Antique Sideboard

SIDEBOARDS  reproduction, 1890-1930: ‘Jacobean’ oak varieties
The ‘Jacobean’ style was popular well before the onset of the standard ‘Tudor’ dining room of the 1920s and 1930s. By the 1890s the popularity of medievalism had brought out a surge of ‘old oak’ manufacture.
Commercially produced sideboards of the period simply reflect the desire to satisfy this trend.
An oak sideboard of almost standard top design, except that the prevailing columns on either side of the mirror are twist turned. The drawer fronts are moulded and the door panels are fielded. The piece has a
pot-board stretcher beneath and bulbous turned front legs in imitation of Elizabethan types. 1900-1910
Again a variation of standard design at the top but this time the cupboard doors are on either side of three central drawers and have geometric mouldings on them. Twist-turned legs, with square section stretchers, end in bun feet. 1900-1910
A lower back without mirror  the start of the move towards lighter furniture for lower ceilings, perhaps. Actually a piece designed in emulation of a court cupboard, with a dominating, overhanging top moulding with big, turned finial suspended under each end. Doors and panels are geometrically moulded and, in the cases of the two end doors, fielded as well. 1900-1915
A very interesting oak sideboard in an amalgam of ‘Olde English’ styles with inlays in boxwood (or holly) and a darker wood, perhaps ebony. The geometrically moulded drawer fronts and back panels are ‘Jacobean’ in
design, emulating oak chests of the 1670-1690 period and the bobbin-turned double-column front legs and stretchers are taken from lighter furniture of the 1680-1700 period, such as gatelegs and side tables. The inlays, with the Prince of Wales’ feathers motifs, are quite 19th century in inspiration and the checked boxwood-and-ebony stringing lines are of the type favoured by designers of the 1890s to 1920s, such as Waals and the Barnsleys, although such lines were used in the 18th century also. The occasional square sections in the bobbin turning of the stretchers are an erroneous diversion, since such square sections, in the original period, were only used at the joints, not left stranded in mid-section such as these. The thumb-nail moulding round the serving top and its lower moulding outlines are quite authentic to the 17th century but the top to the back incorporates a dentillated moulding which is mid-18th century in design. It is not clear whether the piece is meant to be stained in any way when finished, but the implication is not, since it was the fashion, 1880-1910, for such `back-to-Elizabeth F designers to leave the natural wood unstained and simply to wax polish it.
The ‘lower’ move continued. This time the back has been cut down to a simple one with the central arch characteristic of Edwardian furniture. Geometric mouldings and applied split balusters decorate the surfaces.
Large turned bulbous feet/legs in Elizabethan style.
An oak sideboard in the ‘Jacobean’ manner, incorporating moulded drawer fronts, twist-turned legs and stretchers, scrolled pierced carving in Restoration style and a low arched back as favoured by Edwardian fashion, but getting ever lower.
The back has almost gone, preparing the way for the simple Jacobean styles of the late 1920s and 1930s. Otherwise similar decoration to previous examples. 1900-1925

SIDEBOARDS  reproduction, 1890-1930:
`Queen Anne’ styles leading to ‘burr walnut bedappled’
It is not quite clear when the return to 18th century designs led to a thirst for ‘Queen Anne’. Certainly the cabriole leg was used on dining chairs before the end of the century. This feature, on sideboards, seems to have been a bit later  say in the 1890s  but the design seems to have gathered popularity until its heyday in the 1930s. (See also `burr walnut bedappled’ in Design Data Sheets, page 37.) The ‘Queen Anne’ style, exemplified by the use of the cabriole leg, should not be confused with ‘Victorian Queen Anne’ which was a more Palladian, William Kent-ish architectural style with triangular or broken pediments popular around the 1870s and 1880s for cabinets.
The Queen Anne of Edwardian times is nearer the real thing, using cabriole legs and fiddle-shaped splats for chairs. It is not a pure style, however, and is distinct from exact reproductions of Queen Anne pieces.
