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Zach Dillinger
01-13-2015, 10:31 AM
This won't be everyone's cup of tea, but I love this kind of stuff. This chest of drawers is an exact replica of a c.1720 Eastern Massachussetts piece in the collection of the Met. I worked closely with curatorial staff and the conservator who worked on the piece in the 90s to get chemical analysis, construction photos, etc. to make this as spot on as possible.

This is a bit of a departure for me as I usually strive to make new furniture look as old as possible. With this piece, the interesting nature of the decoration would be lost if I did any aging to the finish, so I chose to replicate what it would have looked like when first made.

I realize most people today think this is gaudy, but when you remember the original context of low light conditions, it fits right in. Stuff in the period was often a lot brighter than we think today.... and this piece is certainly no exception.

Anyhow, here is how the original as it looked in 1997 (when the photos were taken).

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And here is how my piece looks (I just finished it last night).

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Not a dovetail or glue bottle in sight...

Thanks for looking.

Zach

Graham Haydon
01-13-2015, 10:34 AM
Very special, you should be very pleased with the results. Just the images are rewarding for me, the build must of been even more so.

Brian Holcombe
01-13-2015, 11:08 AM
Very cool! Interesting, the applied molding creates the appearance of a mitered shoulder mortise and tenon, it took a bit of examination to realize that it was not.

Mel Fulks
01-13-2015, 11:55 AM
Spectacular ,I hope the museum having the original will display a photo of it next to the original. People seldom get a
chance to see unaged copies.

Zach Dillinger
01-13-2015, 11:56 AM
Yup, applied moldings not mitered shoulders. Lots of nails in this thing!

Zach Dillinger
01-13-2015, 11:57 AM
That is my hope as well, Mel. I have offered to send them high-quality pictures but we will see!

Pat Barry
01-13-2015, 12:20 PM
Very impressive paint job on this piece. Excellent excellent work Zach!

Jim Koepke
01-13-2015, 12:29 PM
Interesting piece.

No glue? Are most of the parts draw bored?

Some of my pieces have been put together without glue due to the temperature in my shop. Mostly they are held together by tight dovetails. Draw boring could have the same result.

Glueless and metal fastener free joinery could be a subject all to itself.

jtk

Dave Anderson NH
01-13-2015, 12:37 PM
Nicely done Zach. Are you going to be in Williamsburg next week?

Your comment about how things appeared when they were new is right on the money. Bright colors were far more common than most folks suppose. This is particularly true for the wealthier purchasers of furniture and room décor who could afford the paints, fancy woods for inlays, and very particularly the expensive brasses. People forget that 200-300 years of oxidation, fading, and the fugitiveness of many colored pigments and woods makes a huge difference. Even today woods like purpleheart change to brown in a few short years.

Kees Heiden
01-13-2015, 1:03 PM
Indeed not my cup of tea, but that doesn't matter at all. I think you did a great job, and it takes some courage to stray of the beaten path. The inside pisture looks great too, gives a good idea how something like that looks inside. The painting is just "weird" but kind of funny too.

Zach Dillinger
01-13-2015, 1:13 PM
Interesting piece.

No glue? Are most of the parts draw bored?

Some of my pieces have been put together without glue due to the temperature in my shop. Mostly they are held together by tight dovetails. Draw boring could have the same result.

Glueless and metal fastener free joinery could be a subject all to itself.

jtk

Yup, the joints are drawbored but with minimal offset since I used sawed wood. I suspect much of the original was constructed with green wood, hence the pegs that are quite proud of the interior surface. Of course, that could be just an example of period timesaving. :)

Zach Dillinger
01-13-2015, 1:20 PM
Nicely done Zach. Are you going to be in Williamsburg next week?

Your comment about how things appeared when they were new is right on the money. Bright colors were far more common than most folks suppose. This is particularly true for the wealthier purchasers of furniture and room décor who could afford the paints, fancy woods for inlays, and very particularly the expensive brasses. People forget that 200-300 years of oxidation, fading, and the fugitiveness of many colored pigments and woods makes a huge difference. Even today woods like purpleheart change to brown in a few short years.

