Antique Sideboard

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.

1700`s American Rococo Sideboards

In America, the Rococo sideboard emerged as a distinctly restrained version of the European style : interiors were hardly as fanciful as their European counterparts, and drawing room walls were ornamented with architectural pediments and rectangular panels rather than gilt cartouches, in a persistence of the Palladian style. Japanning was popular, especially in Boston, but in America the fantastic cult of chinoiserie never crystallized into carved mahogany dragons. The Gothic revival struck no chord in American tradition, and the stylized rustic scenes favoured by mid-century English and French aristocrats could hardly have been adopted as refreshing in a nation still developing vast expanses of wilderness.
Because examples reached the colonies largely through pattern-books, some American Rococo carving is flat rather than sculptural, especially on Boston pieces. Queen Anne forms such as arched pediments, classical details and claw-and-ball feet were retained, and Rococo ornaments and variations added to them.
The superior craftsmanship of Philadelphia cabinetmakers, such as Benjamin Randolph and the English immigrant Thomas Affleck, produced well-proportioned sideboards with swan-neck pediments, flame finials, sculptural carvings of foliage and figures, and sculptured busts and cartouches held above the broken pediments. Scroll pediments carved with Philadelphia-style open lattice-work may be found in the cherry sideboards from Connecticut executed by Eliphalet Chapin, who worked for some time in Philadelphia.
Some case pieces of Boston, where John Cogswell worked, exhibit the only bombe forms found in the colonies; mirrored panels with ogee-curve borders are also found on cabinets made there. The cabinets and
chest-of-drawers from the Townsend-Goddard cabinet-making family of Newport, Rhode Island, were exceptional pieces of workmanship, with undercut claw-and-ball feet, undulating concave and convex shells and smoothly executed block fronts.
American ideboards were of many forms including Pembroke and fold-top card-sideboards. Serpentine sideboards from New York had rectangular candle supports at the corners and gadrooning on the aprons. Small Philadelphia bird-cage sideboards, with tilting tops, stood on fluidly curved tripods. Upholstered seats included sofas with sinuous rails and straight ‘Marlborough’ legs, easy sideboards with cartouches carved on the cabriole legs, and local variants of sideboards copied from the publications of Chippendale, Manwaring, and Ince and Mayhew. More primitive forms, such as the brightly painted chests and cupboards of German and Dutch settlements in Pennsylvania and New York, continued to be made in provincial areas. The Rococo in EuropeIn Italy, where the landscaped grotto was a long-established source of ornament, the Rococo at times took on an extreme lightness, with sideboards and tables resting on shapely cabriole legs comprised of reversing C-scrolls. Delicate effects of underground rock-like growth were achieved in the crisp, crustaceous carvings on the edges of legs, backs and skirts of tables and sideboards. Carved shells, lion masks and naturalistic foliage appeared alongside elements of chinoiserie such as peasant figures of antique American sideboards.

Antique 18th Century Queen Anne Sideboards
18th Century French forms, and the French Rococo ornamental vocabulary, were extremely influential throughout Europe, where sideboards and other pieces in the relaxed Louis XV manner were made well into the century in Spain, Portugal, Italy, North America and elsewhere.
The supple, undulating forms created by Daniel Marot, Jean Berain and the French Regence permeated England during the reign of Queen Anne (1702-14). Characterized by curvaceous lines and ornamental restraint, Queen Anne style sideboards asserted the first truly English style. As a thriving national economy encouraged more building on the part of landed gentry and middle-class merchants, increased demand for interior furnishings was met by unprecedented standards of skill among London cabinetmakers.
Balanced curves and straight lines gave chairs cabriole legs, vase-shaped splats, horse-shoe shaped seats and undulating backs which followed the sitter’s profile. Walnut, and later mahogany, was applied in highly figured veneers to cabinets and tables, or sparingly carved with shells, masks or foliage on the crests, knees and rails of chairs. ‘Seaweed’ marquetry, japanning on red ground, and judicious touches of gilt coated the flat surfaces of tables, chests-of-drawers, day-beds and settees. Feet were carved as hoofs, hairy paws, trifids and claw-and-ball.
Queen Anne sideboards with arched or mirrored panels were crowned by swan-neck or double-arched pediments, often with Chippendale’s version of a French chair.
ornamental finials. Of Netherlandish origin, these curving pediments were to find extreme expression later in the century on Dutch Rococo case pieces, when curves alternated with horizontal plinths on which porcelain rarities were displayed.
The furniture and sideboards in particular of William Kent (1689-1748) promulgated a heavy, Baroque style based on Italian architectural sources, and especially on the Renaissance work of Vicente architect Andrea Palladio. However, the softer forms of the Queen Anne style persisted, and various elements characteristic of it appeared on sideboards well into the century.
In the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain Queen Anne characteristics such as cabriole legs, shell motifs, claw-and-ball feet, and vase-shaped chair splats were transplanted into local styles.
The Queen Anne style was adopted in colonial America in the early 1730s, when flourishing trade in the major mercantile centres of Boston, Philadelphia, New York, Newport and Charleston encouraged a desire for large, comfortable and fashionable mansions. Classical architectural details appeared on buildings from the Carolinas to New Hampshire. Houses, such as Westover in Virginia, reflected elements of the English Palladian style, which reached the colonies through such publications as W. Salmon’s Palladio Londinensis published in 1734, and James Gibbs’s Book of Architecture of 1728.
Columns and pilasters, swan-neck pediments, and finials filtered on to highboys, long-case clocks, and even the fragile frames of pier-glasses. The favoured woods of walnut, maple, cherry and pine, and increasingly mahogany, were sparsely highlighted with carved shells or foliage, and occasionally offset with inlay in such forms as stars, or with gilded shells on tables, highboys and lowboys. Slender cabriole legs, horseshoe-shaped seats, and feet carved as pads, trifids and claw-and-ball, imitated English fashions long after they had fallen from favour in England. Sideboards, fronted with doors with arched panels, contained tiers of drawers and pigeonholes. Along with Queen Anne Sideboards easy chairs, corner chairs, candlestands, piecrust tea tables on tripod legs and fire-screens, all became more popular.
Regional differences in sideboards-making were sharpened as craftsmanship developed in each area, and immigrant tastes and traditions expressed themselves. Chair splats were shaped with distinguishing silhouettes, those from Dutch-settled New York broader than those from English-settled Massachusetts. The spaces between splat and stiles on Philadelphia chairs resembled birds with bold, inward-curving elongated beaks; the curves of Philadelphia Queen Anne style seats tended to inflect more than seats found on chairs made elsewhere. New York clawand-ball feet were square in form, while those from Massachusetts characteristically featured raking claws. The cabriole legs of many southern pieces were almost straight. Stretchers generally disappeared during this period, although they tended to persist on Massachusetts pieces, typical of sideboards forms produced there.