seventeenth-century carved boxes

Tonight, a follow-up to two earlier posts about William Savell, and his sons John & William, of Braintree, Massachusetts. 

(see https://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/2009/04/23/three-hands/ and https://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/2009/04/24/three-hands-carving-again/ )

The surviving examples of carved oak boxes attributed to these joiners are my favorite models for making this common form of furniture. The above photos are of an oak box, with a pine bottom. Usually period boxes like these are carved only on the front board. Typically they are nailed together, right through the front & rear boards, into the end grain of the box sides.

This shop carved the sides as well as the front, and fastened the rabbet joints with square wooden pins instead of nails. This box is one of two surviving examples, both in museum collections, that we attributed to John Savell (1642-1687).  [apologies for the photos’ color, these are both the same box – I’m working here with old slides…]

The carving on the box’s front board is directly from the top rail of the joined chests, while the side boards of the box relate to the carved panels on the chests.

Long after the article was published in 1996, Robert Trent showed me a box in a private collection that I feel now was made by William Savell (1590s-1669). It too is carved on 3 sides, pegged not nailed, and also features the chisel & punch band of zig-zags above & below the carved patterns.

carved box, William Savell, 1590s-1669

 

carved box, side. William Savell, 1590s-1669

 

There are many other direct quotes in the carved patterns, linking this box to the others & to the carved joined chests. Among these similarities are the “broken” concave outline on the side view, as well as the gouge-chopped decoration just outside the lunette on the same view. Below is a detail from a joined & boarded chest at the Smithsonian showing the same motif:

carving detail, Smithsonian chest

I have carved many examples of these boxes; usually I adapt them one way or another, although sometimes I have made direct copies of them. Below is my most recent take on these boxes; done in white oak – followed by a copy I made years ago of the desk box illustrated in the American Furniture article.

PF version of Savell box

PF repro of desk box

German wooden square

A. Durer, Melancolia I, detail, 1514

A reader asked about an object seen in the foreground of the Weirix title page I posted the other day…asking if it was a square. Yes, it is & here is another view of a similar square, this one is a detail of Albrecht Durer’s Melancolia I (1514). You won’t find a better period illustration than that.

Here it is again in another German illustration, on the workbench right behind the man planing. I’m sorry I don’t have a citation for this, but it seems that this was used as the model for Jost Amman’s woodcuts for Hans Sachs’ Book of Trades (1568) or vice-versa. Maybe a reader can clue me in…

Here is Jost Ammon’s version, which I found as an online version of the whole set of woodcuts http://www.fulltable.com/VTS/aoi/a/amman/jam.htm

Jost Ammon Der Schreiner 1568

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notice that the man sawing has switched legs to hold down the stock. There’s numerous other differences, sort of a child’s game to compare & contrast.

 

I imagine there are more illustrations of this type of square. Although I have never made one, I bet it functions like the miter square I discussed previously.  https://pfollansbee.wordpress.com/2009/03/12/miter-squares-then-now/ 

A reminder that there is a search function on the right-hand column on this blog; sometimes I use it to see what I have said before…otherwise I might come up with what I think is a brilliant idea, only to find out that I already did it!

another workbench illustration

When I stopped in at Baltimore recently to visit Jennie Alexander, I returned a book I had borrowed a year ago, thus creating good credit. So I borrowed two excellent German books on tools. Gunther Heine’s Das Werkzeug des Schreiners und Drechslers and Schadwinkel, Heine & Gerner’s Das Werkzeug des Zimmermanns.

Among the many things I have been copying out of these is this engraving by Heironymus Wierix, the title page to a book concerning the childhood of Christ.

H. Wierix, title page, c. 1600

Thus, here is yet another image of a  sixteenth-or-seventeenth-century workbench, this time Flemish.  Here the bench hook is clearly evident, but there is no holdfast, nor holes for one. Also, like the Moxon bench & the Felebien bench, the top overhangs the faces of the legs. This has always seemed counter-productive on a bench with holes in the legs for holdfasts. In the Wierix bench it’s less of a problem, but how you use this bench to grab stock against the legs is not immediately clear…

I tried cropping the picture so we could come in on the bench & some of the tools a bit. This is the first illustration I can think of that shows the tools piled/stored on the stretchers of the bench frame. 

Wierix, workbench detail

Years ago, Alexander sent me a series of photocopies of the engravings from this set. As I recall, there are several scenes of Christ, Joseph & the angels working various timber projects.

three hands carving again

lunette, attr William Savell 1652-1700

carved lunette, attr John Savell 1642-1687

lunette, William Savell Sr 1590s-1669

After yesterday’s post looking at the three hands involved in the principal objects from the Savell shop, it seems worthwhile to look at the carvings from the upper rails of their  chests.  This batch goes in reverse order; the uppermost image is the work attributed to William Savell, the youngest son of William Savell, Sr. Then the middle one is John Savell, the eldest son, who trained the younger William. The lower of the three is one we assign to the immigrant, William Savell, Sr. This carving is somewhat obsucured by numerous paint layers, so some of the detail is barely discernable.

