table was a tea table. I always thought they were both card tables. Can you tell me the difference and when card tables started to be used?

ANSWER: There’s a difference between the two tables, although subtle. Back in the 18th century, furniture was expensive as each piece was handcrafted to suit the customer. People woud have used their card tables as tea tables by just putting a tablescloth over it. But by the 1840s, furniture had begun to be at least partially machine-made, and manufacturers kept the cost down by making card tables plainer. 

Playing cards were probably invented during the Chinese Tang Dynasty around the 9th century as a result of the usage of woodblock printing. Playing cards became a diversion both in public houses and private homes. Early playing cards had neither suits nor numbers. Instead, they had instructions or forfeits for whoever drew them. Usually, playing cards revolved around drinking alcohol, especially in the public houses.

The earliest game involving cards occurred on July 17,1294 when the Ming Department of Punishments caught two gamblers, Yan Sengzhu and Zheng Pig-Dog, playing with paper cards. The Department confiscated the wood blocks used for printing the cards together with nine of the actual cards. By the 11th century, playing cards had spread throughout Asia and eventually made their way to Egypt. Playing cards probably came to Europe from the East, arriving first in either Italy or Spain.

By the early 18th century, specially made tables for playing cards began to appear all over England. The first card tables first appeared in the American Colonies around 1710. Card tables became symbols of wealth and the consequent expansion of leisure time and soon became a social necessity in every fashionable home. Without modern entertainment devices, about the only forms of evening entertainment was playing music, dancing, and of course, playing cards. 

Cabinetmakers constructed most of these imported English card tables of mahogany or walnut. Each had a hinged two-leaf top that, when open and supported on a swing leg, revealed an inner surface lined with leather, felt, or the coarse woolen cloth called baize. Since household lighting was usually inadequate for evening play, most of the tables had four turrets projecting from the corners to accommodate candlesticks. In addition, there were often “guinea pools” or “fishponds”—shallow dishlike depressions to hold money, dice, or counters—and, in Chippendale styles, a single drawer in which to keep the cards. The tables stood on graceful cabriole legs, meant to resemble a woman’s shapely calves, but their backs, unseen against the wall, remained unfinished.

Since so many of these tables were highly decorative and also bore their makers’ marks, they provide valuable evidence of the varieties of carving, inlay, veneer, and other detail used by the cabinetmakers, as well as of regional characteristics. Tables with bowed fronts were popular in Boston and Salem, and five- and six-legged examples appeared in New York.

Some people used card tables for purposes other than for playing cards. Unfortunately, tablecloths only covered over the fishponds, often causing accidents and breakage.

In Puritan New England and Quaker Philadelphia, as well as in the South, people bet huge sums on cockfights and horse races, on bull and bearbaiting. Doctors and lawyers would wager their fees at the card table, and the “devil’s prayer book”—a deck of playing cards—could be found everywhere.

From the beginning of the United States, gambling overpowered every effort to restrain it. By the late 18th century every fashionable home had a card table. Still, most households reserved the card table for recreational use.

In the upper-class 18th-century American home, ladies played cards at afternoon tea parties where guests might win or lose hundreds of dollars. In the evening, families would summon servants to bring the card table into the center of the drawing room after dinner, as card playing was a primary form of evening entertainment. Players became embroiled in spirited games of whist, a simpler foreunner of bridge, pokerlike brag, quadrille, or any of the several other games while spectators observed the action. 

When not in use, card tables in most households remained folded away to become consoles or side tables. Servants set card tables against the wall when not in use, sometimes with the upper half raised as a kind of ornamental backsplash.

After about 1840, card tables began to lose the felt inlaid on their surface. People still played cards but now these tables came into popular use as tea tables. With a smooth top, minus the fishponds and candlestick rests—indoor lighting had been much improved—it was now possible to place a tablecloth over the table without the fear of anything toppling due to the former depressions. In many cases, these table featured graceful rounded corners and were still being made of mahogany or walnut.

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.

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.

