Antique Sideboards

Heppelwhite Antique Sideboards

The Adam brothers also designed a serving-table, oblong, with six legs, and with knife-urns on separate pedestals at each end, and a cellaret beneath. Their later designs, about 1770, included a swell-f ront table. The earliest sideboards now .to be found in this country include some that may possibly date back to 1765, but the probabilities are strongly in favor of their being much later. There is one type-an inlaid mahogany sideboard with slender legs-that has been wrongly attributed to Chippendale; and is some times called Heppelwhite. It was more likely the work of Thomas Shearer, a London cabinet-maker of that period.

While Chippendale, Heppelwhite, and Sheraton are sharing the honor of producing much of the finest furniture ever made, to Shearer should be given the credit for originating the sideboard. He published a book of designs in 1788 which included sideboards with curved and serpentine fronts-a style brought to perfection later by Heppelwhite. He also de-signed extremely graceful knife-boxes.

Heppelwhite adopted this design, and it is .not always easy to distinguish between Heppelwhite's earlier work and Shearer's. Heppelwhite;s first de-signs appeared only a year later than Shearer's. In general, his early work depended on carving for ornament; later he adopted inlay.

Heppelwhite unquestionably improved the side-board, and developed it into a piece of furniture of rare beauty. The collector who owns a good Heppelwhite or Sheraton sideboard is indeed fortunate. The graceful curves of the front, the slender legs, and the delicate carving or inlay, place them among the finest examples of craftsmanship that the Georgian period produced.

The fronts of Heppelwhitc's sideboards were usually curved or serpentine. The swelling curve in the center, with concave curves each side of it, is commonest, though many designs were made with the plain convex front.
In some cases the front was made up of tambourwork-strips of wood glued on cloth, much as on the modern roll-top desk. Where the wine-cooler was incorporated in the sideboard it was often inclosed in this way. Sometimes there were drawers, and some-times little cupboards, containing places for bottles, etc.

But though the outlines of sides and front varied, as well as the arrangement of drawers and other features, there were always six straight, tapering legs. Heppelwhite's favorite leg was square, and he made use frequently of the spade foot.

Most of the best Heppelwhite sideboards are of mahogany, either solid or veneered, and in his later pieces he made some use of satinwood, tulip-wood, rosewood, maple, yew, and other woods in his inlay work. Sometimes this inlay was in the form of a narrow line border; sometimes it was more elaborate, the fan pattern and wreath designs being characteristic. The legs were often ornamented with fine lines in sycamore or tulip-wood, or vertical patterns of husks. Heppelwhite made use also of the meander pattern and the Greek fret in his inlay.

Sometimes carving is to be found on these side-boards, as well as inlay, chiefly in patterns employing ribbons, flowers, husks, urns, and the wheat-ear. The handles of doors and drawers were almost always of brass, with oval plates; silver handles and escutcheons are to be found rarely.

Heppelwhite included with some of his sideboards a pair of knife-and-spoon holders of mahogany, set on top at each end, and provided with locks with brass escutcheons. A sideboard of similar type is occasionally to be met with which was undoubtedly made in this country. These are usually veneered on pine, and are plainer in form and ornament than the English pieces.