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American Furniture: Understanding Styles, Construction, and Quality

What style is it? How is it put together? Is it real or is it a fake? How can I make it look its best without destroying its value? A savvy authority answers these and many other questions about when, where, how, and even why a piece of furniture was made. And by juxtaposing genuine works with copies, he shows how to judge the quality and authenticity of antiques to distinguish a fake from the real thing.
Covering three centuries of changing styles, this handsome and useful volume details each period's essential traits, offering practical guidance to novice and seasoned collectors alike. The book moves sequentially through major design periods, including the popular William and Mary and Queen Anne styles, Rococo and Chippendale, Federal, Shaker, Modern, and Revival. Illustrations of silverwork and paintings set the furniture in context, and comparisons with European pieces point out the unique aspects of American design.
JOHN T. KIRK, Emeritus Professor of Art History, Boston University, and for many years a principal lecturer for the American Arts Course at Sotheby's, New York, has held museum curatorial positions at Yale University, Rhode Island School of Design, and the Rhode Island Historical Society. His various awards and grants include a Guggenheim Fellowship, which led to his book The Shaker World: Art, Life, Belief. He lives in Seattle.
251 illustrations, 57 in full color, 7 line drawings, 81/2 x 111/2"

Early American Kitchen

For protection against long New England winters, early American settlers built houses with low-beamed ceilings, small windows, and solid doors. Walls and floors were constructed of unpainted planking, and furniture was pine or maple. A large fireplace for heating and cooking was the main feature of a colonial kitchen. The high-backed chairs provided a shield against winter drafts. Most colonial homes had a flax-wheel for spinning linen thread from which cloth was woven. Many New England homes had glass “witch’s balls” hanging beside the door to keep out evil spirits.

The Knoxville Museum of Art’s Thorne Rooms are among America’s most well-known miniature diorama groups. The Thorne Rooms were developed in the 1930s and 40s by Mrs. James Ward Thorne, Chicago, IL, who loved dollhouses as a child. After extensive travels in Europe where she collected miniature furniture and accessories, Mrs. Thorne had over two dozen miniature rooms created by cabinetmakers from her own drawings. They were made in a scale of one inch to one foot. She painted and stained woodwork, papered walls, and made textiles for the rooms. The rooms were displayed in several World’s Fairs. In 1933–1934 they were displayed at Chicago’s Century of Progress Exposition. In 1939 they traveled to San Francisco’s Golden Gate International Exposition, and in 1940 they were displayed at the New York World’s Fair.

Later, Mrs. Thorne created 29 more rooms, copying Europe’s castles, museums, and historic homes. She commissioned architects to create historically accurate settings and had textiles and carpets made by the Needlework Guild of Chicago. The rooms, tracing English and French style 1500–1920, were exhibited in 1937 at the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1942 Mrs. Thorne gave a third and final group of Thorne Rooms to the Art Institute. Those 37 rooms offered a view of American History, 1675–1940.

In 1962, IBM, which had purchased 29 rooms, gave nine of the original Thorne Rooms to Knoxville’s Dulin Gallery of Art, this museum’s predecessor. Our rooms contain many of the miniature objects Mrs. Thorne collected during her youth and on her travels. The Knoxville Museum of Art is one of five museums in the country to have a collection of Thorne Rooms.

The restoration of the Thorne Rooms has been made possible by the generous support of Sherri Lee, in honor of Mrs. McAfee Lee.

I blurred the windows for this structure that was probably built in the late 60s to early 1970s because whatever "genius" owns it now decided to furnish the office with tasteless Early American Ethan Allen style furniture and crappy molding found at the Home Depot. They even put aluminum shingles on part of the building for God's sake!

Native Long Islanders are ignorant and can't appreciate the beauty and "exotica" of the Mid Century designs scattered around their island. Instead they fear the modernism and alter it horrendously, or they tear down examples of the genre. Instead preferring a pastiche of gaudy styles, ridiculous oversize bombastic "post modernism", lacking any scale, no beauty, and no respect for materials, and instead they celebrate anything that pays homage to a "Colonial" past - an "Early American" that is not done successfully. Lots of ugly fake panel doors with corny looking garlands and sentimentality.

And if you try to say anything or express an opinion regarding modern design or the lack of, they look at you like you have two heads and commit unspeakable taboos.

Welcome to Philistine land!

Combining comfort, simplicity, and craftsmanship, Windsor chairs have long been prized by collectors. Introduced from England in the early 1700s, the Windsor style took hold in America first as seating for the well-to-do and later as the favorite chair of the general population. Included in the Windsor family are stools, tables, settees, high chairs, cradles, and candle stands, but the greatest variety is found in the chairs, which range from comb-back to bow-back to step-down versions. Their makers took advantage of the natural properties of different woods for particular components of the chairs, employing hickory, red oak, or ash for bent parts, maple for turnings, and pine for seats. Kassay meticulously documents all of these features and styles with drawings so accurate and precise that amateur furniture makers can use them as blueprints for creating Windsor reproductions. The drawings are complemented by narrative descriptions, photographs, and a list of measured parts for each of the pieces under discussion.