Before the Revolutionary War, American furniture design depended heavily on English models. But after the War, a new style, Federal, emerged, lasting from 1789 to 1823. During the 40 years of the Federal era, the Neoclassical style became popular immediately after the adoption of the Federal Constitution in 1788. Notable furniture makers who worked in this style included John and Thomas Seymour, Duncan Phyfe and Charles-Honoré Lannuier.

Pieces in this style have sharply geometric forms, straight legs, contrasting veneers, and geometric inlay patterns on flat surfaces. Pictorial motifs sport eagles as symbols of the new federal government.

What is Federal furniture?
The Federal style developed after the discovery of Herculaneum in 1738 and Pompeii in 1748.. For the first time in the modern age, Roman culture and design could be studied directly, and these studies had a huge influence on furniture design.

Characteristics of Federal Furniture
What sets the Federal style apart from previous furniture styles? Pieces crafted in the new style almost always had straight lines that were markedly different from the curves of the Chippendale style or the opulence of the Baroque period. Sideboards, cabinets, and tables were almost always rectilinear, with lines that met at symmetrical right angles and stood on delicate, straight, tapered legs.

The proportions of furniture became light and delicate. The straight line was the basis of design and the structural lines of the furniture were rectangular, with uncomplicated semicircular or elliptical curves. The legs are straight, tapering to a narrow foot. The square-back chair with turned legs, reeded motifs and certain carved elements was introduced in the late 1790s. These forms and motifs continued to be popular until about 1815.

Furniture forms were graceful, presenting an appearance of lightness and slenderness. Proportions were always symmetrical, relying on classical ideals of balance set forth by the Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio. Surfaces and lines were generally smooth and flat with very little three-dimensional decoration.

Federal cabinetmakers preferred mahogany their primary wood of choice. Secondary woods included tulip poplar and white pine. For less expensive furniture, they employed birch and maple, often stained to resemble mahogany.

Federal Furniture Ornamentation
Ornamentation of Federal pieces included intricate wood inlays and carvings. Antiquity inspired Classical mofitfs, such as urns, swags, paterae, acanthus leaves, eagles, and fans.

Federal furniture also featured a vibrant color palette. Wood inlays favored sharp contrast, and light woods such as satinwood were often inlaid into deep mahogany.

Stunning and contrasting veneers distinguish furniture of the Federal period. Thanks to increased trade following the Revolutionary War, several new and exotic woods became available to American cabinetmakers. Dramatic banding and intricate string inlays accented decorative figural designs of Neoclassical motifs. These furniture facades rivaled even the best French furniture inlays of the age.

Light and dark inlaid lines and patterned stringing or banding composed of different colored woods became a common feature. This decoration tended to be in geometrical patterns of squares, lozenges, triangles, and zig-zags. To provide points of interest, inlays of patterns, flowers, leaves, shells, fans, bell-flowers or eagles are used. The woods used on stringing and inlays included holly, satinwood, boxwood, ebony, and the cheaper maple and birch. Brass inlays were occasionally found on furniture made in New York and Philadelphia. Many American cabinetmakers purchased their inlays ready made.

Cabinetmakers set inlays with eagles, shields. and 13 stars into tallcase clocks. sideboards, card tables. and looking glasses. The eagle and shield continued to be popular motifs until 1820 when it was replaced with the gilded eagle of the Greek Revival style.

While Boston and Salem, Massachusetts, cabinetmakers preferred patterned stringing others in New England used plain stringing, cross-banding and in shells, eagles and flower motifs. Many three-part husks or bell-flowers, in shells, eagles and flower motifs appeared on Philadelphia furniture.

Because of the limited supply of valuable woods, the practice of veneering became popular after 1790. Principal woods used included bird's-eve maple, mahogany, rosewood, satinwood, sycamore, amberwood, tulipwood and zebrawood. New England Cabinetmakers often used figured birch on the fronts of chests of drawers and on card table.

Carving was another method of ornamenting Federal furniture. The finest carving is that of Samuel McIntire on Salem furniture. The carving on Duncan Phyfe furniture is also of high quality Philadelphia carving is often scratchy and flat, and Baltimore carving varies in quality, some being extremely coarse. The motifs most often were wheat sheaves, drapery, vines, and baskets of fruit.

