A Colonial Revival Chair

New to the shop is a Colonial Revival Chippendale-style chair.

I would date this piece to the first quarter of the 20th century although it could be earlier.  Colonial Revival furniture became popular in the 4th quarter of the 19th century and continues to be made today.  The quality of Colonial Revival pieces varies greatly from bench-made reproductions to early factory-made pieces to the crude mass produced Asian pieces available today.

This chair is of high quality, although not a reproduction of a specific piece.  It has a well done diamond-shaped splat based on New York designs of the 1750-1780 period.

The knees of the front legs are nicely carved and it has well articulated claw and ball feet.

The mahogany has great color and the piece has been waxed and includes a new Brunschwig & Fils silk damask seat cover.  This piece would be great used as a desk chair, in an entry hall or as a extra chair in a living room or library.

For more information about period American Chippendale chairs I suggest Albert Sack's "Fine Points of Furniture, Early American," colloquially known as "Good, Better, Best."  For more reading on Colonial Revival furniture I would refer to "Colonial Revival Furniture" by David P. Lindquist and Caroline C. Warren.

 

Cleaning Brasses

Last Thursday, after my trip to Minnesota, I brought into the shop a Hepplewhite-style serpentine front commode.  (I'll write more about it in another post.)  I spent Friday and Saturday cleaning and polishing the brasses (drawer handles and escutcheons) on the piece.  They were covered with decades of paste wax accumulation and tarnish.

Initial cleaning with a polishing cloth (I like Cape Cod Metal Polishing Cloths) wouldn't do the trick so I consulted the Internet.  As is so often the case, an old, simple method was the solution.  In this case literally so.  I soaked the pieces in a homemade solution of warm water, table salt and white vinegar.  Scrubbing with an an old tooth brush removed most of the wax buildup and a lot of the tarnish.  Changing the solution after a few pieces have been in it speeds up the process.  I soaked some overnight.  Here's what they looked like after that step.

I followed this up with the polishing cloth and the results were amazing.  I'm not sure if a picture can truly show the difference but here is the "after" version.

  The escutcheons, especially, had a lot of wax buildup and I used some mineral spirits to loosen up some of the wax that didn't come off in the solution.  If I was doing it again I might start with the mineral spirits, but the end result was great, easy (just a lot of elbow grease in the polishing stage), and very inexpensive.