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Simple Gifts: Artifacts from Shaker Communities

June 21, 2012 in Crafts & Folk Art, Furniture by admin | No comments

Shaker child's sewing desk, Canterbury, New Hampshire

Rare Shaker child's sewing desk, Canterbury, New Hampshire

Typically, when one thinks of the artifacts of a religious group, one thinks of icons, crucifixes, ceremonial silver, not rocking chairs.  Yet the Shakers, more accurately known as the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, a group that never had more than about 6,000 full members, have made some of the greatest contributions to American material culture and design.

The Shaker religion appeared in England in 1747, and really began to gain momentum in 1758 when Ann Lee joined them.  (Among the many things that reveal Shakers were ahead of their time is their democratic attitude toward women and leadership.)  Their basic tenets involved, among other things, a renouncing of worldly goods, a communal life of celibacy and simplicity, and the enthusiastic style of worship that earned them their nickname.  The religion’s heyday was over the next century or so; children were adopted by the communities, but the communal and egalitarian nature of the Shaker life no doubt also appealed to women who were disenfranchised, either through abusive marriages or the societal and financial limitations of widowhood.

Today, aside from that quirky idea about celibacy, Shakers are most remembered for the products of their industrious simplicity.  Not only did they invent or pioneer a number of ideas – from the “flat” household broom (versus the less effective round version) to packaging and selling seeds in paper packets, but they also created one of the most appealing design aesthetics through their devotion to neat, clean, symmetrical work.  Coming to prominence during the Federal period of style, they took what was already a very refined and balanced sense of design and just stripped it down to the most elegant elements.

These days, however, elegant simplicity is probably going to cost you.  Shaker pieces are highly desirable (assuming that objects are convincingly Shaker and not just in the “Shaker style”), in part just because of the careful attention to the details of quality construction and in part perhaps because with so few communities, pieces can be more readily identified and researched than other pieces of the same period.  In terms of collecting, things fall out fairly simply in terms of price: you have the small things like chairs and pantry boxes that were made in vast quantities for sale outside the communities and you have case pieces, tables, and more specialized forms that were manufactured for use within the community.  Chairs, spinning wheels and the like can easily be had for a few hundred dollars, but if it’s Shaker-made AND Shaker-used someone is after, the case pieces (like the one pictured above) generally bring well into five figures.  But, after all, simplicity never goes out of style!

-Hollie Davis, Senior Editor, p4A.com.

Reference & Further Recommended Reading:

To search the Prices4Antiques antiques reference database for valuation information on hundreds of thousands of antiques and fine art visit our homepage www.prices4antiques.com

National Treasure: A John Townsend High Chest

February 22, 2012 in Auctions & Events, Furniture by admin | No comments

1756 John Townsend highboy

1756 John Townsend high chest of drawers

Normally, I don’t use this space to write extensively about “traditional” antiques, preferring instead to steer away from the stereotype of expensive old furniture, which people can and do safely assume that we have, in order to highlight the diversity of the objects we cover, which aren’t nearly as obvious. But every now and then a piece of furniture that is so quintessentially representative of the modern antiques market comes along and I would be remiss not to share it. That’s the case with the 1756 Newport, Rhode Island high chest of drawers by John Townsend that sold last month at Sotheby’s New York. It fetched a staggering $3.5 million, which, by the way, is not the world record price for a piece of American furniture sold at auction, although that distinction belongs to the Townsend-Goddard school of craftsmen as well.

Of course, people often wonder why anyone would pay such a price for a piece. A look at the auction cataloguing on the record helps explain. (I really encourage anyone reading to just take a moment to click through and look at the breadth and depth of the description – it highlights not only the extensive research that is done by auction houses when an object warrants it, but also how much information is mined from careful examination of an object.) This piece is special for a number of reasons. First, it’s from the workshops of the Townsend-Goddard families, an 18th-century furniture-making dynasty that is widely considered to be the makers of the finest furniture ever made in America, and possibly of some of the finest furniture ever made in the world, in terms of craftsmanship, attention to details, and proportions.

A detailed view of the two proper right cabriole legs on this high chest terminating in carved ball and claw feet with open talons

A detailed view of the two proper right cabriole legs on this high chest terminating in carved ball and claw feet with open talons

Also, it’s one of only five pieces known that is signed by John Townsend. Then there’s the fact that we have the provenance, the chain of ownership, all the way back to 1756, which is an incredible history in its own right. The high chest also exhibits a number of the key features associated with the Townsend-Goddard school, including the carved shell and “open talons” on the ball-and-claw feet, pictured above. (“Open talons” mean that the foot, carved from a solid piece of wood, has toes that are so delineated that they have openings or gaps between them and the ball of the foot – it’s a delicate detail that shows an incredible level of attention to decoration and skill.) For these reasons, among others, this piece truly is an American masterpiece, an American treasure.

-Hollie Davis, Senior Editor, p4A.com

Reference & Further Recommended Reading:

To search the Prices4Antiques antiques reference database for valuation information on hundreds of thousands of antiques and fine art visit our homepage www.prices4antiques.com

Gather Round the Table: A Cornucopia of Antique Dining Tables

November 22, 2011 in Furniture by admin | No comments

19th century American hutch table

19th century American hutch table

One of the things we have to be thankful for these days is the copious amount of living space most of us have. Such was not always the case! Today, we can afford to have an entire room dedicated to a huge table that we only use a few times a year, but historically, especially in America prior to the twentieth century, dining tables needed to be able to make remarkable transformations from pieces of furniture that took up little space and/or could be tucked out of the way to large surfaces capable of accommodating a crowd. Of course, if you don’t have a whole room to give up 365 days a year, and you’d like something other than the card table that makes you feel like you’re still sitting at the kids’ table, antiques can offer lots of options that allow you to transform your dining room (or any other room) to an elegant space that will seat a crowd.

