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Cowan's
Corner
No Country For This Old Man
By Wes Cowan
Country is generally used to describe furniture and goods produced by craftsmen
outside of larger American towns and cities. I'm not sure when it became a
popular term in the antique trade, but it has definitely worn out its
welcome.
Country carries a connotation that the pieces are somehow inferior
to their counterparts produced in big city shops that catered to clients with
greater wealth. This is simply not accurate. The rural craftsman may not have
had any formal training, but he executed his art with considerable skill and
ingenuity.
A craftsman working in a large city like Philadelphia in 1750
would certainly have had access to various resources that illustrated
fashionable furniture designs of the day, such as Thomas Chippendale's Gentleman
and Cabinet Maker's Directory. A craftsman working on the western Pennsylvania
frontier was not able to access these same resources.
Instead, he relied on
a client's or his own interpretation of the high style furniture being made in
the city. The further from a major center of population, the more liberal was
the interpretation. The rural cabinetmaker typically worked with walnut or
cherry instead of the rare, and more expensive, mahogany favored by
cabinetmakers of America's urban centers.
As Americans moved west after the
Revolution, local cabinetmakers produced an enormous amount of furniture for an
emerging middle class. Small local shops made virtually all of this furniture,
generally as commissioned pieces. If someone needed a chest of drawers, they
went to a cabinetmaker and specified what was desired. Each piece of furniture
became a sign of the owner's tastes, rather than that of the
manufacturer.
Few furniture makers worked full-time at the craft. Many made
coffins and other simple necessities, such as baskets, wooden utensils and other
household implements.
The word regional should replace country. This places
the emphasis properly on exactly what the furniture produced outside major
metropolitan areas really is: the work of locally-trained craftsmen adopting
styles and materials to fit local needs and tastes.
 About the author: Wes Cowan is founder and owner of Cowan's Auctions, Inc. in Cincinnati, Ohio. An internationally-recognized expert in historic Americana, Wes stars in the PBS television series History Detectives and is a featured appraiser on Antiques Roadshow. He can be reached via email at info@cowans.com.
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A Chippendale secretary desk (ca. 1750-1780) made by an anonymous Rhode
Island cabinetmaker. A fine example of the work of a regional craftsman.
The interior of the Chippendale desk from Rhode Island.
A "high style" Chippendale
secretary desk (ca. 1750) made in the Boston
shop of cabinetmaker Benjamin Frothingham.
The interior of the Chippendale desk from Boston.
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