Follansbee
Member
I have taken a bit of a thread that started about carving layout; and tried to expand it a bit to be about methods of recording original objects for reproduction. It started when Al Breed & I were discussing the layout for the low-relief carving on the sides of the Pope cabinet (made in Salem, c. 1680; now at Peabody Essex Museum)
Al asked:
“…but do you think they used some sort of template to locate the compass points when repeating the same pattern? I've made a bunch of Pope chests and I have a board with holes in it that gives me the compass points for the circles and then I just go at it with the gouges. If they did use a guide it certainly would be long gone and not the type of thing to be recognized as a tool…”
My method has always been to layout each panel, mark centerlines, margins, etc & go from there. I then mentioned that I think Al’s scenario is feasible, and the best way to check it would be to take accurate measurements of all three Salem cabinets that use this motif (the Pope cabinet at Peabody Essex Museum, one at the MMA, and one of two at Winterthur - )
Although I have seen all of these objects back when Al & I were both making copies of the Pope example, I did not record all the details from the “others” that I did get from the Pope cabinet. There is the failing.
But it brings up some points about approaches used in recording original examples. I try to see as many related examples as I can to an object I am to reproduce. My aim is to see a pattern of work habits, if possible. Sometimes, there are no known related objects; in which case you go with what you find on a single item. In other cases, the Pope cabinet was one, (there are really four cabinets from the same Salem shop, three are essentially the same pattern throughout) I look for any discrepancies – did they always use these nails here, were the hinges all set the same way; and similarities; size of mortise & tenon; number of pins in the joints; even stock dimensions.
In some cases, I have taken all the measurements for several related examples, and at times you learn something. There’s a group of joined chests I wrote about back in 1996 wherein the joiners adjusted the widths of the muntins & panels to arrive at a desired overall width for the front of their chest. The long rails’ shoulder-to-shoulder dimension was, in about 9 cases out of 12, 45 ½” within about ½”. But the panel widths and muntin widths varied; as panels were wider, muntins became narrower & vice versa…
It all comes down to time – how much time do I have to record this material; how much time does the curator/collector have to stand around while I endlessly obsess over this stuff, etc.
It’s easy here in New England, where a dozen examples is a large sample. I have friends in England who study groups of seventeenth-century objects where there might be 50 or more related objects…such a problem to have!
so let's hear it...
Follansbee
Al asked:
“…but do you think they used some sort of template to locate the compass points when repeating the same pattern? I've made a bunch of Pope chests and I have a board with holes in it that gives me the compass points for the circles and then I just go at it with the gouges. If they did use a guide it certainly would be long gone and not the type of thing to be recognized as a tool…”
My method has always been to layout each panel, mark centerlines, margins, etc & go from there. I then mentioned that I think Al’s scenario is feasible, and the best way to check it would be to take accurate measurements of all three Salem cabinets that use this motif (the Pope cabinet at Peabody Essex Museum, one at the MMA, and one of two at Winterthur - )
Although I have seen all of these objects back when Al & I were both making copies of the Pope example, I did not record all the details from the “others” that I did get from the Pope cabinet. There is the failing.
But it brings up some points about approaches used in recording original examples. I try to see as many related examples as I can to an object I am to reproduce. My aim is to see a pattern of work habits, if possible. Sometimes, there are no known related objects; in which case you go with what you find on a single item. In other cases, the Pope cabinet was one, (there are really four cabinets from the same Salem shop, three are essentially the same pattern throughout) I look for any discrepancies – did they always use these nails here, were the hinges all set the same way; and similarities; size of mortise & tenon; number of pins in the joints; even stock dimensions.
In some cases, I have taken all the measurements for several related examples, and at times you learn something. There’s a group of joined chests I wrote about back in 1996 wherein the joiners adjusted the widths of the muntins & panels to arrive at a desired overall width for the front of their chest. The long rails’ shoulder-to-shoulder dimension was, in about 9 cases out of 12, 45 ½” within about ½”. But the panel widths and muntin widths varied; as panels were wider, muntins became narrower & vice versa…
It all comes down to time – how much time do I have to record this material; how much time does the curator/collector have to stand around while I endlessly obsess over this stuff, etc.
It’s easy here in New England, where a dozen examples is a large sample. I have friends in England who study groups of seventeenth-century objects where there might be 50 or more related objects…such a problem to have!
so let's hear it...
Follansbee