Of course, there is the old standard of adding leaves, but our ancestors were waaaay more creative than that! There are drop-leaf tables that have numerous classifications – the standard form with a support that swings out to support the leaf, gate-leg tables that have a leg (sometimes an extra leg) that swings out like a gate to hold the leaf, etc. There are banquet tables that are essentially two or three separate (usually drop leaf) tables that can be broken up and located throughout a home when not in use. My personal favorites are hutch tables, like the one pictured above. These products of genius are tables, but when not in use, the tops flip up, revealing a chair seat or a bench that doubles as a base. They can be scooted up against a wall and used for seating until a table is needed. The best part is that because tables were/are so plentiful, you can have your pick of style and price range. Some examples can be very expensive (usually because of their age), but you can find these forms at just about any price point if you look, so stow the card tables and look for something worthy of that big Thanksgiving dinner!

-By Hollie Davis, p4A Senior Editor.

Reference & Further Recommended Reading:

To search the Prices4Antiques antiques reference database for valuation information on hundreds of thousands of antiques and fine art visit our homepage www.prices4antiques.com

Antiques of the Week: Furniture

October 14, 2011 in Antiques of the Week, Furniture by admin | No comments

Loeblein leather Georgian style wing armchairs

Loeblein leather Georgian style wing armchairs

One of the most common questions in the antiques marketplace is, “What’s hot right now?” At Prices4Antiques, we always see lots of searches for furniture and in the past seven days, we’ve seen searches for a Union National flame-grained veneered dining room suite, a Governor Winthrop slant-lid mahogany desk, a pair of Loeblein reproduction Georgian-style armchairs, a Jacobean oak armchair with triangle seat, and a Phoenix Chair Company Arts & Crafts rocking chair. These were the top five items viewed in our furniture section this week, but people searched for thousands of other antiques and collectibles at Prices4Antiques.com.

 

Collecting Antique & Vintage Sewing Machines

August 17, 2011 in Furniture, Kitchen & Household, Textiles/Clothing/Accessories by admin | No comments

Singer & Co. black-painted and gilt-decorated cast iron treadle-base, belt-driven sewing machine

Singer & Co. black-painted and gilt-decorated cast iron treadle-base, belt-driven sewing machine

Singer Sewing Machines-everyone has them, few want to buy them. . . . Since almost everyone wears clothes, the automatic sewing machine may have been one of the most important inventions ever, yet surprisingly few of even the oldest antique models are valuable.  Here’s why.

Brief  History of the Sewing Machine

There is some disagreement about the first sewing machine.  It may have been patented in 1755 by a German inventor or in 1790 in England, in the form of a machine designed to make footwear.   Balthaser Krems patented a machine in1810, an Austrian tailor in 1814, and Americans John Dodge and John Knowles in 1818.  The thing these sewing machines had in common was that none of them actually worked.  It wasn’t until 1830 that a French tailor, Barthelemy Thimonner developed a viable sewing machine that impacted the way clothing was made.  Thimonner had a shop full of sewing machines which he used to manufacture uniforms for the French Army, exciting the wrath of fellow tailors who, fearing for their livelihoods, ransacked his shop and destroyed his sewing machines.

Early Sewing Machines by Elias Howe & Isaac Singer

In America, Walter Hunt developed a machine, but Elias Howe, Jr. was first with a workable, although prohibitively expensive model. Howe’s sewing machine worked well but had to be crafted entirely by hand, which put it outside the economic reach of most of its potential customers.   Isaac Merrit Singer produced a viable sewing machine by offering an improved version of an existing model that while affordable was subject to regular breakdowns.

American Sewing Machine Manufacturers

By the mid 1850’s, there were dozens of companies in this country making and selling sewing machines, including Grover & Baker Co, the Florence Sewing Machine Co, The American Buttonhole, Overseaming & Sewing Machine Co, Wheeler & Wilson, National, New Home, Graybar, Wilcox & Gibbs, Merrow Machine Co, Davis, and Singer.

Collectible Sewing Machines

For collectors, the value in old sewing machines has most to do with rarity and condition.  As the most successful models were produced in factories by the thousands, only the oldest, hard to find, aesthetically pleasing, or models that represent important technological advances are eagerly sought after, and command high prices. While Singer is the most widely recognized manufacturer, its products are the least collectible except for the earliest examples such as the model #1 and the Turtleback, both of which are hard to find.  Singer sewing machines, regardless of age and aesthetics, are with a few exceptions, rarely worth more than a few hundred dollars at best. The Singer Featherweight is prized for its functionality rather than its collectability and is still used happily by quiltmakers. Collectors also enjoy a wide variety of manufacturers made mini-versions of their sewing machines.

Reference: Country Living: Innovation and Design: What Is It? What Is It Worth?, by Joe L. Rosson & Helaine Fendelman, c 2007, House of Collectibles.

-by p4A contributing editor Susan Cramer.

To search the Prices4Antiques antiques reference database for valuation information on hundreds of thousands of antiques and fine art visit our homepage www.prices4antiques.com

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