Now you can have the furniture George Washington slept in, sat in, ate on.
Well, actually, they're accurate copies of pieces our first president slept in, sat in, ate on at Mount Vernon, his family home on the Potomac in Virginia.The 11 pieces are part of a 34-piece collection from the Hickory Chair Co. of Hickory, N.C. They're licensed by the Mount Vernon Ladies Association which administers the home as a national museum.
Christine Meadows, curator of Mount Vernon, says Washington inherited some of the pieces. Others he acquired from English makers before the Revolution and from cabinetmakers in New York, Philadelphia and the tidewater area of Virginia.
Just like today, she says, major changes in a person's life led to changes in the decor. Heavy buying periods coincided with Washington's marriage in 1759, his return to Mount Vernon after the Revolution and at the end of his presidency in 1796.
It was George, not Martha, who did the buying, Meadows says, because men played a greater role in the selection and purchase of home furnishings in the 18th century than they do today. This was in keeping with their status.
"A married woman couldn't own anything in her own right," she says. "However, a note by Martha Washington refers to a bed which `I caused to be made in Philadelphia.' "
Hickory's collection, introduced in October to retailers at the International Furniture Market in High Point, N.C., is to be in the stores by next April at prices yet to be set.
"For all practical purposes, the copies look like the originals," says William Merrell, design director at Hickory Chair Co. "We developed a special finish to give a slightly faded, aged look, but you can't duplicate the patina acquired in hundreds of years."
They were able to duplicate a lot of other things, though. A team from Hickory, armed with conservators' gloves and cloth tape measures, spent four days at Mount Vernon measuring, photographing and making rubbings of the chosen pieces part by part.
"We were able to see all the nail holes in a John Aitken chair that had been stripped down," Hank Grant, product manager, says. "You can't reproduce a piece of furniture without extremely accurate measurements."
Back at the factory, scale drawings of each piece and shop drawings of each part were made. Then came full-size samples, prototypes from which the furniture is being made.
Although electric power has replaced manual labor for some operations, methods of building furniture are much the same as in the 18th century.
"We still use mortise and tenon construction. Our drawers are corner-blocked, doweled and glued, just like theirs," Grant says. "Our glues are better than John Aitken's, and our dowels are machined solid maple. His had to be cut by hand."
Among the more interesting copies are a dining chair, a secretary and a sideboard, all by Aitken, a Philadelphia cabinetmaker, and a Chippendale-style candle-stand by an unknown American. The secretary's tambour doors and leather top and the candlestand's intricate carving were among the most challenging aspects of the assignment, Grant says.
Other pieces include a small oval sewing worktable and a sewing chair, both said to have been used by Martha Washington; a French armchair purchased in New York by George Washington from an official of the French ministry in New York, a wing chair, a stool and an armchair.