A Spoonful of Love

 

QUESTION: There are many ways of saying “I love you,” but one of the most unusual is the love spoon. I recently saw several of these in antique shops while traveling through Wales. About all the dealers could tell me about them was that they were gifts of love from a suitor to his true love, a tradition that has existed in Wales for several centuries. I bought one to take home, even though it seemed to be overly priced. What can you tell me about Welsh love spoons?  

ANSWER: Rural lovers with their hearts set on a plain milkmaid would probably have been unable to buy a loving gift for Valentine’s Day back in the in the late 18th and 19th centuries. So they fashioned tokens of their love from whatever was close at hand, using whatever skills they had. Often these gifts might have been small personal items, such as knitting sheathes, stay busks and lace bobbins. But the gift that seemed to have stirred young girls’ hearts the most was the Welsh love spoon.

No one knows why the Welsh made these love spoons. However, there was an earlier tradition among Scandinavians of giving love spoons. However, today most people associate the love spoon with the Welsh.

So why give a spoon? For centuries the humble spoon was one of the most familiar of  household utensils. The practice of storing spoons fitting snugly together prompted people to give a romantic meaning to the word in the 18th century. The delightfully descriptive word “spoonways” eventually embraced the human desire to emulate the closeness of these spoons in bed. The Victorians went further and used the verb “to spoon” to describe courting. In fact, the phrase continued in use well into the 20th century with popular song writers who found it a useful for its ability to rhyme with words such words as moon, June, swoon, and honeymoon.

It’s difficult to be precise about the origins of love spoons. However, enough of them inscribed with a date survive to enable collectors to trace their styles. One of the earliest recorded dates to 1667.

Most of the spoons on the market today date from the late 18th and 19th centuries. Although generations of spoon carvers would have copied styles and designs, dating them is difficult. Those spoons with a broad, flat  pierced handle seem to come predominantly from North Wales, while those that display clumsy carving and a lack of proportion tend to come from Pembrokeshire. The lucky young girl who received one really didn’t care where it came from. 

What’s certain is that such prized possessions would have been displayed in a place of honor and no doubt the most eligible girls could acquire a small collection of these spoons before choosing their mates. The. infinite variety of styles and designs found in Welsh love spoons means that there are no two alike. Their great charm rests in what  they represent and the symbolism in the motifs that carvers used to create them.

The most common of these motifs was naturally the heart. Two hearts intertwined contained even more obvious meaning. Closely associated with the heart, and almost as common, was a motif that looked like a fat comma. This symbol comes from the ancient Egyptians sign for the soul. Thus, hearts and commas declare heart and soul. Keyholes represent another powerful motif, offering a way into the suitor's heart. And even other spoons feature a small muse, and occasionally a key that really helped make the suitor’s feelings known. 

Still, the formalities had to be observed and many love spoons incorporate chains—not simply to demonstrate the skill of the carver—but to indicate the chains that bind a marriage. Shoes and boots also appear frequently on love spoons. The origin of this motif is a reference in the Bible in which the exchange of a shoe signified agreement of a marriage contract.

Carvers often incorporated initials with or without dates, and sometimes created spoons with a deeper, oblong window cutout into which a suitor inserted a piece of paper inscribed with names, dates, or drawings. Likewise, carvers sometimes added shards of broken mirrors. Why they did this is unclear. Perhaps it was to add a note of brightness to their spoon design, for none of these shards was large enough to serve as a looking glass. 

And while they used the most accessible and workable materials to carve their spoons, carvers used a variety of woods, especially easily carved sycamore and fruitwood. 

Occasionally, they created spoons from more exotic woods and materials, such as mahogany, ivory, or whalebone. This suggests that a sailor could have carved the spoon while on a voyage to a distant land. Sailors also seemed more likely to have embellished their spoons with inlaid colored wax or tiny brass pins. Some went even further and incorporated a lantern or cage containing free-moving balls into the handles, showing off the skill of the carver. 