Thank you Dave. I will not be at Williamsburg unfortunately. It just isn't in the cards for me this year.

The way I see this piece is that the original owner had money but not a lot. He aspired to show off his "wealth" and good taste, but either didn't have the necessary funds or lived in a rural area without a cabinetmaker to make such a piece with veneer and inlay. So, he wandered down to the local joinery shop and asked for something close. Or the joiner himself knew a thing or two about Boston high style but lacked the skills / tools / materials to make the oyster veneer and inlaid vine work, but had a paintbrush and an imagination.

Prashun Patel
01-13-2015, 1:25 PM
I love your mission and execution. Aspirational work. Thanks for posting.
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Karl Andersson
01-14-2015, 7:44 AM
Zach,
Excellent choice of an unusual form to build and decorate - I think once people overcome the surprise that these pieces were originally very colorful, there will be a growing appreciation and, hopefully, market for them. To me, the colors add much more vitality and even cheerfulness to the furniture and its environment; not bad for the fairly pious and restrictive people who had it made originally. I'd rank this "lesson" you've given us up there with Peter Follansbee's reproduction cabinet he made for the MFA in Boston, where his work is displayed right next to the original. Their original is even darker and in worse condition, so seeing Peter's "as new" rendition next to it is almost shocking. Thank you for making it and sharing with us.

By the way, what did you use for paint - linseed oil and powdered pigments, hide glue like Peter, or is there another source? I've been working on some traditional decorative woodwork and can't settle on the best paint - especially for painted details; regular artist's oils just take too long to dry when thinned enough to act like 'enamel", and I can't find the right amount of drier to use in small portions.

regards,
Karl

Chris Hachet
01-14-2015, 7:56 AM
Again, a wonderful piece of work and thanks for posting this!

Brian Holcombe
01-14-2015, 8:13 AM
Thank you Dave. I will not be at Williamsburg unfortunately. It just isn't in the cards for me this year.

The way I see this piece is that the original owner had money but not a lot. He aspired to show off his "wealth" and good taste, but either didn't have the necessary funds or lived in a rural area without a cabinetmaker to make such a piece with veneer and inlay. So, he wandered down to the local joinery shop and asked for something close. Or the joiner himself knew a thing or two about Boston high style but lacked the skills / tools / materials to make the oyster veneer and inlaid vine work, but had a paintbrush and an imagination.

Had the opposite been the case we'd be looking at ebony and rosewoods I assume, or something much different?

Zach Dillinger
01-14-2015, 8:22 AM
Had the opposite been the case we'd be looking at ebony and rosewoods I assume, or something much different?

Brian, given the late-ish date (1720) attributed to the piece, I actually think we would have been looking at something more akin to a high chest, had the original owner been wealthy. That was the high style form of the period and the paintwork on the side panels is said to be an attempt at "oyster veneer", which is prominently seen on some such pieces. The bevel drawer moldings approximates figured banding seen on the drawer fronts of the period. The painted vine work could be an attempt at marquetry / inlay. So, honestly, I think this was a joiner who knew enough about how high style pieces looked to make something he knew how to make (i.e. a joined chest of drawers) look close enough.

The ebony and rosewood decoration on similar joined chests of drawers are common, but on pieces 20 - 30 years earlier, when the joined chest was the dominant case piece of the realm.


Zach,
Excellent choice of an unusual form to build and decorate - I think once people overcome the surprise that these pieces were originally very colorful, there will be a growing appreciation and, hopefully, market for them. To me, the colors add much more vitality and even cheerfulness to the furniture and its environment; not bad for the fairly pious and restrictive people who had it made originally. I'd rank this "lesson" you've given us up there with Peter Follansbee's reproduction cabinet he made for the MFA in Boston, where his work is displayed right next to the original. Their original is even darker and in worse condition, so seeing Peter's "as new" rendition next to it is almost shocking. Thank you for making it and sharing with us.