An oak sideboard (also made available in mahogany at the time) whose only real claim to Queen Anne pretensions lies in its thin, weakly-designed cabriole legs. There is the high back of Victorian taste and the large central mirror. The open central section was rather hopefully called a cellaret by the makers but the bowl placed within it in the photograph has unfortunate connotations of night-time use. 1900-1910
A second variety of oak sideboard where, again, the only claim to Queen Anne styling is in the weak front cabriole legs.
The back is lower and squarer and someone has had the idea of attaching a carved embellishment to each door. Otherwise only cabriole legs give it the Queen Anne name, but at least they are on the back as well as
the front. 1900-1915
Still coming down, the back is lower and the flat-capped uprights of art nouveau contrast somewhat with the Queen Anne cabrioles. Made in mahogany; not a Queen Anne wood. The popular Edwardian semi-circular
central arch has had a Queen Anne carved ’shell’ put in it  very appropriate.
The back has gone entirely and the form is distinctly modern reproduction. Two variants on the figured walnut Queen Anne style sideboard showing a return to the ‘dressing table’ shape.
A burr walnut sideboard, this time with a short modern back and on paw-footed cabriole legs with rather bulbous toes and shell-carved knees. The carving on the door mouldings and the top edge has a rather
machine-reproduced look about it. 1920-1940
A rather fancy sideboard of a type associated with the Bath Cabinet Makers in the 1920s and 1930s. It is ‘Queen Anne’ with `William and Mary’ overtones and even William Kent type chamfered fluted edges. So here we go:
The legs are cabrioles with shell carving and scroll feet introduced c.1720. The stretchers connecting the legs and the scrolled carved cresting rails between them are associated with the period 1680-1700.
The oyster veneers and inlaid boxwood are c.1680-1700 but the ‘feather’ or `herring-bone’ banding belongs to 1700-1720.
The canted corners with fluting are an architectural motif associated with William Kent c.1720-1730.

Antique Vicorian, Edwardian and 1920`s Sideboards
By 1860 the sideboard had followed the evolution of styles in much the same way as other Victorian furniture, with a few slight differences. From its original, Adam form, it became a heavier, end-pedimented piece made in sub-classical, usually Grecian, style with a heavy, drawered top connecting the two end pediments. Sometimes there was a gap between the two pediments, under the top like a large ‘kneehole’, sometimes this area was cupboarded in. The latter type, with cupboards, has been much preferred by the antique trade and is more expensive. Rococo forms of sideboard exist, but rococo seems to have been more used for the chiffonier or side cabinet intended for the drawing room. The dining room furniture was far more serious, heavier stuff, more suited to the grave atmosphere to be associated with eating. Chairs followed a similar pattern.
Commercial production continued to supply these heavy dining room sideboards and even carved oak versions in emulation of the famous ‘Chevy Chase’ piece, smothered with carved fauna and comestible fruit and vegetables, until the end of the century. In the 1870s the return to 18th century reproductions saw the re-introduction of the Adam form and the ‘Sheraton’ or late 18th/early 19th century versions of it. In Edwardian times some satinwood reproductions were made  even the William Morris Company produced them  which were quite good versions of the originals, with the possible exception that inlaid or painted decoration in the Adam style tended to be overdone. These pieces are elegant, however, and are now quite highly priced.
The Gothic reformers, the ‘art furniture’ boys, Godwin, the Arts and Crafts Movement, the Cotswold crafties and the ‘garden city socialists’ in their various turns, despised `commercial’ sideboards almost more than any other form
of furniture. To them the Victorian sideboard epitomised the vulgarity, the parvenu tastelessness, the crass greed and the ostentation of the rising middle class Philistine. They reacted to it in their various ways and the commercial manufacturers copied them all. Talbert produced his ‘Pet’ sideboard in Reformed Gothic. Godwin, with William Watt, produced his celebrated Anglo-Japanese versions, one of which is in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The art furniture boys laid the ebonising on thick, spindled the galleries, coved the tops and painted some of the panels in startling colours which contrasted with the ebonising. The Arts and Crafts
Movement went in for plain oak surfaces, flat-capped tapering columns, art nouveau beaten copper hinges with heart shapes and fretted holes in weepy shapes. The Cotswold crafties and the garden city socialists really didn’t like to get involved with sideboards at all. They preferred dressers, since dressers are more in the medieval tradition, more ‘country’ than the wealthily-inspired sideboard. The sideboards they produced are often really a form of dresser base or an adaptation of a simple dresser form or, in the case of Gordon Russell, a universal pedestal desk/dressing table principle used for sideboards.
