Two Books: A Disappointment and a Delight

American furniture of the 18th century has always been something I’ve liked OK but I’ve never become a nut about, like Brussels sprouts, Cheney hammers and classical music. This week I’ve been consuming a couple books about 18th-century furniture that have long been on my list of things I’ve been meaning to read.

Until this point, my favorite books on the topic were Wallace Nutting’s “A Furniture Treasury” (Macmillian) and “American Furniture of the 18th Century” by Jeffrey Greene. Nutting’s book, though flawed, is fantastic for designing furniture because it offers hundreds of pages of photos of old pieces (for example, there are 77 pages devoted to low chests of drawers). Greene’s book is great because it marries woodworking technique, history, the tools and design.

The two books I’m reading now are similar. Albert Sack’s “Fine Points of Furniture” (Crown) is a visual lesson of what is ugly and beautiful in pieces of early American furniture and consists of nearly 300 pages of photos and commentary. “The Cabinetmaker’s Treasury” (Macmillan) by F.E. Hoard and A.W. Marlow is more like Greene’s book, though it was published in 1952. “The Cabinetmaker’s Treasury” consists of a discussion of techniques and offers plans for many pieces of early American furniture.

My copy of “The Cabinetmaker’s Treasury” was a gift from our art director, Linda Watts, who picked it up at a book sale in Dayton, Ohio. I think I was the first or second person to open it because it’s perfect in every way. And on first reading, I was delighted by the drawings and text.

But then I started really picking apart the construction details shown in the book. I think that misters Hoard and Marlow must have had some stock in the 3″-long screw market because that is the primary way they join everything (except the chairs). No dados. No sliding dovetails. Fewer mortise-and-tenon joints than I would prefer. The lowboys in the book are all screwed together. Screw the web frames together. Then screw the web frames to the sides. Don’t forget to screw the partitions!

So bottom line: It’s an OK book for a couple bucks.

“The Fine Points of Furniture” seems a bit of a gimmick at first. Sack shows photos of three different pieces of furniture. They’re all the same form (chest on chest, for example). But one is labeled a “good” design, one is labeled “better” and the other as “best.” Then he offers some commentary under each photo explaining why.

Sack insults the piece labeled as “good” designs, and I was getting a complex at first because I kind of liked the “good” designs. They were usually simpler and less ornamented. Sack reserved “better” and “best” for pieces with elaborate carving, vigorous turnings and aggressive lines.

But after 300 pages of the stuff, I began to see things Sack’s way. The “good” designs started to look clunky and less refined. I was exercising my eye for 18th-century design. It’s still a bit sore, but going down to work on an Arts & Crafts sideboard should give it a chance to relax.

By the way, you can get “Fine Points of Furniture” for a song. The revised edition “The New Fine Points of Furniture” is ghastly expensive. If there’s anyone out there who has both, I’d love to hear a comparision of the two versions.

– Christopher Schwarz