The skill of some of these spoon makers was extraordinary, with the manual dexterity to produce even the most basic spoons. It’s also possible that an especially talented spoon carver could have made spoons for others in his area, accounting for the similarity of designs in spoons from certain places.

Because love spoons now fetch higher prices both in the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada, it would be easy to give them an importance beyond their humble origins. Essentially, love spoons were simply a declaration of love, pure and simple.  

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 old-time winter objects in the 2022/2023 Winter Holiday Edition, with the theme "Winter Memories," online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

Buyer Beware

 

Chippendale style dining table and chairs 1930s

QUESTION: I’ve been looking for a new dining table and chairs. But the new ones I’ve seen don’t look very well made for their high cost. A friend suggested I look at buying an antique set. I found a beautiful Chippendale set in a local antique shop. It’s a beautiful set, but how can I be sure it’s the real thing? The shop is reputable so I don’t have any reason to suspect the sets authenticity. How can I be sure it’s authentic? 

ANSWER: You have every right to be suspicious. Even reputable dealers have been fooled by copies of 18th-century pieces coming out of Indonesia. The makers of these pieces do such an excellent job of copying every detail that it’s often hard for some dealers to be sure. 

The Indonesian copies are only the latest in a long line of reproductions. Most people think that because a piece of furniture of a particular older style that it must be a antique. People fail to realize that certain popular styles of furniture have been reproduced over and over throughout the last several centuries.

Indonesian Chippendale dining table replica

I could tell from the photo that the dining table and chairs had been made in the Chippendale style, but I could also tell right away that it wasn’t an antique. The giveaway was the extra leaves in the table. From the looks of it, I'd say the set might be as old as the 1930s, but I'm leaning more to the 1960s. Let’s see why.

Chippendale style dining table with two leaves 1900

Small Chippendale dining table late 18th century

At the time Chippendale furniture was popular in the mid 18th century, dining tables like this one with added leaves didn't exist. Dining tables with separate leaves didn’t come into use until the 19th century. During the 1750s, "joyners"—the person’s who made furniture—made dining tables as drop-leaf tables with large leaves or wings that could be folded down and stood against a wall until ready for use. In many cases, the owners stood them in their front hallways to allow for more space. 

A wealthy 18th-century family would have only used a larger table like this when dining with guests. They often ate at a smaller table by the fire, especially in winter, or had “tea”–what we call supper–in their bedrooms by the fire. When not in use as a dining table, they may have used it for other things and stood the chairs against the wall around the room. In fact, cabinetmakers sold the tables and chairs separately, not in sets.

Georgian Chippendale dining table made from three solid mahogany boards

At the end of the 19th century, a style called Colonial Revival came into popularity because of the colonial exhibits at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876. Furniture makers began to make what they thought looked like colonial furniture although it was often stylized and lacked the fine details of the original.

Also, cabinetmakers in the 18th century used pegs to join furniture, thus the name "joyners." After the start of the Industrial Revolution in 1830, screws came into common for joining parts of furniture. Early cabinetmakers also carved their names or initials on their pieces. By the second half of the 19th century, furniture makers began to affix labels on their products.

Queen Anne side chair of Bermuda cedar

And even antique experts can be wrong. A dealer rejected an 18th-century Chippendale drop-leaf dining table and one chair as not being authentic because the wood wasn’t mahogany, the traditional wood used on such pieces. It turned out that the table and chair were authentic after all. It seems they were made of Bermuda cedar, now long extinct. This wood is more orange in color than mahogany. Although this dealer was the expert on 18th-century furniture in the area, the owner took the table and chair to other dealers who all agreed with him. It was only after a friend saw an identical table in an historic house while on a trip to Bermuda that the owner was able to determine the true age of his table and chair. 

That said, this table and chairs seems to be well constructed of solid mahogany and, therefore might sell for somewhere between $1,500 and $3,000. But don’t mistake the identity of this dining set for the real thing which might sell for upwards of $5,000. It isn’t.

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 "Celebrating an Olde Fashioned Holiday" in the 2020 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.