By the 1900s the medieval oak taste had set in with a vengeance as well as the desire for 18th century reproduction. From about 1900 onwards the sideboard became subject to an extremely varied number of styles, some of them employed all on one piece. But the `Jacobethan’ mass production of post-1918 was probably the major feature and sideboards were produced to go with the bulbous-legged ‘refectory’ or draw-tables of cheap stained oak. The other rival would be a walnut ‘Queen Anne’ style which was probably slightly more expensive. Gradually overtaking them came a style now referred to loosely as ‘art deco’; modernistic, round-edged and ’streamlined’ with a few carved motifs stuck on.
SIDEBOARDS - 1860-1900
This section shows the contrast in styles to be found in English furniture over what was a very short period of forty years. From straightforward ‘Victorian’ mahogany, through Reformed Gothic, Aesthetic, and
Anglo-Japanese is a very drastic transition of styles, but that is what was made, at least by those in the `forefront of taste’.
A sideboard in mahogany with the low-arched panels which came into fashion in the 1840s and which continued to be made until the 1880s. This is a very simple version with serpentine shaping to the drawer fronts. 1840-1880
Another mahogany sideboard with classical pillars and cheap leaf-and-scroll carving around the mirror back. It is a type which, with dismemberment and reassembly, can be turned into a ‘Regency’ chiffonier by the adept converter.
A walnut sideboard in the severer lines of the 1860s with a galleried top incorporating turned spindles and finials. The inconsistent use of oval mirrors in conjunction with rectangular ones is disconcerting. The burr
walnut veneer is inlaid with boxwood and ivory stringing lines and formalised marquetry and there is a white marble top. 1860-1880
The characteristic early Victorian chiffonier-sideboard made from the 1840s onwards. Panelled doors with the flattened arch and ‘feather’ mahogany figures; ogee moulded drawer fronts; acanthus leaf carving; solid
plinth and carved curvy back. Cheaply made and mass produced; hated by all `progressive’ designers.
A carved oak sideboard of a design inspired by the ‘Chevy Chase’ type exhibited prominently in the mid-Victorian period. Carved oak (or mahogany) sideboards with large quantities of unfortunate fauna and flora suitable for gastronomy carved upon them became quite popular, even if expensive. It was a taste that continued despite the disapproving scowls of the Gothic reformers and subsequent progressives.
A Bruce Talbert ‘Pet’ sideboard made by Gillows in oak with characteristic carving of foliage, use of spindles in galleries and a quotation above.
An oak sideboard designed by Charles Eastlake (see Hints on Household Taste, Plate XI) showing the restrained version of Reformed Gothic with angled planking and incised mouldings so characteristic of the type.
There is a carved quotation in Latin across the top.
A simpler Reformed Gothic sideboard with tongued-andgrooved planking but with a pierced gallery above with four carved seated lions. c. 1880
Another oak sideboard showing a wealth of angled tongued-and-grooved planking and a carved panel of birds as well as painted panels in the Aesthetic Movement manner.
5,000+ Photo: Courtesy, Jeremy Cooper
1870-1880Wootton Patent Office
An ebonised Anglo-Japanese sideboard designed by E.W. Godwin (q.v.) of a type now exhibited in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Godwin’s use of Japanese design is discussed elsewhere on pages 27 and 28. What is important from a value point of view is that the piece exhibits a design trend towards the Modern Movement in its vertical and horizontal lines. It is thus, as a milestone in furniture history, that its value to suitable museums is extremely high.
