1720 Masters never screwed up

Re: 1720 Masters never screwed up

Barry Irby

Wow, I would have had to put a lock. Or at least the escutcheon.

Not the same but some museum I was in had a high boy desk on display, with the back off. The difference in what you could see from the front and the inside was stunning. On the unseen parts, they wasted NO effort prettying it up. The guts were very crude. The exterior was fabulously refined.

Re: 1720 Masters never screwed up

Derek Cohen (in Perth, Australia)

Bill, how do you know when and by whom the repair was done? The colour and grain matching is rather poor compared with the quality of the remaining work.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Re: 1720 Masters never screwed up

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

One knows what color a piece of walnut will wind up if one is just willing to wait 100 years or so.

Unsure how you judged the quality of this piece from a picture of just the drawer front.

I will have more Chester County furniture adventures to follow.

Re: 1720 Masters never screwed up

Sgian Dubh

Bill, I think Derek has a point. After all, it's obvious that the drop pulls are replacements, as evidenced by the oval marking left by earlier pulls that have been removed. And knowing that hints at the possibility that the visible escutcheon in the drawer front (lower far right) is also a replacement. If that speculation holds water, then perhaps plugging the key hole in the top drawer was the preferred choice over installing an escutcheon of the same shape as the one that is visible in order to prevent that new escutcheon hiding part of the stringing and berries. In my eyes, the one escutcheon visible sits perilously close, visually, to the stringing above it anyway.

What may help is to ask if you were able to open that top drawer to see if there had ever been a lock installed? Slainte.

OK

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

Consistent with your theory we have to allow that this may be the first piece anyone has ever seen that had a lock on the upper left drawer and not a matching lock on the upper right.

And, whatever sort of escutcheon was originally covering this key hole left no evidence of attachment, or there never was one. see PIC

I think the line and berry decoration was scratched before the repair because the line does not pass through the patch. I am unable to use this information to judge the time line of the fix.

In this region of furniture drawer border stringing usually was interrupted by the drawer lock escutcheon. But I have never seen an escutcheon interfere with the line and berry decoration(I have a thick book on this region that shows all the known furniture the author was able to photograph).

Re: 1720 Masters never screwed up

Derek Cohen (in Perth, Australia)

Unsure how you judged the quality of this piece from a picture of just the drawer front.

Bill, it is evident that other repairs/alterations have been done. I thought the choice of patch for the keyhole appears hastily done. The grain looks to be a poor match. The colour may have changed over the years, but the repair would have been evident back then anyway.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Re: OK

Sgian Dubh

"this may be the first piece anyone has ever seen that had a lock on the upper left drawer and not a matching lock on the upper right.

That's a fair point, so quite likely it is really what's sometimes euphemistically known as a 'calculatory anomaly', aka, cock-up.

However, not all escutcheons are plates screwed to the face of the drawer or door, as below. Slainte.

Repair done 100 years later?

Kneale Brownson

Can you get to the inside of the drawer to see if there's evidence of the lock?