My Fellow Antiques

When Elizabeth and I emptied out my office at Pitt, I realized that I needed a proper desk here. Although there already is a desk on the side porch, another one on the third floor, and two slant top bureau writing desks in my bedroom, I really wanted something convenient in my living room.  Subconsciously I had converted my dining room table into a desk, with none of the necessary conveniences.

The best spot for a desk was against the rear window, between a pair of built-in bookcases, a spot then occupied by a fine Eastlake love seat that my wife had lovingly refinished and upholstered. It has been, since, donated to Elizabeth and has found a perfect home in their house.

Knowing exactly the kind of desk I wanted, I went to Office Depot, where I soon found one that suited me perfectly. Just before I ordered it, I asked a question regarding the difficulty of delivering it to my home. “No problem, it is shipped disassembled and our crew will put it together in your living room”. The “No problem” comment immediately became “Big problem”, as I realized my children would never allow an assembly crew in my house as long as the pandemic is still raging.

These same overprotective children then undertook to find a similar desk, one that was already assembled and could be delivered with a minimum of disruption. They ordered a desk from an antique dealer in Shippensburg. The masked man arrived late one morning and, using a hand cart, brought in three carefully wrapped components – a large, one-drawer deep top; and two pedestals, each three-drawers deep. In no time they were unwrapped, and my problems resolved.

According to the provenance, the desk was manufactured in England in 1880; its style is George III with Chinoiserie decoration. Chinoiserie refers to the European obsession with Oriental art in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which influenced art, architecture, and furniture. On my desk it is exemplified by bamboo edging on the front vertical surfaces and Oriental scenes there and on the tooled brown leather top.  

Six weeks later it looks as if it had been specifically designed for this use in this spot. The first accessory added was the globe my wife gave me for my birthday the first year we were married. It is cradle mounted with a full swing meridian. The antique look of its tan oceans matches the desk perfectly.  

I am comfortable with the general interpretation of “antique” meaning one hundred years old. To survive one hundred years an antique must be durable, have some practical value, and be attractive enough for owners to want to possess it.

When I introduced the desk to our home, I advised it that there really wasn’t anything special about its age. The love seat it replaced was of the same vintage, as are two Eastlake chairs still in the living room, both refinished and upholstered by my wife. Particularly special is the platform rocker, with its striking maroon woodwork.

Equally old is a piano/parlor lamp that we inherited from my wife’s family. Originally an oil lamp, it was electrified, with a large glass globe enclosing the chimney. It consists of a brass post rising from a tripod and supporting what had been the oil reservoir. When we acquired it, the globe was hand painted with a lovely floral design. At some point I knocked it over and destroyed the artwork; the replacement milk glass globe I found is barely adequate.

Moving to the dining room we find more antiques. The six plank-bottom, fiddle-backed chairs around the table came to us through my father’s family. We believe they were made in York, Pennsylvania, some time before the Civil War, and have been in continuous use ever since. They boast typical Pennsylvania Dutch primitive decoration, primarily fruit.

Also in the dining room is “Aunt Sally’s Cabinet”. Nan’s Great Aunt Sally Emery lived in Sinking Valley in central Pennsylvania; we believe her husband, Uncle Henry, made the cabinet late in the nineteenth century. Classic Arts and Crafts style, it actually is a pie safe, with screened openings to facilitate the cooling of pies just taken out of the oven.

Scattered elsewhere throughout the house are two marble top cabinets, four glass-fronted sectional bookcases, a pump organ, and a player piano, all well over a century old. The organ and piano are exceptions to my requirement that antiques have practical usage, as both of them need bellows replacement.

There are lots of other old things here as well. The bookcase in the living room includes my father’s 1918 Penn State yearbook, a complete set of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica, a complete set of the 1901 University Society Shakespeare miniatures, and the 1866 “Supplemental Report on the Conduct of the (Civil) War”. Of special interest is “The Popular History of the United States from Aboriginal Times to the Present Time” by John Clark Ridpath, published in 1877. Imagine an American history that ends with the 1876 Election! The fact that this book is inscribed to Nan’s grandfather John Powell makes it even more valuable.

The oldest things I own are in a box full of documents that we inherited from my paternal grandmother’s family, the Smiths. It is an intriguing collection of personal letters, legal papers, receipts, and promissory notes going back as far as 1792. Included is a paper half dollar, issued by the colony of Maryland in 1774 – I suspect it is the oldest thing in the house.

If you allow me to include old things outside the house, I must mention the magnificent oak tree in our back yard. It has three trunks, each at over three feet in diameter. I am sure it is at least three hundred years old, possibly as much as four hundred. But do I really own it? Or does it own me? I wish I could ask it.

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