Antique English Bureau-Bookcases
Bureau-Bookcase
From the mid-eighteenth century, cabinets and bureau-bookcases conformed to the
Signs of authenticity
1. Wood smooth and silky to the touch.
2. Carved decoration deep and precise, rounded with age and use.
3. Vertical grain in central panels of block-fronted doors, held in cleated frames.
4. Sides in two pieces, not flush.
5. Lip moulding to edges of solid mahogany fall-fronts.
6. Flush edges to doors and writing flaps on veneered pieces.
7. Bookshelves on adjustable pegs or pins.
8. Veneers well-matched on tops and bases.
9. Doorbolts and locks of brass, levers and bolts of steel.
10. Later pieces had applied decoration, hand-carved and slightly irregular.
11. Backs of separate
component parts of same timber, colour and patination.
Likely restoration and repair
12. Flush-sided without
moulding band between top and base indicates a ‘marriage’ or a piece cut down from larger, more massive library bookcase, with new sides.
13. Fall-front different thickness from rest of writing
compartment indicates a replacement. Georgian timber was thicker than machine-cut planking.
14. Broken pediment without central plinth may indicate that the piece has been narrowed from wider original.
15. Handles and escutcheons original but too large whole piece has been made up from larger original.
16. Shallow carving on apron, feet, flush with profile, indicates later carving of plain original. Later mouldings may also have been added.
17. Wood feels rough to the touch. A cheaper, later period Honduras mahogany piece has been scraped down and repolished to look classier.
architectural styles and fashions of that period. Although frequently referred to as ‘the Chippendale period’ it was William Kent (died in 1748) who had the greater influence on these pieces with their adaptation of the classicism of Ancient Greece and Rome. The curved and rounded broken pediments of an earlier age changed to a more severe triangular shape, often with a central plinth on which was mounted a bust, an eagle or some similar classical feature. To accord with Georgian design, cabinets and bureau-bookcases were larger than those of the previous period and there was a preference for fall-fronted writing drawers, as opposed to slope-fronted desks, due to a growing desire for plain and simple shapes.
Construction and materials
The strength of mahogany allowed for much simpler construction which reflected the taste for classical simplicity. A bureau-bookcase was made in three pieces: the bureau base, the bookcase, and the decorative pediment. All the lines were sleeker, and there was a less pronounced step between the bureau base and the bookcase above.
The carcase was of cheap Honduras mahogany or baywood, veneered in fine-figured San Domingo or Cuban mahogany. After c.1760 this rich, lighter-coloured wood was used both as a solid wood and for veneer. The backs of the separate components were of saw-cut pine or mahogany planking. When made in solid mahogany, the edges of writing flaps had thumb or lip-moulding. Veneered writing flaps still had flush edges. Drawers in the base were of oak and pine, with dustboards between them. Mahogany cabinet doors
were heavier than those of the earlier secretaire, and were hung on three pin hinges instead of two. The decorative pediment was three-sided only, on a frame which slotted into the top of the cornice and was not secured.
Detail
The fine, close grain of mahogany allowed decoration to be carved into the wood: Greek key motifs, reeding, fluting, fretting and dentil cornices were integral and not applied.
Pediments were more ornate and so were bases, often with serpentine aprons with a central cartouche, carved paw feet or short, scrolled, outward-curving bracket feet. Canted corners to tops and bases, often fluted or carved, were also typical features. Glazing bars were functional and stood proud on either side of glass-fronted cabinets, holding individually-cut panes of glass in decorative geometrical patterns. If the bookcase had block-fronted doors then the panels would be chamfered. Backplates, handles and
escutcheons were of plain, fretted or pierced brass. From c.1750 escutcheons were plain flush plates with little or no decoration. Interior desk fittings had bone, ivory or brass knobs to drawers.
Variations
Some desks and bookcases of the second half of the eighteenth century had double or single cupboards in place of the drawers below the writing flap. In manor houses the plain bureau served the same purpose as the bureau-bookcases of larger households, and a separate hanging shelf accommodated the few books kept by all but educated and wealthy families. As with the previous period, the top half of any doubleheighted writing desk was usually glazed to display china and other decorative objects.
Simple square-topped bureau-bookcases with double doors below the writing flap were made in mahogany veneer on pine carcases for modest provincial houses, using the same construction as grander pieces but lacking the ornate carved decoration. Some applied decoration in simple forms was customary, usually a lattice-like design or Greek key pattern.
Reproductions
Nineteenth century Square-topped library furniture of less height than eighteenth-century originals was made in solid Virginia walnut which discolours and darkens with age. To the untrained eye it may look like mahogany but it lacks the depth of colour and lustre and was often French-polished to a spurious gloss. This classic piece of library furniture continued to be made right through the nineteenth century into ‘he twentieth, with some –ariations in the combination of display cabinet and desk, bureau-bookcase and base
with drawers or double doors containing sliding shelves on runners.
Twentieth century
Modern mahogany veneer is thinly cut by machine. Unlike original bureau-bookcases, the drawers do not have cross-cut veneer edging but are usually veneered with a single piece and then inlaid with a paler wood.
Left: a provincial version with display-cabinet top, c.1790.
Above: Edwardian reproduction in mahogany with satinwood crossbanding.
Price bands
Georgian, broken pediment, fine and unrestored, $6,000-8,000.
Late Georgian provincial, 12,000-3,500.
Early nineteenth century,$1,250-3,000.
Edwardian, in good condition, $750-1,000.
Tags: ancient greece, Bookcase, Bookshelves, brass levers, chippendale period, Honduras, honduras mahogany, mahogany, mid eighteenth century, restoration, triangular shape, Veneers, Wood