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Antique Oak sale and auctions in the
Antique Web!
 GOLDEN OAK
by Fred Taylor
AMERICA'S GOLDEN AGE
America has had several periods that might be called the
"Golden Age" where furniture was concerned. The 18th
century saw great art in isolated locations like
Newport, RI and New York. The Federal period of the
early 19th century saw a prolific expansion of American
furniture craftsmanship but it was, after all, dependent
a great deal on English designers. Then there was the
great Rococo Revival period that rehashed 18th century
French extravagances followed by the Renaissance Revival
that celebrated architectural concepts. Even the great
"people's" style of Arts and Crafts began in England and
was based on medieval English traditions.
So when was America's true Golden Age? It began in the
1870s as a confluence of four major events. The first
was the increasing scarcity of walnut used so
prolifically in Victorian styles for three quarters of a
century followed by the prosperity of America following
the Civil War. The American middle class emerged from
the war hungry for some "status." This all occurred as
the American furniture industry became increasingly
mechanized and the concept of "mail order" began to take
hold.
Wealthier families acquired bigger houses and they
wanted bigger furniture to fill them. Renaissance
Revival filled that void for a time with its
"battleship" furniture but walnut was running out. What
was next? Our old friend oak.
Oak was one of the first woods used in the Colonies for
furniture and was used in great quantities for building
ships. It had not been a very popular wood for refined
furniture construction since the Jacobean period of the
17th century in England but that was about to change.
Some of the earliest great oak furniture was hand made
and elaborately hand carved by such masters as Robert J.
Horner and designed by the likes of George Hunzinger and
the natural beauty of these pieces and the oak itself
was enhanced by two methods. The primary wood was white
oak, a pale wood with little natural color. Both color
and texture were improved by the process of "quarter
cutting" an oak log to reveal the startling pattern of
the flecks of the medullary rays, the "tiger's eyes" in
the oak. The other improvement came with the application
of coats of orange shellac sometimes tinted with yellow
ochre to produce the famous golden oak look of the late
19th century. This led to the "Golden Oak" period of
American furniture that lasted from the 1880s to the
second decade of the 20th century.
This oak sideboard shows traces of
the latter part of the Golden Oak period. Quarter
cut veneer is used only on the top two drawers. Flat
cut oak is used on the large drawer, the doors and
the case. The carvings are all applied. |
But as relatively wealthy as the emerging middle
class was, it couldn't afford to hire Horner and
Hunzinger on a regular basis and was much too impatient
to wait for new finery. They wanted it now! That led to
the catalog sales books promoted by Sears, Eaton's of
Canada, Montgomery Ward and Larkin. But there had to be
a trade off. Since these companies were capable of
shipping a specific item from a book full of furniture
across the country, there had to be some standardization
and some compromises. Instead of shipping furniture to a
local agent for any needed assembly and repair, the
designs had to be simplified enough to either ship the
furniture as an assembled unit directly to the customer
or in such a simplified condition that the customer
could assemble it in the home. By the 1890s expensive
hand carving was replaced by machine cut applied
carvings and moldings and surface decoration moved from
carving to pressing. Sharp metal dies with an intricate
design were pressed over chair backs under great
pressure to produce the "press back" chairs of the
period that had the look of hand carving. In addition
the overall size of individual units began to decrease
from commercial pressure. Smaller pieces cost less to
ship and used less raw material to construct. This
became increasingly important as the seemingly
inexhaustible stretches of old oak forest began to
disappear.
In response manufacturers began to use substitute woods
like red oak, elm, ash and hickory in less conspicuous
places instead of using all old growth white oak. Then
came the use of veneers. Quarter cutting an oak log is
very wasteful of the raw material but thin slices of
quarter cut oak veneer could cover twenty five times as
much surface as solid quarter cut wood. Some factories
even went one step further. Using a textured roller an
oak looking grain pattern could literally be printed
onto a piece of wood painted the correct background
color. It often takes a discerning eye to see the
difference even today.
The "Golden Oak" period was briefly interrupted early in
the 20th century by the Arts and Crafts influence which
tended to use a darker finish caused by exposing the raw
wood to ammonia fumes, the "fumed" finish, or by using
nut brown stains to tone down the gold colors. But the
darker colors faded around World War I as the public
grew weary of the severe styles of the movement and
popular taste turned back to the golden choices.
By the 1920s the desire for styles from the country's
past overtook the hunger for oak as the Colonial Revival
period rolled onto the scene with its traditional
designs in dark walnut and mahogany. The Golden Oak
period was over.
Send your comments, questions and pictures to me at
PO Box 215, Crystal River, FL 34423 or fmtaylor@aol.com.
Visit Fred's website at www.furnituredetective.com. His
book "HOW TO BE A FURNITURE DETECTIVE" is now available
for $18.95 plus $2.00 shipping. Send check or money
order for $20.95 to Fred Taylor, PO Box 215, Crystal
River, FL 34423.
Fred and Gail Taylor's video, "IDENTIFICATION OF OLDER &
ANTIQUE FURNITURE", ($29.95 includes S & H) and a bound
compilation of the first 60 columns of "COMMON SENSE
ANTIQUES by Fred Taylor", ($25.00 includes S & H) are
also available at the same address. For more information
call (800)387-6377, fax 352-563-2916, or e-mail
fmtaylor@aol.com.
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