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Mahogany nightstand with drawer and brass pull
Dating Antique Furniture by Its Hardware: Screws, Nails, and Hinges
The smallest parts of a piece often tell the biggest truths. A single screw, nail, or hinge can place a piece of furniture in its century — or expose a... Read more...
Antique steamer trunk chest
Antique Case Furniture: Chests, Commodes, and Cabinets Explained
Case furniture is the furniture that stores. Built around a box — a “carcase” fitted with drawers or doors — it includes the chest, the chest of drawers, the commode,... Read more...
Antique oak round side table
Types of Antique Tables: A Guide to Every Form
“Table” is one word for dozens of very different objects. Over four centuries, cabinetmakers invented a specialized table for nearly every purpose — dining, tea, cards, writing, sewing, display —... Read more...
Pair of period-style fauteuil armchairs
Antique Chair Styles: A Visual Identification Guide
The chair is the antique collector’s alphabet. No other piece of furniture changed so often or so clearly with fashion, which means that once you can read a chair, you... Read more...
Fine mahogany coffee table
How to Value Antique Furniture: What Makes a Piece Worth More
What makes one antique worth a few hundred dollars and another worth tens of thousands? It is rarely age alone. Two chests of drawers can be the same age, the... Read more...
1915 American Arts and Crafts era beveled mirror in a hardwood frame, curated at The Eclection
Aesthetic Movement Furniture: History of the Style and How to Identify Authentic Pieces
Aesthetic Movement furniture was born of a radical idea: that beauty needs no justification. Under the banner of “art for art’s sake,” a generation of British and American designers rejected... Read more...
Steam-bent parlor chair with turned legs
Bentwood Furniture: History of Thonet and How to Identify Authentic Bentwood Pieces
Bentwood furniture is one of the great turning points in the history of design — the moment a cabinetmaker learned to bend solid wood with steam and turned furniture-making into... Read more...
Carved English oak armchair
Renaissance Furniture: History of the 15th- and 16th-Century Style and How to Identify Authentic Pieces
Renaissance furniture is where the modern history of European furniture truly begins. As 15th-century Italy rediscovered the art and architecture of ancient Rome, that rebirth reached the home: chests, cupboards,... Read more...
Art Nouveau lily-pad table lamp
Art Nouveau Furniture: History of the Style and How to Identify Authentic Pieces
Art Nouveau furniture is the moment design fell in love with the living world. At the turn of the 20th century, a generation of makers threw out the historical revivals... Read more...
Ornate gilt-finished oval mirror
French Empire Furniture: History of the Napoleonic Style and How to Identify Authentic 19th-Century Pieces
French Empire furniture is neoclassicism in its imperial dress. When Napoleon crowned himself emperor, he wanted a style to match the ambition — grand, archaeological, and unmistakably his own —... Read more...
Carved oak armchair in the early English manner
Tudor Furniture: History of the Style and How to Identify Authentic 16th-Century Pieces
Tudor furniture is the oldest furniture most collectors will ever handle — the heavy, carved oak of Henry VIII's England, built when the medieval hall was giving way to the... Read more...
Pale cream-painted tilting vanity mirror
Gustavian Furniture: History of the Swedish Neoclassical Style and How to Identify Authentic Pieces
Gustavian furniture is what happened when French neoclassicism traveled north and learned to love the light. In the late 18th century, a Swedish king returned from Versailles enchanted, and set... Read more...