Preservation vs. Conservation

QUESTION: I have several pieces of antique furniture that need some tender loving care, but I’m not sure how to go about it. Can you explain the difference between preservation and conservation? And can you give me some tips on how I can take care of my pieces?


ANSWER: Preservation involves keeping an object from destruction and seeing to it that it’s not irreversibly altered or changed. In conservation, on the other had, the goal is to preserve the maximum amount of the original material, in as unaltered a condition as possible.

Furniture conservation and restoration can be divided into two general areas—structure and finish. Structure generally relates to wood---solid, joined, and veneered. The finish of furniture can be painted or varnished.



Antiques restoration can be an arduous process if the goal is complete authenticity. This is particularly true for museum conservators. For them, authentic material is the actual original material of the object. For example, a chair with its original upholstery, even if it is faded and shredded, is authentic for the conservator and possesses historic value even though it may not be exhibitable. The same chair can be "restored" and looking as it did when new, with replacement fabric copied from the original weave and colors, and upholstered according to the known design of that particular piece of furniture.

Some pieces of furniture, especially those constructed of harder woods, such as walnut, mahogany, maple, oak, or cherry, may only need to have their surface finish preserved. In the case of furniture made of these woods, there may be enough of the original finish left to restore the piece rather than refinish it.

Before doing anything, study your piece. Is the finish pretty much intact? Does the piece have a nice patina? Is the piece more than 100 years old? If you answered yes to even one of these questions, then you should do your best to preserve the original finish of your piece.

The first step in preservation is cleaning. Furniture gets dirty, even grimy over time. Before you can apply a new finish, you need to get rid of all the accumulated dirt and grease that often make it difficult to tell what kind of wood the piece of furniture is made of. Grime can also hide the fine lines of inlay and marquetry. Believe it or not, using lemon oil, a popular furniture polish, can do more harm than good. Since its made of a light petroleum oil and some paraffin wax, the wood doesn’t absorb it. Instead, it acts as a surface dust catcher.

One of the best products for cleaning wood, especially furniture, is Murphy’s Oil Soap. Today, it’s also in a spray bottle, but in case you can’t find it that way, you can make your own cleaning solution by mixing a capful of Murphy’s in a spray bottle of water. For this, you can use any empty spray cleaner bottle, as long as you wash it out thoroughly first. Since water will loosen any glued joint, and also tends to raise the grain of the wood, you don’t’ want to use very much. An old washcloth will do quite well for cleaning.

Spray the Murphy’s on a damp washcloth and then rub it on the surface of the furniture. Rinse the cloth when it gets to dirty. Have a second wet, but wrung out, washcloth ready to wipe off the Murphy’s Oil solution, wringing the cloth nearly dry after every few wipes. You can also use a green scruby cloth, sold in Dollar Stores, if there’s hard to remove grime. A stiff-bristle brush will allow you to get the dirt out of carved and turned areas. The secret is to clean only a small area at a time–one leg of a chair, one part of a chest, and so on. After you clean an area, wipe it dry with an old face towel. Be sure to wash out all your cloths or use others as you progress, especially on a large piece of furniture. After you have finished cleaning your piece of furniture, give it a final wipe with a clean cotton rag and set it aside to dry for 24 hours.

All this cleaning may cause joints to loosen, so be sure to check the structural integrity of your piece before applying a new finish. If joints need to be tightened or reglued, do so before applying a new finish.

Now you’re ready to apply a new finish. You can either use plain tung oil or a product like Minwax® Water-Based WoodSheen® which is a water-soluble mixture of furniture finish and stain that comes in six colors. For a piece that’s got lots of scratches or marks, it’s best to choose a stain color that complements the wood’s original finish.

The final step is polishing the entire piece using a prepared wax like Minwax, which comes in light and dark varieties. Obviously, use the light for woods like oak or cherry and the dark for woods like walnut or mahogany. Apply the wax with a piece of soft cotton cloth like an old athletic sock and after 30 minutes, polish the surface with an old face towel. One coat should do it, but for tabletops, apply two coats of wax.

