Incollect Magazine - Issue 4

Incollect Magazine 105 2023 Craftsmanship, of course, relates to condition, just as condition relates to color. This aspect is usually pretty straightforward, but not always. If you want to see the greatest cabinetmaker to have lived, I recommend going to the Metropolitan Museum website to look at the David Roentgen furniture. It will give you an idea of how well a piece can be made. There are best practices in good craftsmanship such as understanding how best to counteract the expansion and contraction of wood that occurs with levels of humidity, but in reality, the best way to deal with the issue was for the cabinetmaker to have used properly dried timber. Ergo, when examining a piece for condition and finding lots of splits and cracks, the likelihood is that the craftsman used timber that wasn’t properly dried. That is a condition issue related to craftsmanship. From O’Sullivan Antiques comes this estate-made 18th-century Georgian flame mahogany cabinet/secretaire. A fascinating piece of furniture; Irish furniture is abundant in distinct design conceits and the craftsmanship is usually superb. The mahogany used in Ireland is always dark, rich in tone, and very heavy. 4 Craftsmanship, of course