As seen in The Antique Shoppe Newspaper, April 2008

Q. Hello - I am trying to identify the maker of a cabinet that was my mother's.    I took the cabinet to a local shop and talked with someone whom I consider an to be expert. He showed me the doweled assembly method and the straight lines of the hand cut wood versus rounded machine cuts. Also he pointed out the thickness of the door and sides and the obvious hand gouging/shaping of the curvatures. This is not a "formed" piece, rather a "whittled" or carved shape. From this we deduced that this piece was made prior to the industrial age and he dated it up to 1850.

The cast brass is all embossed with "P.E. Guerin. NYC". Taking into account the travel/freight difficulties in the mid 1800's, I deduced this cabinet must have been made in New York. I picked up a book about 19th century New York cabinetmakers at the library and Alexander Roux stuck in my mind as the possible maker for this cabinet because his description revealed him to be an innovator in his trade. It also stated he would work with marble and brass.

The cabinet is 42 3/4" tall and 31"wide at its widest point. There are four interior shelves about four inches apart. Sheet music? Thank you for your time. Gary R..,

A. Identifying a piece of furniture is sometimes a lot like genealogy research in that the temptation is there to make perfectly logical assumptions based on appearances, a few facts and the occasional leap of faith and reach what seem to be perfectly logical conclusions. The DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) sort of sets the standard in what is accepted as family history. If it is not documented and verifiable, it isn't a fact. We don't have to be quite that stringent but we do have to use as many facts and as few assumptions as possible.

As much as a everybody would like to have a Roux cabinet, there just aren't that many of them out there and it takes a lot more than what we have to make such an attribution.

What facts do we have? We know that the brass was made by Guerin but you and I also know that P.E.Guerin, Inc is still in business today so that doesn't really date it. In fact it puts a limit on the earliest possible date because Pierre Guerin didn't start his business until 1857. Unless the brass was added at a later date that pretty well shoots down the woodworking expert's estimate of  "up to 1850". The dowel construction also puts a lower end on the date because doweling was not a general construction technique in furniture manufacture until after the middle of the 19th century.

Alexander Roux did in fact work in New York from 1836 to 1881 so he isn't ruled out as the maker yet but neither are several thousand other cabinetmakers of the period in and around New York City. Roux specialized in the popular Victorian stylings of the period, ranging from Gothic to Rococo Revival, including Renaissance Revival. The style of this cabinet however is almost purely Louis XV. Granted, Rococo Revival was derived from the styles of the 18th century court of Louis XV but this is not Rococo. This style of bombe commode was first seen in the mid 1700's in France and then not again until the very late 1800's in America.         The piece is almost certainly a music cabinet. The striped veneer on the outside faces is probably kingwood, the traditional wood for this style. The overall appearance of the piece, including the restored murals, most closely resembles the vitrines made in the Louis XV style in France around the turn of the 20th century. The painting on the surfaces is known as the "Vernis Martin" style. Cabinets of this type were generally made in the late 19th and early 20th century in France and imported to the US. Without a label or a signature it is almost impossible to more closely identify it. 

Q. I have a pie safe that was in my great-grandfather's house in Indiana until I got it. The house was built in 1881. I would like to know what the initials, WFM, punched in the tin stand for. Are they from the maker? I saw another pie safe with the identical initials in a shop in Lafayette, Indiana some years ago. Can you help me figure who made this and where? Thanks, Meta T.

A. Pie safes, also called pie cupboards, tin safes or meat safes are a long standing tradition in the mid West and the South.  They performed the function of the modern refrigerator without the "cold" part, acting as a food storage facility, keeping baked goods and meat safe from insects, children and dogs while allowing for air circulation by virtue of the pierced tin panels.

There are examples of pie safes from the 18th century but most surviving ones are from the mid to late 19th and early 20th centuries, pretty much disappearing by the 1920's. Some were factory made items and others were made in local cabinet shops or even on the homestead. The intricacy and skill of the punch patterns in the tin is often a clue to the age of the piece with the more elaborate being the older examples.

Since you have seen an identical piece in your area it is possible that a local or regional source is responsible for multiple copies. It is possible that the initials stand for something like "W....  Furniture Manufacturing" indicating the maker of the cabinet or "W.... F.... Metal" indicating the maker of the tin. Or it could just be the initials of a local craftsman or even a customer who had more than one cabinet.

If anyone has any information about this series of initials in pie safe tins I would love to hear from you. Thanks for your help.

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