By the way, what did you use for paint - linseed oil and powdered pigments, hide glue like Peter, or is there another source? I've been working on some traditional decorative woodwork and can't settle on the best paint - especially for painted details; regular artist's oils just take too long to dry when thinned enough to act like 'enamel", and I can't find the right amount of drier to use in small portions.

regards,
Karl

Karl, thank you for the kind words. I've seen Peter's cabinet at the MFA in person and it is a great contrast with the original. I'd love to have mine alongside the original piece at the Met someday, or at least a picture, but I'm not sure that will work out. They did put my pictures and emails in with the object file for future use, so that's something!

The paints I used are linseed oil and powdered pigments. Getting the thickness right is the hard part, especially for intricate detail work, where the paint needs to be thick enough to avoid runs but thin enough to load the brush and carry long lines without reapplying paint to the brush. I mixed the carbon black paint for the case much thinner than normal per the chemical analysis of the original; apparently it was thin enough to really soak into the pores of the wood and leave the grain structure quite prominent on the finished piece. When I mixed it, the paint was about the consistency of skim milk. For the decorative work, it was closer to whole milk, perhaps bordering on heavy whipping cream thickness. Applying the paint consistently and somewhat thinly is the key to success... thick paint coats will run and then never dry.

I experimented a while to get the thicknesses perfect. My method for this is to use small artists paint pots. For the tiny ones (about 1" diameter, 1" tall, round), I would add 4 drops of japan drier (5 if the paint is green), then I add about 1/3 to 1/2 of a pot-full of linseed oil. Then I add pigment incrementally until I achieve a thickness that is just under what I want, then I add stand oil (sun thickened linseed oil from the art supply store) to get me where I want to be. This gives a paint that dries to the touch within a day or so, although for whatever reason my green paints seem to take longer to dry. I'm sure there is a chemical reason for it but I'm no chemist.

Hope this helps!

george wilson
01-14-2015, 9:12 AM
Looks very nice,Zach. People in the old days loved color possibly even more than we do today. Color was expensive,and Earth tones more plentiful. Therefore bright colors were more appreciated. Our concepts have changed today since we readily see bright colors on TV,and other places.

You might make the wear patterns on the feet less "exacting" looking,I think,however.

Zach Dillinger
01-14-2015, 9:17 AM
Looks very nice,Zach. People in the old days loved color possibly even more than we do today. Color was expensive,and Earth tones more plentiful. Therefore bright colors were more appreciated. Our concepts have changed today since we readily see bright colors on TV,and other places.

You might make the wear patterns on the feet less "exacting" looking,I think,however.

Hi George, thanks for that. I'm not sure what you mean by wear patterns, though... I didn't age this piece. I think there might be a reflection of something on the proper right foot, but the color is consistently red or black throughout. Unless I'm misunderstanding what you mean.

george wilson
01-14-2015, 9:28 AM
I can't tell from the picture if the black on the old feet was worn away on the bulbous parts,or if the brighter areas were left intentionally painted to expose the lighter wood underneath as a hard edged stripe. Usually a simply worn area would fade around the edges in a sort of ragged edge sunburst sort of pattern.(words not good this A.M.!)

Zach Dillinger
01-14-2015, 9:40 AM
I can't tell from the picture if the black on the old feet was worn away on the bulbous parts,or if the brighter areas were left intentionally painted to expose the lighter wood underneath as a hard edged stripe. Usually a simply worn area would fade around the edges in a sort of ragged edge sunburst sort of pattern.(words not good this A.M.!)

Ahh, I understand now. According to the museum's analysis, the original had red pigment on the feet in between the lathe-incised lines. I did the lines and painted them red, but have no intention of aging this piece at all, as the shocking newness of it is what gives it its interest in my opinion.

george wilson
01-14-2015, 9:57 AM
So,the crisp edges were intentional. Great!!