Another ebonised Anglo-Japanese sideboard by E.W. Godwin. A buyer paid nearly 7,000 for this piece at Sotheby’s Belgravia in 1978. Why so much less than the previous example A telling point this  because it does not so clearly exhibit the horizontal and vertical lines which point the way to the designs of the Modern Movement. It is thus of less interest to museums as a furniture history milestone, even though it has great value as a piece by Godwin.
A characteristic Aesthetic Movement sideboard of ebonised and mahogany construction with a coved top with spindled gallery. The bevelled-edged mirrors, panelled construction and turning are all typical.
c.1880
SIDEBOARDS - 1900-1920
A rosewood inlaid sideboard which shows how, at the end of the century, the return to 18th century styles had affected commercial production. Indeed, this piece shows traces of the ‘Victorian Queen Anne’ style or
`bracket-and-overmantel’ style in the broken pediment and design of the upper half, yet it still has traces of a spindle-turned gallery and ‘pot board’ bottom shelf of the Aesthetic Movement. Yet the inlaid decoration is
‘Adam’ or ‘Sheraton’ and the piece would now be sold as ‘Edwardian Sheraton’. It is not quite as late as the Edwardian styles shown in later pages of sideboards, as the reader may note, however. 1890-1900
An odd oak sideboard of slightly progressive-cum-quaint associations in design. (The wavy-line pierced gallery is the ‘quaint’ part.) The photograph gives it a slightly asymmetric look, which is misleading. Probably by Liberty’s. 1890-1900
Six typical late Victorian /Edwardian sideboards of a type made in oak or walnut of the straight-grained American type. Mostly identified as to period by the bas-relief carving in panels or on pediments, and the use of a modified classical pediment so dear to the Edwardian heart. The common features to all are the large back mirrors with columns either side, drawers with cupboards under in the lower half and panelling to the cupboard doors, achieved by either fielding or mouldings.
1900-1914

SIDEBOARDS  reproduction, 1880-1930: 18th century and early 19th century mahogany
The sideboard almost as Adam originally saw it in 1760. Two pedestals flanking a table with a wine cooler under it. The pedestals have urn-shaped vases lined to take iced water for drinking and hot water for washing silver. The pedestals could be used as plate warmers and wine storage (cellaret) if required. The central table has a high brass rail behind it. This is a faithful Edwardian reproduction  they were good at making these.
The pedestals and urns are now the most valuable part for their decorative qualities. 1900-1920
The revival of 18th century designs in the 1880s saw the return of the traditional ‘Georgian’ mahogany sideboard which has persisted as a favourite ever since. Conceived by the Adam brothers around 1760 as a rather extended range of table and pedestals, the form has been modified until very suitable for most dining rooms. The traditional pillared dining table, mahogany chairs and sideboard are such a deeply-ingrained English form that even now the industry producing modern reproductions must account for a large proportion of all dining furniture sold in the British Isles.
The next stage on from the Adam design. The end pedestals have been integrated with the table. The urn-shaped vases (or is it vase-shaped urns) remain. The brass gallery is more decorative. A reproduction of a 1780-1800 design. 1900-1910
Now comes a third stage. The pedestals have been attenuated into two cupboards on square tapering legs and the central table has a deep drawer. The vase-shaped urns have gone. Almost the accepted form of
Georgian sideboard so beloved of the reproducer. 1900-1920
A mahogany sideboard of shallower proportions without the shelf under the central section. A very faithful copy of a style popular around 1790-1820 but made a hundred years or more later. The bow front contains a
central drawer and kneehole flanked by two deep cupboards. The boxwood stringing lines provide an elegant and restrained decoration appropriate to the spirit of a simple George III piece.
An integrated half-circular version where the deep cupboards either side and the central section are now the same depth. To fill in the space, the central section has a drawer and a large space below it. A high quality
version would have a tambour shutter to draw across this space.
A mahogany bow-fronted sideboard now much shallower with little difference in depth between central drawer and cupboards. In this case the decoration is a little more elaborate than that of 445, but the proportion is clumsier, partly due to the thick legs and partly to the over emphasis on the thickness of the top. 1900-1930

SIDEBOARDS  hybrid, 1900-1930
From 1900 to 1930 the sideboard was also subject to a mixture of styles being applied to one piece. A small selection of such hybrids is shown here to illustrate how there are quite a large number of pieces which defy
classification into an accepted stylistic nomenclature.