Two answers concerning the comments from the panels – somewhere in the article we mentioned that John Savell was made freeman at such-and-such a date…being admitted as a “freeman” of the town entitles one to various rights, privileges and benefits that a non-freeman is restricted from. Probably responsibilities too.

Concerning the differences in the handling in the carvings; there can indeed be many explanations for it. We were able to see several examples of the work we attribute to both sons, but for the work assigned to William Savell Sr we had only two pieces at the time of publication, and have added only one more since. John’s work, and young William’s were both consistent within themselves. Ditto the old man, although with a smaller sample it’s hard to draw any conclusion. Might be that even had young William trained with his father, (instead of with his brother) he still might have done his carvings with a less than supple curve to his work. That said, he still carves better than me…I blow out the oak between V-tool lines when they are spaced very closely together.

Three hands

 

 I have just returned from Winterthur Museum, where I gave a few demonstrations of the seventeenth-century style woodworking I practice, as part of a furniture forum surrounding their new exhibition Harbor and Home. When Winterthur told me I could have some pieces from the collection in the room where I was demonstrating, I knew right off that one would be this cupboard door in the study collection.

 

 

cupboard door

 

This piece is the first one Jennie Alexander showed me years ago, that eventually got me hooked on work of this period. Alexander studied this door in great detail, with a succession of curators at Winterthur, where its pins had been removed to explore the joinery details.  Ultimately Alexander & I published an article on this group, for Chipstone’s American Furniture in 1996.

 

The door is a part of a well-defined group of surviving furniture from Braintree, Massachusetts, circa 1640-1700. I thought I would dig out some pictures to look at three versions of this carved pattern, showing the succession of three joiners’ work.

 

door panel, attributed to William Savell, Sr.

 

The cupboard door we attributed to William Savell, Sr., who emigrated from Saffron Walden in Essex, to New England by 1637 or so. William Savell was born in the late 1590s, and died in Braintree in 1669. He had several sons; John born 1642, Samuel, b. 1643; Benjamin, b. 1645 and last, William born 1652. John and William became joiners, their father’s will stipulates that William is to live as an apprentice with his brother John. William was only 17 years old when the elder William died in 1669.

 

 

chest panel, attributed to John Savell

 

The second group consists of work we attribute to John Savell. A tradesman’s working career is generally considered to start at age 21, thus John Savell spans about 1663 to his death in 1687. These are my favorite versions of this pattern; featuring the graceful curves seen in the previous work, with slightly more details; although some of the details are more simplified than the work we assign to his father. 

 

chest panel, attributed to William Savell, 1652-1700

 Several chests survive that we have assigned to William Savell’s son William. His carving is different than his brother’s; one explanation is that he did not train long, if at all, under his father. Thus he is one step further removed from the strongest link to the English tradition that the elder William transferred to New England. (sorry for the garish photo, naturally that chest is here at the house, thus I have never really worked at getting good photos of it…)

The article is online at www.chipstone.org go to “publications” then – American Furniture – 1996 – Follansbee & Alexander.

 

carving tools & panels

A quick note to try to answer a couple of recent questions that come up while I was away. Regarding carving tools, their size, selection, etc. I regularly use about 6 different tools, and sometimes add to or delete from that group.

here is my main set of carving tools. They are a mixture of new and antique tools. Both work fine.

carving tools' profiles

A reader asked which tools I used for this carving, so below it is a photo of the three principal tools I used to cut it:

 

About panel sizes, most often the widest panels I get from an oak log are around 10″ or 11″ wide. These require a tree over 2 feet in diameter, once I split off the sapwood and the juvenile wood at the center of the tree.  Because the panels are radial splits from a very straight-grained oak, they are quite stable. The shrinkage is minimal, and predictable. I can’t recall having any problems stemming from shrinking panels. They fit about 1/2″ into the grooves in the edges of the stock.

sixteenths red oak

these pieces got split again, into 1/32nds of the original log. The best ones did about 10″ – others less so. The quality of this stock was first-rate, though. After splitting, it’s hewn, then planed. To carve the panels, I secure them to a piece of scrap stock then hold that down to the bench with a pair of holdfasts.

hewing panel stock, prior to planing

panel nailed down for carving

And finally, here is why I nail them down – a panel from a seventeenth-century New England chest with nail holes showing around its edges. I attribute these holes to nails that fastened the panel steady for carving…they are found often enough…not always, but not unusual.

nail holes in panel

Heritage Crafts Association link

joined chest

 

The way I practice joinery is based as closely as is practical on seventeenth-century methods from New England. Furniture made in England was executed in essentially the same manner, with variations here and there. I find this type of woodworking challenging, exciting and rewarding. Also the furniture has a tremendous appeal for me. It is strong, practical and, to my eye, attractive. The main timber used is oak, a wood I never grow tired learning about and using.

 

Tonight I’m not writing about what I do, or how I do it. I’m writing about the web, England, history and the future. The web has changed the life of everyone who uses it regularly, and one of the greatest benefits of it is the way it can connect like-minded people easily. I regularly read a few websites, regularly check a few others. One is www.unpluggedshop.com – many readers of this blog already know about that one. I was very grateful when Luke Townsley included my blog as one of those tracked there. Thanks Luke.

