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Common Sense Antiques

As seen in The Antique Shoppe Newspaper, November 2006

It is in this style that more American furniture has been made than in any other style. Is it Chippendale? No, that's English. Is it Queen Anne? Nope, that's English too. Arts and Crafts? Not enough of it. OK. What is it then? It's good old Colonial Revival, that enormous body of work that reproduces, sometimes imaginatively so, the styles of furniture when and just after this country was just a collection of English colonies. As it turns out Colonial Revival depends not so much on the actual style that is being reproduced as the interpretation of the style and the combination of stylistic elements that sometimes produce brand new styles all to themselves. 

But there is an element of confusion about Colonial Revival. What is the difference, if any, between Colonial Revival furniture and Centennial furniture? Even though the two terms are often used interchangeably there does appear to be a difference - at least to some folks.

The American Centennial was celebrated in Philadelphia in 1876 at the Centennial Exposition. Furniture styles, fashions and technologies from around the world were on display in the City of Brotherly Love. The publicity and preparations for the Exposition, as well as the financial difficulties of 1873, prompted America to begin to remember the early history and events of the country and to long for some of what appeared to be the security and comfort of those earlier times, especially when viewed from more than 100 years away. There was a rush to suddenly acquire antiques from the Colonial period in the belief that by surrounding the family with articles similar to those used in the daily lives of such brave patriots as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, some of the better qualities of life of that period could be instilled and installed in the late Victorian culture.

However, there were a great many more Victorians who wanted authentic Colonial period furniture than there were pieces of Colonial furniture available. Then sanity struck.  In 1878 Clarence Cook, an influential decorator of the time, published his book "House Beautiful" and suggested that if you couldn't decorate with the real thing, good reproductions would inspire the proper cultural response.

In the very short term a number of excellent cabinetmakers of the period including Sypher & Company of New York among others and many more in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston and Chicago began to produce very high quality, bench made reproductions of 18th century furniture. Some of this higher quality work produced after 1876 to the end of the century is often called "Centennial" furniture by some experts because of its close proximity to the Exposition.

But is it really "Centennial" furniture? There were no antiques or reproductions on display at the Centennial Exposition other than one small exhibit featuring a Colonial kitchen and few personal items belonging to George Washington including his favorite elm chair which was a reproduction. The American furniture on display was the in the popular styles of the period, Rococo Revival and Renaissance Revival. The only true "Centennial" furniture of the time were some reproduction chairs of the sort that probably were used by children around the time of the Revolution and were labeled as "Toy chair of 1776."

The reason for the use of the term "Centennial" by some dealers and auctioneers is to try to differentiate between late 19th century bench made furniture and other less carefully made examples of Colonial Revival furniture. To some, these examples of quality goods are far and away superior to the "run of the mill" Colonial Revival pieces of the Depression era. In most instances that may be true and the distinction well deserved but like all rules there are exceptions and some equivocations.

There have been in the 20th century a number of makers who employed similar skills and artistic talents to their furniture making craft as did Sypher and others. One prime example is that of the Margolis family of Hartford, CT. Nathan Margolis immigrated to America from Russia and opened his cabinet shop in 1893. His son Harold eventually took over the business in 1925 and continued to produce outstanding bench made examples of Colonial Revival furniture to rival any of the so-called Centennial pieces. Another example is Baker furniture. In 1925 when Hollis Baker became president of Baker & Company, having been greatly influenced by the Arts and Crafts industry, he set out to design and build a line of authentic 18th and early 19th century reproductions. And he succeeded. But the most famous name had to be Wallace Nutting who created some of the best reproduction furniture ever made in the 1920s. And in spite of the obvious quality you would be hard pressed to call this furniture "Centennial."

Then of course came the factory induced mutations designed by engineers of the 1920s and 1930s that have given the term "Colonial Revival" such bad press and elicited turned up noses from the elite collectors. However, there is no accounting for taste and as much as any one person may find fault with a factory made piece that incorporates stylistic elements from several Colonial styles into one mishmash of a design, the fact remains that the elements themselves are derived from the Colonial period. The only quarrel is with the assembly and interpretation of the elements and sometimes the quality of the work and material. The furniture is still properly classified as "Colonial Revival" and deserves to be studied more closely.