A veneered walnut sideboard incorporating panels of burr veneer and herringbone inlaid lines with crossbanding around them. The piece is a mixture of William and Mary walnut styles  in the turned and octagonal faceted legs and in the cross-stretchers  and a curious sort of Edwardian Sheraton in the bowed central front drawers with satinwood technique in the laying of veneers. The back, with its central arch, is pure Edwardian design but the scrolled carving stuck  no, applied  under the cabinet section is late 17th-century-inspired. One has a strange sensation, looking from the top gradually downwards, of rushing back through 130 years of styles, starting at 1910.
An oak sideboard in the ‘Tudor’ or ‘Jacobean’ manner, exhibiting late 17th century decorative characteristics but early 20th century in both design and execution. The 17th century decorative features are the applied split balusters on the vertical frame, the ‘bun’ turnings, the stretchers, and the geometrically moulded door and drawer panels. The carving is modern, the 1gramophone cabinet’ pedestal top is out of period, and the
proportion quite distinct. 1910-1930
A mahogany sideboard, heavily carved with acanthus leaf, floral and fruity decoration, standing on cabriole legs with ball-and-claw feet. The back incorporates a broken pediment, also with carved similar decoration.
The uncarved panelled surfaces are quarter veneered symmetrically and the doors are either curved or serpentine in shape. The piece represents quite an accomplishment of the cabinet-maker’s art and draws upon mid-18th century motifs. It is, however, entirely `improved reproduction’ in form and spirit, belonging strictly to the period of its manufacture.
1920-1940A burr walnut sideboard on carved cabriole legs and incorporating a carved frieze below the central drawers of Restoration inspiration. The feel of the piece is intended to be ‘Queen Anne’ in design  i.e. with burr walnut, cabriole legs, cross-banded panels and so on, but the very low back gives it quite a modern appearance. Much reproduced. 1920-1930
A cabinet on cabriole-legged stand, surely intended for use as a sideboard. Why else the six square deep drawers and the central cupboard, with its scrolled apron The figured walnut was probably used throughout the suite to which it belonged.
A side cabinet in feathered mahogany and of ogee shaping, mounted on short cabriole legs with shell carving on the knee. Ignoring the ‘Queen Anne’ legs, the piece is mid-18th century mahogany in inspiration but the band of blind fretted carving across the front has a very machine-made look about it. 1920-1940
SIDEBOARDS  chiffoniers
The ‘vulgar’ chiffonier, much hated by ‘progressive’ designers did not really change very much over a period of fifty years as these three examples from a 1910 catalogue show. Add a bit of spindled gallery; the
occasional broken pediment or turned pillar; a bit of machined carving in bas-relief but leave the basic format the same, seems to have been the rule of thumb. Some versions  the better ones  are in solid mahogany; some  the nastier ones  are cheap thin veneer on a cheap deal frame, or even stained deal. 1910

SIDEBOARDS  art nouveau and progressive, 1890-1915
We have explained elsewhere how art nouveau is a term now used to describe furniture which many of its English original designers would have hotly refuted. The Scottish school and the Century Guild are another
matter, since their sinuous designs are much more akin to Continental art nouveau.
In this section we show sideboards from blatantly art nouveau originals to commercially watered-down versions and one or two other ‘progressive’ designs. There are many side cabinets which might have been
included here but we have preferred to retain them in the Cabinet section out of a sense of technically philological purity.
A sideboard-cum-side cabinet of interesting art nouveau decoration on serpentine bracket feet. Included here because surely the lower half with, its three central drawers and flanking cupboards, dictates that it was
intended as a sideboard. The piece has rather astonishing inlaid ‘tulip’ decoration with whip-lash curves and the two high side cabinets on the top half flank a much more conventional glazed cabinet of shorter
dimensions. The glazing bars have an additional curved bar each side of the central panel, as though the designer was tired of the verticality of the construction and wanted to relate something to the sinuous inlays.
