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Page 8 The Antique Shoppe July, 2019
COMMON SENSE
ANTIQUES
WILLIAM AND MARY
COMFORT AND STYLE
Everyone knows the basic
antique furniture styles, right?
Queen Anne with the rounded chair
shoulders, vase shaped splat and
cabriole legs, Chippendale with the
ball and claw foot and the pierced
splat and of course William and
Mary, one of those dark clunky old
English styles that used to be in
castles in the Middle Ages. It falls
in the same category as those other
clunky English styles like Jacobean,
Elizabethan and Tudor.
On the other hand, that is not
the case at all. We owe more to
the William and Mary style than
most people, even knowledgeable
collectors, often realize. Why? And
who were William and Mary that we
should be grateful to them?
WHO THEY WERE— William III
(1650-1702), known as William of
Orange, was the son of the Dutch
Prince of Orange and his English
wife Mary. Young William III
married another English woman
named Mary, who was his cousin
and was the daughter of the King of
England, James II (1633-1701). It
was confusing.
James II was a Catholic and when
a son was born from his second
marriage to Mary Modena, the
prospect of another Catholic king
inspired a coup which toppled James
from the throne in 1688 and installed
his Protestant daughter Mary on the
throne in 1689, along with her Dutch
husband, William, whom she had
married in 1677.
When William arrived by
invitation in England in 1688, along
with his army of 14,000 Dutch
troops, he also brought with him
many of his Dutch craftsmen and
their ideas of furniture making.
The Jacobean style, incidentally,
named for James’ father James I,
(1566-1625), (Jacob is Latin for
James), had just about run its course
in England and the time was ripe
for a major change. This timing
happily coincided with the influx of
the Huguenots, driven from France
By Fred Taylor
in another religious dispute. Since
the Huguenots were skilled textile
workers and wood craftsmen, they
provided much of the skilled labor
force that was about to be needed in
the coming furniture revolution.
WHAT THEY DID— One
of the most important
concepts in furniture
brought to England by
Dutch William and his
cabinetmakers was one that
had not yet occurred to the
English that of comfort.
English furniture had
heretofore been designed to
promote the rank, status and
power of the owner, not to
provide comfort.
Two other concepts were
also prominent in the new
furniture style verticality
and slenderness. The new pieces
of furniture tended to be taller and
slimmer than anything previously
made. They were accentuated with
long straight legs that sported new
trumpet turnings and new versions
of older ideas like ball, baluster
and ring turnings became smaller
and crisper. Chairs showed the
most dramatic adaptations of
the style. The chairs themselves
became taller and thinner as
did the individual elements of
the chair. Seats and backs were
caned or rushed and occasionally
upholstered in leather. Some chairs,
particularly in the later American
version of the style, were fitted with
banister backs. (In this application,
banister is a corruption of the word
baluster, the turned upright piece
that supports the railing along a
flight of stairs.) The banister was
split and installed in the chair
so that the flat portion faced
forward forming a flat backrest.
Crest rails were arched or double
arched and often highly carved or
decorated and usually supported by
elaborately turned stiles. Chair feet
were often scroll or paintbrush, the
so-called Spanish foot, actually a
Portuguese innovation that came
to England by way of Holland.
←This early 18th century maple
and walnut highboy shows the
slender legs, trumpet turnings,
and wavy stretchers that help
identify the style. (Skinner
photo)
This chest, circa 1720, shows the
extended bun feet that let the
case “float” above the ground.
(MV Auctions photo)↓
The style brought to the
forefront several elements of
construction and decoration,
which while not exactly new,
had never been featured so
prominently.
Chief among these was the
round bun - the turnip or Dutch
foot. A variation of the bun foot
used a dowel to extend the foot
farther below the case of a chest
so that it was not hidden by the
heavy architectural molding that
surrounded the bottom edge of
the cabinet. This little detail gave
the chest a visual lift with a slight
hint of “floating” above the feet.
Stretchers had previously been
used between legs or posts, but
the new style put a new twist on
them - they became serpentine and
usually crossed under the center
of a piece with a finial installed
over the junction. The use of this
stylistic variation allowed a person
to sit closer to the edge of a table or
console and was conducive to the
development of the dressing table,
one of the earliest “use specific”
pieces of furniture.
One of the longest lasting of
the new the new elements was the
general use of cast brass hardware,
replacing wooden handles and pulls.
The castings were thin and irregular
since each was done individually
and period castings show the imprint
of the sand in the mold as well as the
marks left by the scrapers and files.
The brass surfaces were decorated
with chasings, designs punched or
scored on the surface. Originally
pieces of hardware were attached
to the wood surface by heavy cotter
pins driven through the thickness
of the surface and opened from
inside. While clever in theory, the
impracticality of such a fastener
soon showed, and the post and bail
pull, held in the wood by rough,
handmade screws appeared on the
scene in the early 18th century.
THANKS TO THEM— Remnants
of the original style can be seen in
both Colonial Revival and modern
furniture in the form of slender ball
turned legs, serpentine stretchers,
butterfly drop leaf tables and chairs
with upholstered seats and backs.
In short, the William and Mary
period gave us lighter furniture with
pleasant lines, attractive cast brass
hardware and above all comfort -
thanks to Bill and his bride.
Send your comments, questions and pictures to
me at PO Box 215, Crystal River, FL 34423 or email
them to me at info@furnituredetective.com
Visit Fred’s website www.furnituredetective.com
and check out the downloadable “Common Sense
Antiques” columns in .pdf format. His book “HOW
TO BE A FURNITURE DETECTIVE” is now available
for $18.95 plus $3.00 shipping. Send check or
money order for $21.95 to Fred Taylor, PO Box 215,
Crystal River, FL 34423
Fred and Gail Taylor’s DVD, “IDENTIFICATION OF
OLDER & ANTIQUE FURNITURE”, ($17.00 + $3.00
S&H) are also available at the same address. For
more information call (800) 387-6377 (9AM-4PM
Eastern, M-F only), fax 352-563-2916, or e-mail
info@furnituredetective.com.
All items are also available directly from the
website, www.furnituredetective.com