Can anyone help identify this style of furniture?

12 years ago

I bought this amazing buffet from CL yesterday. I love it and want to marry it. I love it so much that I drove to a friends house to show her, so that someone would appreciate its loveliness with me. So, of course it doesn't fit the wall I needed it for and I am ridiculously sad about a piece of furniture that I have owned for less than 24 hours!

That said, I am going to try and resell it in the Antique Mall that I have a booth in (I paint and repurpose furniture and other goodies) but am not sure how to classify it. The square door panels are throwing me. Louis XV? French Provincial? I wish I was better informed about actual antiques, I usually just paint and say, ain't she purty :-)

Thanks so much!

Comments (9)

Fori
12 years ago
I dunno. But I think you should rearrange your furniture until it fits. I'm not saying marry it, but it's awfully pretty! I love the knots.
sombreuil_mongrel
12 years ago
Edwardian (or later) reinterpretation based on Louis XV style. Interestingly (unconventionally), it's ash wood.
Casey
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karinl
12 years ago
Thanks for that, Casey, I wondered if it might be elm. Ash is nice.

I can't help categorize it but I could sure write a good ad extolling its virtues! Condition appears very good.

Karin L
sam_md
12 years ago
When I see alternating convex and concave panels I use the term "block front". I sure wish you had opened the drawer just a little and given us a peek at the dovetails. I think that you have a turn-of-the-century sideboard made of chestnut.
Sam
texasredhead
12 years ago
I suspect the piece is veneered and perhaps mid 20 century. Inspect a drawer to determine interior woods. You should be able to see the vaneer layer. Did you purchase the item from an individual or a dealer? Whitch ever, what did they tell you about the piece. Chestnut tends to be "wormy". I am a little more inclined to think ash.
sombreuil_mongrel
12 years ago
I sure don't see any veneer there. Esp. the drawer fronts.

I could just about see elm, too. But it's very uncommon to see furniture in elm, short of slab Hitchcock chair seats.

I'd expect chestnut to have a finer grain. And not all of it has to be wormy! Once the trees started dying en masse, there were wormy standing dead trees to be used, but before the Great Chestnut Blight, the wood was sound.
Casey
annie1971
12 years ago
How about "beautiful European repro". Ask a lot of money and let them figure out what it is. I'm wondering if it hasn't been "cleaned up" or had the original finish removed. It doesn't seem as old to me as it looks like it should be. (If that makes any sense!).
If I were you, I'd do everything I could to get it to fit into my room!
someone2010
12 years ago
I think you will find this piece was made in China out of Chinese Ash. It's a Chinese interpretation of French Provincal, but of course they didn't get it quite right.
sombreuil_mongrel
12 years ago
Never would have connected the two hemispheres, but someone2010 is on to something! Does look exactly like the grain in certain asian pieces.
Casey