Note the interesting use of diagonally-chequered stringing lines which give an arts and crafts touch.
A mahogany sideboard of interesting design which combines a traditional English form with the use of inlays of ‘whip-lash’ art nouveau floral decoration. The canted glazed side-cupboards are a design associated with Liberty’s, who espoused art nouveau and quaint furniture enthusiastically. C. 1900
An almost aggressively art nouveau oak sideboard, more on the Continental lines of the style than the British. The sides of the lower half, with their protruding tapering stiles in the ‘Eastlake’ manner, are broken by the sinuous curves of carved floral decoration. The bronze hinges, handles and applied tulips are over-decorative and there is a good deal of ostentation about the amount of carving used all over. Notice the flat capped finials along the top  a feature used by Voysey but emulated in a way he disliked intensely.
A nice small oak sideboard which shows how the principles of the arts and crafts movement could be applied to a piece with restraint. The bronze panel let in to the back with its typical spade shapes and the carved `trees’ in the door panels relieve the almost altar-like severity of the pointed uprights. 1900-1914
Commercial adaptations of the ‘art nouveau’ style in sideboards, from the use of leaded-light cupboards (an English favourite, this) to the simple, rather bankrupt embellishment of heart-shaped frets and added fretted
curves on (e). Notice the tapering upward columns on the sides of the top of (b), ending in flat caps  a feature of Voysey’s designs for several pieces of furniture.

SIDEBOARDS  ‘modern’, 1920-1930
In this section a number of interesting designs which are quite modern in spirit and technique are illustrated. They are mostly by `famous’ designers with perhaps the exception of Percy Wells. In due course it will be possible to produce further illustrations as more research and identification work is carried out  the real detection work is required to identify those pieces made by original designers of international stature.
A solid walnut sideboard by Gordon Russell with yew cross-banding, ebony stringing lines and ebony-and-yew handles. The design, with its latticed back gallery is very akin to one of Gimson’s. The use of square stretchered legs on pedestal desks, dressing tables and other pieces is characteristic of Gordon Russell. c. 1924
A dresser designed by Frank Brangwyn  yes, he did design furniture as well as paint  with a slatted back gallery and panelled doors. A nice piece, more suitable for sideboard respectability than kitchen dresserdom.
c.1925
A mahogany sideboard designed by J. Henry Sellers, rather characteristic of his tendency to place a lower shelf beneath a severely linear, almost Sheraton, upper structure with drawers with black stringing lines at the edges. Designed en suite with the dining table shown as 515.
An oak sideboard designed by Percy Wells c.1920, of a very simple conception. Its origins can be traced to the art nouveau example, 440, and before that to washstands and similar functional pieces. No drawers were
fitted, to reduce cost. The chair next to it shows art nouveau origins as well, but of the English rectilinear version, not the curvaceous Continental model. Indeed the lower half of the chair owes more to country
Sheraton design than anything else. c. 1920
A mahogany sideboard designed by Percy Wells, c.1920, which has wandered across the line from his definition of a dresser. The central cupboard was designed to be able to take bottles (not of alcohol, surely HP sauce, perhaps, or ketchup) and the shelves at the back for books or china. Actually, a very functional piece which fulfils Wells’ desire to keep proportion small for the small rooms involved and to meet a real storage need. It is interesting that he has retained turned front legs on this piece and the original Welsh concept of the pot-board below. He has also embellished the piece with two curved arches to the top but hastens to say that “the article would be just as useful without the little ornamentation which has been introduced” and then, in the same sentence, simply gives into weakness by lamely confessing that “utility, though first, is not the only thing to consider in furnishing a home.” Revisionist tendencies, Wells!

SIDEBOARDS
About 1770-1915
Inlaid mahogany bow-fronted sideboard, about 1780-1790.
Auseful piece of dining-furniture comprising a number of drawers and cupboards for the storage of cutlery, table linen, condiments and so on, which evolved during the 1770s from the very grand side-table and pedestal ensembles first designed by Robert Adam. In the late-18th/ early-19thC, they often incorporated a plate-warmer, wine cooler, cistern or cellaret, hence their original name, `cellaret sideboard’. Occasionally a pot cupboard was included, sometimes set discreetly in one side.