Rub off the first coat with 0000 steel wool, then apply the second and polish with the towel. The more coats of wax you apply, the more water resistant the top will become. A light polishing once or twice a year will keep your piece in great condition.

There are no short cuts or time savers to this entire process. The work can be slow and at times tedious, but the results are worth it.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Article section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the other 24,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about antique clocks in the Fall 2019 Edition, "It's That Time Again," online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques & More Collection on Facebook.

Somewhere to Dream

QUESTION: My husband and recently purchased an antique four-poster bed from around 1810.  The dealer called it a tester bed. It originally had a canopy which needs to be replaced. Can you tell me what a tester is and something about the origins of this type of bed?

ANSWER: Initially the wooden frame of the bed was far less important that the trappings of textiles that surrounded it. Most any reference to a bed centuries ago actually meant the mattress and whatever cloth materials people piled upon it.

During medieval times there was no particular room set aside for sleeping quarters, thus the bed became almost a room within the household. Some of the more elaborate bedsteads had both a room and sliding panel walls. Occupants could climb inside and stuff them-selves off from the rest of the chilly and drafty residence.

Gradually, heavy curtains replaced the side panels of the "bedroom," but the basic roof remained. The solid roof, known as a tester, retained the name even though the roof covering eventually became one of cloth and curtains as the sides had been.

Basically, a bedstead and two posts supported the roof of these early beds. Over the decades makers adopted a style which incorporated four posts which supported the full tester canopy.

Early in the 18th century, during the Queen Anne period, wealthy homeowners often covered their four-poster beds with velvet and other textiles so extensively that they obscured the basic woodwork. Cabinetmakers used back panels less and less. As the century progressed, the rear posts remained covered with curtains while the front posts became more visible. As a consequence, bed makers carved and decorated the front posts more elaborately.

Some of the most impressive four-poster  beds reached heights of eight feet or more, complete with a sweeping array of curtains and canopy. Cabinetmakers made sturdy frames from mahogany or walnut. People could close panels of curtains at night for more warmth and security. Matching coverlets and bases then totally enveloped the grand bed in a sea of cloth.



Wealthy homeowners continued to import fabric for their bed coverings from Europe in the 1750s and 1760s. But with the increase in leisure activities and attention to developing social graces that characterized the time, fancy needlework done by women and school girls often supplied the decorative detail.

By the dawn of the 18th century, the finest bed available was the Chippendale bed. The Chippendale and those similar in style displayed predominantly high foot posts which were handsomely carved and ended elegantly with ball and claw feet. By contrast, cabinetmakers sometimes didn’t carve the head posts and instead left them plain to be extensively decorated by fabrics. Elaborate decorating of the beds gradually increased as owners opted for serpentine headboards and reeled posts in lieu of additional drapes.

By the 1800s, the lavish use of fabrics on beds had diminished considerably and the wood itself had more of a prominent role in the overall design. Almost without exception, cabinetmakers carved or decorated posts. In addition, homeowners began placing their beds in separate rooms designed for sleeping, usually on the second floor of their houses, instead of in parlors or various other locations in their homes.  .

The rise of the Empire period in the 1820s had an impact on a vast assortment of furniture, including the bed. Scrolled headboards were very fashionable, and posts were decorated with acanthus leaves and detailed beading. Mahogany remained one of the most popular woods of choice.

It wasn’t unusual for the well established to spend more for their bed furnishings than on the actual wood structure, itself. They preferred bright colors over white and added  fine linen-like textiles in shades of red, blue, yellow and green. Many also used generous amounts of silk and lace, along with woolen cloths.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Article section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the other 18,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about religious antiques in the special 2019 Winter Edition, "The Old West," online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques & More Collection on Facebook.

Tea for Two or More

QUESTION: I recently started going to antique shows. I’m new to antique collecting and find the whole thing fascinating. On a trip to a recent local show, I saw several unusual boxes. The dealers told me they were tea caddies. All of them had locks. Can you tell me a little about these unique boxes? I’d love to collect them, but they seemed rather pricey.

