Derek Jones takes F&C to the sales for a quick lesson in dating
It’s been a while coming but we’ve finally got round to launching an F&C account on Instagram aimed at topping up our regular published content with a more informal stream of tips, updates and general comment. It’s where you’ll find the occasional video clip relating to articles in the magazine and other snippets that, although valid, don’t always make the final cut. It’s also a place where you can comment and interact with other readers and yours truly more or less in real time. Time zones and other restrictions permitting!
To get the most out of this feature you’ll need to open an account yourself and access the content via a smartphone or tablet. It just requires a valid email address and a password that you generate and only takes a couple of minutes. I’ve put this article together to show the sort of thing I have planned for F&C on Instagram.
A sale of the centuries
Auction rooms are a great opportunity to get up close and personal with period furniture and unlike most museums you can open drawers, lift lids and crawl around on the floor to get a better look at things without attracting too much attention or worse, being asked to leave the premises. My local sale room has weekly sales for general items and quarterly ones for more valuable artifacts. The entire catalogue for each sale is held online where you can place bids in advance or if you prefer you can join in the action with live bidding. Viewing day is Saturday at my local and if I’m at a loose end I grab a bacon sandwich and a coffee from the catering van and kill some time. A typical find looks something like this.
When was that exactly?
Regency style is associated with the reign of King George III, who was deemed unfit to rule in 1811. His son, another George, ruled as proxy as Prince Regent until becoming King George IV on his father’s death in 1820. Strictly speaking, Regency style is contained within the Georgian period but as the prince was a prolific patron of the arts both before and after ascending to the throne, it’s his influence to which we refer.
Regency work table
Given its lacklustre appearance you could easily pass this over as a fairly plain work table. But things are rarely what they seem when you get up close and start digging around. Everybody likes to study drawer construction and rightly so, there’s so much personal detail crammed into a small space that learning to read them is almost like shaking hands with the maker. The auctioneers have labelled this up as ‘Regency’, which could mean either 1811 to 1820 or a couple of decades earlier or later than that depending on your point of view.
Aging disgracefully
Images 1, 2, 3, 4: For my liking there’s not enough flare in this piece for it to be high Regency i.e. post 1815 – when the Prince Regent was at his most extravagant. The ring turned legs are much more in keeping with the earlier Georgian style; somber and formal. The decorative inlay and ebonising are also quite reserved. But that’s just my opinion and it’s quite possible that the piece was made in a style respecting the transition or passing of a monarch.
For a student of furniture design there’s so much to see in a small piece like this. There’s no attempt by the maker to kiss the baseline of the lapped dovetails on the inside of the drawer but the joints are tight where it matters and the structure is none the worse for it. What’s not in keeping, however, is the lock on the lower drawer, which is likely to be a replacement. It’s not fitted that well and the escutcheon doesn’t match with the one in the drawer above. The use of steel screws, however, is correct for the period.
We make such decisions nowadays based on aesthetic principles; brass hardware typically means brass screws so everything matches and on showy pieces like writing slopes or display cases, there’s a good case for doing so. Elsewhere though it’s unnecessary and if you’re looking for signs of age and authenticity in period furniture, you’ll see more steel than brass.
The benefits of brass
Appearances aside there are some practical reasons why using brass screws makes a lot of sense. Although brass will tarnish, it will not rust or react with the tannins in the timber; a process that will turn the material around the thread into dust eventually causing the screw to work loose.
Beneath the surface
Images 5, 6: One of the most fascinating aspects of this piece and what drew my attention in the first place was the nature of the split in the top. Splits aren’t that uncommon in period furniture obviously, but this split doesn’t match the direction of the figured grain meaning that the top surface is a veneer. The ground work for all three leaves and some of the framework below is oak suggesting that the mahogany used to cover it was either not yet in cheap supply (that’s a relative cheap by the way) or that it was intentionally made to a lower spec. But my gut feeling is that this little gem is lying about its age and I’m inclined to think the purchaser thought so too.
Sold
Image 7: The good news is that our ‘Regency work table’ went past its reserve price and sold for £240.
Further reading
PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF DEREK JONES