Usually replaced in large houses around 1825 by vast serving tables accompanied by chiffoniers. In Victorian times, sideboards were less easily defined. They can be of dresser form, or a smaller chiffonier type; some best described simply as cabinets.
About 1770-1810: Standard form had a central drawer flanked either side by drawers
(one shallow, one deep), and a single cupboard; or one of each. Cupboards may have dummy drawer fronts. Central recess fronted by shaped or arched apron; its back either open or solid; sometimes the cupboard set half-way back. All cupboards may be tambour-fronted. Central cutlery drawer compartmented and lined with baize.
Most were bow- or serpentine-fronted; some semi-elliptical or straight. Thick, flat, over-hanging top with flush edges. Majority on six square-sectioned, tapering legs; sometimes eight. After 1800, legs were often turned with ring mouldings; sometimes reeded or fluted. Drawers flush with carcase when inlaid (edged with stringing or cross-banding); cockbeaded when simply veneered.
Later versions with brass back-rail, either to support plate, or to suspend splashback curtain. Occasionally fitted with adjustable candleholders.
About 1800-1850: Previous type (with turned legs) joined by pedestal sideboards with central shallow drawer retained, but sides extending to floor to form pedestal cupboards. Either carved (often paw) feet, or continuous plinth. By 1810 pedestal could extend upwards too, joined at rear by shaped wooden splashback. Separate wine cooler (now often missing) placed in central recess.
Majority in Grecian style; early Victorian plainer.
1850 onwards: Considerable variation. Made in all revival styles  Elizabethan, Gothic, Renaissance, Chippendale, Sheraton and Queen Anne. Many highly carved; some cheaply made and poorly executed. Later
Mahogany sideboard with brass back-rail, about 1800.
examples (of all types) sometimes with mirror at back (now usually removed).
Principally mahogany; occasionally satinwood. Rosewood during Regency and early Victorian periods. Occasionally walnut around 1850; birch or satin maple (to simulate satinwood) on cheaper reproductions towards 1900. Pine or mahogany for carcases; oak or mahogany for drawer linings. Satinwood and other light-coloured woods used for decorative inlay.
Standard methods employed; majority veneered. See CHESTS OF DRAWERS, p. 93, for drawer construction.
Watch out for alterations. The comonest include: I Removal of brass rails  look for filled holes at rear of top. 2 Reduction in depth  examine back for newly cut and stained timber, and look inside the carcase for cut-off drawer runners. If in original condition, the `wear’will stop at least 1/2 inch from the back. 3 Replacement of less saleable turned legs with square-sectioned ones. If correct, the legs will extend upwards to form the stiles of the carcase and the grain of the timber will be continuous. If wrong, the new join will be concealed either by a fine line of inlay, or by an applied astragal moulding, and the grain will not match above and below.
Watch also for quality Edwardian reproductions of Sheraton types. Their design may look authentic, but the veneer will be thin, and machine-cut; the dovetails, machine-cut, will look regular; and the legs will probably look too thin. The poorest of the reproductions will be recognizable by their lack of proportion and sometimes an odd combination of features.
1930s Art Moderne sideboard.
Restrained inlay of light-coloured woods until about 1810; mostly stringing lines; some fan shapes and oval paterae. Ebony or brass inlay of classical design in early 19thC.
Handles: Standard for their day (see p. 93). Bold lion’s mask ring handles especially popular after 1800, and on reproductions.
Stain or varnish followed by wax polish. French polish after about 1820. Dark stain on Victorian ‘Elizabethan’ and Renaissance. Art Furniture pieces ebonised.
VALUES
Prices for the best late-18thC inlaid sideboards in original condition are in five figures; post-1800 versions (with turned legs) about a quarter to half the price. Pedestal sideboardsnever very popular  even less. Plus points are decorative inlay or carving, small size and surviving interior fittings.
Regency pedestal sideboard, about 1810, mahogany with ebony inlay.