 

One of my favorite places is the English countryside. I have a terribly skewed view of it, having only made three trips there, all designed to see as much oak furniture as possible. Yet, I feel a strong connection there, mostly through my long-term study of English joinery, both here in New England and in old England as well.

 

 

And mainly because of the web, one of my favorite craftsmen I have never met is Robin Wood. 

Robin Wood

Robin’s blog I read regularly. You can see it here:  http://greenwood-carving.blogspot.com/  For those of you who are new to his work, he is a renowned turner of bowls on a pole lathe, but also a lot more. Good writer, researcher and photographer. His book The Wooden Bowl is excellent. I have no intention of ever turning many bowls, I sometimes go years between bowls, but I’ve read his book twice.  Now add passionate advocate for rescuing/saving/promoting “old” crafts to his resume. Robin and several others have been working hard at starting up an organization in the UK called “Heritage Crafts Association” – he just posted the details of it the other night. Although I am a long ways from the UK, I have an Anglo-historic bent, with the study of historic joinery, my family history, etc. So when you have a few minutes please take a look at what the HCA is attempting. These folks are working hard at doing good. http://www.heritagecrafts.org.uk/

 

 In the museum setting, I meet a lot of people. More than 300,000 a year, for over 15 years now. They watch me work at furniture-making, and one thing I hear more & more is that people are separated from the making of things.  Thus I think it becomes more important to save the ideas, skills and techniques involved in hand-made stuff. If you made it this far, thanks for paying attention to my rant. Here’s the link again, in case you missed it above
http://www.heritagecrafts.org.uk/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

more carving patterns

regarding the carved pattern I showed last night. Several readers commented asking about & speculating on the source for the motif. I never really give much thought to it myself, mainly because there is no evidence of what the joiners based their stuff on. While it can be fun to speculate about these patterns, I concentrate on how to carve them, which ones relate to what, etc.

detail, Plymouth Antiquarian Society chest

 

While I like this Marshfield chest, its carving to me is actually rather bland.  Is it a sunburst, a flower, maybe points on a compass, degrees in a circle, etc…all good ideas, but who knows. Not me. It is very regimented, just not very accurate. The deeper gouge cuts are not really  lined up with the centerpoint. As far as the tools go, I will shoot something about carving this pattern when I get back to the shop on Sunday.

Below is a carving that I have favored for years, this example from the top rail of a joined chest. It always is pleasing to my eye. Clearly flower-based, but as always, quite stylized, as all these carvings are. An excellent carving from a much more accomplished carver than the preceeding.  While there are better seventeenth-century carvings than this, it remains my favorite.

carved lunette

more new carvings to come

chest w drawer, Plymouth Antiquarian Society

Last week I went to the Plymouth Antiquarian Society in Plymouth, Massachusetts to see this chest. It dates from the 1680s, made in Marshfield. Today this is called a  six-board chest, in the period just a “board chest” or “board chest with drawer.”  Oak front and pine otherwise. It’s the carving I wanted to see. Carved furniture from 17th-century Plymouth Colony is rare, usually it’s decorated with appied moldings and turnings.

I wanted to learn these two carving patterns for my upcoming demo at Winterthur. I intend to carve the upper design as a box front. In fact, there is a box with just that pattern at the Brooklyn Museum.

detail, Plymouth Antiquarian Society chest

I did a quick run-through just so I wasn’t flying totally blind when the demo starts. For the carving itself, I used only 3 carving tools; a V-tool, a deep gouge, and a very shallow gouge. To accent the molding I used a smaller gouge.

PF carving

There’s another version of the carving on the drawer front of this chest, more on that one next time.

to learn more about the Plymouth Antiquarian Society, see their website:
http://www.plymouthantiquariansociety.org/

recent projects

 

 

I have a number of projects underway, as usual. I have just test-fitted these two joined stools, in preparation for the demonstrations I have next week at Winterthur Museum in Delaware. I plan on assembling them there, but haven’t got a chunk of oak big enough for seats right now…

 

For that demo, I am mainly concentrating on furniture from Plymouth Colony, where this sort of “lipped” tenon was standard practice for joined chests and cupboards. In this configuration, the molding is integral, not applied.

 

detail, Plymouth Colony joined chest w integral molding

 

 

 

 

It makes for some complicated work cutting the tenons. The cheeks are sawn, and the joint is not draw-bored. One or two square pins secure the tenon in place. I haven’t done one in almost 15 years, so I will make a new demo piece to replace this grubby-looking example.

 

PF sample repro of “lipped” tenon

 

 

 

unassembled view of "lipped" tenon

 But what I have been really excited about is the new London carved pattern I wrote about last week. I knew I would try to squeeze it in, so I carved this sample of it the other day. It took some tinkering to figure out the layout and sequence of cuts. A test version is essential for me when I’m doing something this complex. I got it along pretty well, but knew this one is a sample at best. So I didn’t bother finishing it, but now have a good idea of how to tackle it for next time.

test-carving of London pattern