A Sheraton sideboard of later date is shown in Illustration 85. It
is of mahogany, and was probably made about 1800. The arched open
space in the middle was left for the cellaret, which was the usual
accompaniment of the sideboard in those days of hard drinking. The
top of this sideboard is surmounted by drawers, with a back above the
drawers. The legs and the columns above them are reeded, and the
little columns at the corners of the upper drawers are carved, the
inner ones with a sheaf of wheat, and the two outside corners with the
acanthus leaf. This sideboard was formerly owned by Rejoice Newton,
Esq., of Worcester, from whom it has descended to Waldo Lincoln, Esq.,
of Worcester.
[Illustration: Illus. 86.—Sheraton Sideboard, about 1805.]
Illustration 86 shows the latest type of a Sheraton sideboard, owned
by the Colonial Dames of Pennsylvania, and now in “Stenton,” the
house built in 1727 by James Logan, William Penn’s secretary. The
sideboard stands where it was placed, about 1805, by George Logan, the
great-great grandson of James. The wood is mahogany, and the large
square knife-boxes were evidently made to fit the sideboard. The legs,
with spade feet, are short, bringing the body of the sideboard close to
the floor. The handles are brass knobs.
[Illustration: Illus. 87.—Cellarets, 1790.]
Cellarets were made as a part of the dining-room furniture. They
were lined with zinc, to hold the ice in which the wine bottles were
packed to cool, and at the lower edge of the body of the cellaret was
a faucet, or some arrangement by which the water from the melted ice
could be drawn off. They were designed by Chippendale and all of his
contemporaries and by the later cabinet-makers,—Adam, Hepplewhite,
and Sheraton.
Illustration 87 shows two cellarets of different styles. The cellaret
of octagonal shape, brass bound, with straight legs, is of the style
most commonly found. It is in the Poore collection, at Indian Hill.
Cellarets of this shape figure in books of designs from 1760 to 1800.
The other is oval in form, and has the leg usually attributed to the
Adam brothers. This cellaret belongs to Francis H. Bigelow, Esq., of
Cambridge. Both cellarets are of mahogany.
We now come to sideboards of the type called “Colonial”; why, it would
be difficult to trace, since sideboards of this heavy design were not
made until over twenty-five years after the time that the United States
took the place of the American colonies.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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