Queen Anne Style Furniture
If you are planning to shop for and buy antique furniture from America’s Colonial period – 1720 to 1750, there a certain things you should look for.
It’s amazing how easily experts are able to recognize pieces from a specific era or period. I will be concentrating here on how to recognize Queen Anne style furniture. There are specific proportions and designs that significantly relate to the last queen of the House of Stuarts?
Here are a few tips on how to recognize Queen Anne furniture:
*Check the style of the feet… tables, a desks, chairs, etc. will all have pad feet. This more graceful style replaced the heavier look of the William and Mary style, which used the ball foot. At first, there was the cabriole leg terminating with either a plain, well-shaped Dutch foot or the carved webfoot, so-called for its remote resemblance to that of the barnyard waterfowl.
Variations of this leg and foot were used on chairs, tables, beds, day beds, desks, chests on frames, highboys, and lowboys. In fact, the majority of Queen Anne pieces had this pleasing detail, although a few simple ones were made with turned legs and button feet. Also, there was one other type of design that was very popular…this was the chair with turned front legs terminating in carved Flemish scrolls known as the Spanish foot.
*Next, check the features and accents. Queen Anne furniture pieces usually have plain and unfussy shell and fan carvings. The top rails of chairs are yoke shaped and the back portion often has a vase shape. Seats are normally shaped like a horseshoe. During earlier times, settees and sofas were not listed under the Queen Anne furniture and style; these pieces came in several years after.
In fact, as the Queen Anne period progressed, the chair became more and more skilfully designed and made. Instead of a straight-lined seat a curved one, wider at the front than at the back, came into vogue. The back with its vase-shaped central splat and crested and carved top was given an added vertical curve which made for both beauty and comfort.
But perhaps the high point of Queen Anne furniture was reached in the highboy, the lowboy, and the tea table with moulded top. These were also the background from which later came the elaborate pieces of the same sort liberally decorated with fine carving in the Chippendale period, which were without doubt the most beautiful ever made by American cabinetmakers.
*Once you are knowledgable about Queen Anne furniture, you will know that most of the furniture pieces are primarily made out of walnut, although some are made out of maple wood and cherry. Later in the period, furniture produced in this style was made out of imported mahogany.
*Finally, the most predominant indicator that a piece was designed using the English monarch’s style is the use of cabriole legs.
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