ANSWER: Tea caddies are one of the more unique items available to antique collectors. They’re good to collect because they don’t take up too much room, but their age and quality can make them prohibitively expensive, especially for the beginning collector. Before discussing tea caddies, themselves, it’s important to know how the tea trade began and why each of the caddies had locks.

People have been drinking tea since 2737 BC, when, according to legend, a few leaves from a nearby tree blew into Chinese Emperor Shen Nung's pot of boiling water. Apparently, the Emperor took a sip of the  brew, only to discover that it was both delicious and refreshing.

Tea brewing and drinking evolved into a ritualistic exercise. During the Ming Dynasty from 1368 to 1644, people brewed the delicate leaves in vessels with lids in which they steeped them in boiled water. Early 17th-century Dutch and Portuguese silk and spice traders tried to introduce Chinese tea to Europe, but it took time to catch on. Even the English, known for their love of a "cuppa," waited until the mid-17th century before trying it. Since tea was expensive, only the aristocracy could afford to drink it.

People believed it was therapeutic as well as delicious. Asians had known the health benefits of tea for thousands of years. And even though Portugal and Holland imported tea 50 years ahead of England, tea remained a precious commodity, so people used it sparingly.

The first recorded sale of tea in England occurred in 1657. At first it was available only in apothecaries, coffee houses, snuff shops and through shops catering for ladies needs. However by the second half of the 18th century smuggled tea was so widely available, that even respectable people bought it illegally for less money.

William Pitt tried to address this problem in his Commutation Act of 1784, which reduced taxes on tea and halved its price. The legitimate imports quadrupled making tea more accessible to a wider section of society.

It wasn’t until the 1750s that tea caddies became a home style accessory. The word caddy derives from the Malay word "kati," meaning a measure of weight about 3/5 of a kilo. The 17th century tea containers were bottle shaped tea jars in china, glass, silver, enamel and straw-work covered metal.

Cabinetmakers began to make tea caddies out of wood in box form beginning in the late 1820s. The made the first ones of mahogany in the shape of small chests which contained three metal canisters. They generally came in two styles—simple and ornate.

Both styles shared certain characteristics. Both had handles on top and stood on either bracket feet or a plinth-style base. They had stepped lids and molding of some sort along the edges. Usually, these caddies had straight sides. The fancier tea caddies often had gilded brass mounts and feet. As time went on, cabinetmakers introduced new designs, woods and shapes to their caddies.

Tea caddies came in three sizes—single, double, and triple.

Single caddies could be square, polygonal, oval, or elliptical and sometimes  urn-shaped. Tops were mostly flat with sometimes a small loop handle or finial in the center. Escutcheons of inlaid ivory, bone or boxwood surrounded the keyhole. Inside they had a free standing lid. Sometimes, the tops were shaped like pyramids, continuing the proportions of the side panels.

Double caddies were usually oblong sometimes octagonal or oval. They had two lids, or two removable canisters with hinged tops. Some had one lid and a space for a glass bowl that people usually used for storing sugar. Others had a second bowl for mixing the blend of tea.

Triple caddies had either two lids, three lids, two canisters, three canisters or two lids or canisters flanking a space in the center for a glass bowl. They had rectangular shapes and rarely contained two glass jars and a bowl.

Cabinetmakers covered the more elaborate tea caddies in luxurious veneers. Cutting veneers by hand was a highly skilled job. The veneers were much thicker than those used today. This created a problem because moisture could be absorbed into the veneer’s edge. To solve this problem, cabinetmakers edged their caddies with strips of contrasting plain wood, usually holly or boxwood or in herringbone designs.

Caddies made of plainer mahogany often had marquetry decoration. Makers inserted per-made panels, mostly of oval shape, of marquetry or penwork enhanced marquetry, onto the box by cutting the veneer to the required shape. The most common designs were in the Neoclassical style of flora, urns, garlands, paterae, lyres, stylized baskets, birds and mythical beings.

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