Illustration 35 shows the styles of handles chiefly found upon
pieces of furniture with drawers, after 1770. A is a handle which
was used during the last years of the Chippendale period, and the
first years of the Hepplewhite. B and C are the oval pressed brass
handles found upon Hepplewhite furniture. They were made round as
well as oval, and were in various designs; the eagle with thirteen
stars, a serpent, a beehive, a spray of flowers, or heads of historic
personages—Washington and Jefferson being the favorites.
[Illustration: Illustration 35.]
D is the rosette and ring handle, of which E shows an elaborate
form. These handles were used upon Sheraton pieces and also upon the
heavy veneered mahogany furniture made during the first quarter of
the nineteenth century. F is the brass knob handle used from 1800 to
1820. G is the glass knob which, in clear and opalescent glass, came
into use about 1815 and which is found upon furniture made for twenty
years after that date, after which time wooden knobs were used, often
displacing the old brass handles.
Looking-glasses made to swing in a frame are mentioned in inventories
of 1750, and about that date may be given to the dressing-glass with
drawers, shown in Illustration 36. It was owned by Lucy Flucker, who
took it with her when, in opposition to her parents’ wishes, she
married in 1774 the patriot General Knox. It is now in the possession
of the Hon. James Phinney Baxter, Esq., of Portland, Maine. Such
dressing-glasses were intended to stand upon a dressing-table or bureau.
[Illustration: Illus. 36.—Dressing-glass, about 1760.]
A bureau and dressing-glass owned by the writer are shown in
Illustration 37. The bureau is of cherry, with the drawer fronts
veneered in mahogany edged with satinwood. A row of fine inlaying runs
around the edge of the top and beneath the drawers. This lower line of
inlaying appears upon inexpensive bureaus of this period, and seems
to have been considered indispensable to the finish of a bureau. The
dressing-glass is of mahogany and satinwood with fine inlaying around
the frame of the glass and the edge of the stand. The base of the
bureau is of a plain type, while that of the dressing-glass has the
same graceful curves that appear in Illustration 34.
[Illustration: Illus. 37.—Bureau and Dressing-glass, 1795.]
The bureaus in Illustration 34 and Illustration 37 are in the
Hepplewhite style. The bureau and dressing-glass in Illustration 38
are distinctly Sheraton, of the best style. They are owned by Dwight
Blaney, Esq., of Boston, and were probably made about 1810. The carving
upon the bureau legs and upon the corners and side supports to the
dressing-glass is finely executed. The handles to the drawers are brass
knobs.
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