Early 20th century furniture review

[mr_skittle]

I got a summer job as a tour guide at a turn if the century mansion/museum. It is full of all the styles, decorations, furniture, and amenities that the wealthy folks at the time just had to have. While the story of the influential, local family that built the place isn't particularly interesting, I am absolutely geeking out on all the furniture and wookwork in the house. I'm brand new, but I'm already trying to pitch a woodwork and furniture centered tour. The house was built between 1905-1908 so the predominant style in Minnesota was Arts & Crafts early in the Prairie influence. a.k.a. early Frank Lloyd Wright. But with 39 rooms there were examples of many different styles popular at the time. For example the formal living room is furnished in some sort of Federal style and the oldest daughter has Queen Anne Revival furniture. While I can name the piece, like highboy or bombe chest, I don't have a ton of knowledge on the period and need to brush up on my architectural vocabulary. I'll post pics of some of the pieces and ask folks to comment as they please but I'd love it is folks could also share some resources so I can do my own homework too.

I'll start with a couple pieces from the oldest daughters room. 

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[mr_skittle]

Jeeze. Are the pictures sideways and upside down for other people too?

[atgcpaul]

Yep, at first I thought the top piece was some kind of hanging installation.

Are any of the pieces made by anyone notable?

[mr_skittle]

I'll see if I can fix the photos but this seems to be a reoccurring problem of mine.

None of the pieces are contributed to any particular craftsman. The whole house was done by an outfit in Minneapolis called William A French Co. Mr French himself was the designer and he had an army of craftspeople making whatever furniture was in style at the time.

[giradman]

Well, the images are TOO large and needed to be reduced in size (as I did below) - I would suggest that the OP use an image editor to reduce the width of the image to less that 1000 pixels - BTW, those look like Chippendale style pieces - their value would depend not only on their condition, but also as stated who, when, & where they were made?  There are plenty of books on antique furniture (just check Amazon) - also, I assume that if you are a 'docent' at the museum house that training for that position would be provided.  Dave

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[Chuck Nickerson]

I assume that if you are a 'docent' at the museum house that training for that position would be provided.  Dave

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If he's the first furniture geek to work as a docent the training could be very thin on furniture knowledge.

See if the museum will pay for a membership to SAPFM. There are guys on their message boards who are steeped in the kind of information you want.

[mr_skittle]

I did two things for the pics. I did compress them down by 25%, although neither was too big. I've had to resize many pics that were over 1000KB and the site won't even let you post one that is too big. I also downloaded them onto the PC and uploaded again to the post. Before I was pulling them straight from the phone.

So the term 'museum' is used loosely for the place. It's called Glensheen mansion by the way. It's had a bumpy ride with stewardship since being donated to the local U of M campus in the early 80's and has only been well run and utilized for about 5 years now. I'm not even sure if docent would be a very correct term for my job. It's really just a seasonal tour guide. They give you a nice guide book to read up on and then kinda give each guide the freedom to highlight whatever they like. Since I like furniture and woodwork, that's what I'm going to highlight in my tours. There is a collections manager that catalogs and maintains all the stuff in the house but no one that is specifically versed in the parts that I'm interested in.

As I said, the pieces are not attributed to any craftsman in particular. They were all commissioned threw the William A. French Co of Minneapolis. I'm not interested in value or anything about their collectability, just a bit about the style/period and any other interesting tidbits about a piece.

From what I've been about to find out, the high boy is Queen Anne revival veneered entirely of bookmatched mahogany veneer. It has very simple cabriole legs, simple shell carving. The finials are fluted urns with a flame tip. I don't know the terms to best describe the pediment and the fact that the details run the depth of the pieces, instead of just being a facade, seems notable.

I don't know the first thing about the desk...

[Paul K. Murphy]

The highboy is Queen Anne. The pediment is called a broken swan-neck pediment. The drawers are butt matched BTW, not book matched.
The desk is also Queen Anne.
The chair is en-suite with the others and makes a good match. It has a crest somewhat like a Chippendale, but by no means is it "solidly Chippendale."
It's a Queen Anne suite.

[Paul K. Murphy]

Incidentally, I'm guessing the chair has a typical Chippendale type C-shaped splat, and not an S-shaped, spoon shaped splat. This too would be Chippendale, but should be okay as part of this suite. Modern reproduction, revivals. I like them, but they aren't that special.

[TomFromStLouis]

Hmmmm, “butt match” is a new term for me. I see it as slightly more informative than “book match” but I think I will stick with book.