Federal Chairs
While the earliest types of Federal chairs were the ladder-hack or slat-back with Marlborough legs---straight tapered legs of square section—stretchers, three or four pierced slats, and upholstered seats. In fact, shield-backed chairs were the most popular form of seating made in Philadelphia between 1785 and 1800. Another form, the pointed bottom shield shape, called a vase, was more popular in New York and New England.

The urn and vase backs were daringly different from both the rectilinear and the flamboyant carving forms of previous styles. Both had been influenced by Classical design. Chairs, especially those upholstered over the seat rails and ornamented with brass tacks, were generally upholstered in black haircloth. The chairs weren’t only sturdy but fashionable and serviceable for use in dining rooms. Nearly all upholstered furniture was slip-covered in printed linens, calicos, checks and plain muslin. The slipcovers were secured at the back with strings made of the fabric or with woven tape.

Caning had been used on only the most fashionable chairs in the 17th century. But by the late 18th century it had reemerged as a seating for everyday chairs. Chairmakers purchased the cane in woven sheets in different patterns. They needed only to cut a shape and unravel enough strands to tie the piece into the seat frame.

Settees followed similar styles, as did the upholstered sofa with its straight lines. After 1800, chair design imitated Classical chairs. The chair back had a solid, thick, curving top rail supported by thin stiles, with either a horizontal splat or a lyre, harp, or `X'-shape to serve as a hack support. An innovation of the Federal period was a type of chair that was distinctly American–-the Martha Washington or “Lolling' chair.” It was a tall, upholstered chair with scrolled, open arms and legs of cylindrical or quadrangular form joined with plain stretchers.

New Forms of Furniture
Homeowners needed new pieces of furniture to furnish their Federal dining rooms. Dining had received its own space, instead of informally eating in the parlor or bedroom. This included, sideboards, large dining tables, and wine coolers. Parlors also shifted to a more casual entertaining space, with new furnishings such as comfortable recamiers and card tables.

The sideboard with cabinets and drawers was introduced along with new dining customs. It held all the equipment for several course settings and displayed the family silver and porcelain tableware.
 

The Federal style brought changes in the forms of furniture. The attitudes and rituals associated with dining and entertaining changed drastically in the Federal Period from the seemingly casual, drop-in style of Deborah Logan. Almost immediately after the Revolutionary War, dining became ceremony, and ceremony requires paraphernalia. Instead of separate tables, one large table and a large set of chairs to seat all the guests were required.

The sofa table was long and narrow with drop leaves and legs joined with stretchers at each end. The lyre card table on which the table was mounted was designed in the form of two parallel lyres and rested on carved legs. Pembroke tables became the fashionable form for tea-tables. Other innovations included the dressing-table and the lady's sewing-table. A new type of desk, the tambour, had sliding doors made up of vertical strips that moved horizontally to uncover pigeon-holes and small drawers. Other desks are topped with bookcases.

By 1815 the French phase of the Federal style was in vogue. The French Empire bed, or sleigh-bed, made to be placed against the wall, marl topped tables with caryatid or columnar supports and massive pier-tables were characteristic artistic of furniture.

Style Books of the Time
After the Revolutionary War. American cabinetmakers used two style books—George Heppelwhite’s Cabinetmaker’s and Upholsterer’s Guide and Thomas Sheraton’s Cabinet Maker’s and Upholsterer’s Drawing Book of 1793 and 1794, in which room arrangements, new forms, and furnishing details appeared great detail

But the book that changed style in the New Republic was The Cabinet-Maker’s London Book of Prices, issued in Philadelphia in 1794 and 1796. This manual described all sorts of furniture forms. Patrons selected different elements from it and paid accordingly for custom pieces.

Leading Federal Cabinetmakers
While the most prominent Federal cabinetmakers worked out of Philadelphia, Baltimore, Boston, and New York, it was the latter that became the center of fine cabinetmaking at the beginning of the 19th century. The most famous cabinetmaker was Duncan Phyfe, whose workmanship and interpretation of English Regency forms became a model for other cabinetmakers. He worked in New York from 1795 until his retirement in 1847. His early work reflected Thomas Sheraton's influence. The most characteristic Phvfe chair was the scroll-back chair with a carved top rail and one or more crosses in the back; reeded stiles and outflaring, reeded feet. Other Phyfe chairs had lattice-backs, ogee-scrol-, lyre- or harp-backs combined with Grecian legs. Some scroll-back chairs had carved front legs ending in paw feet. Chairs of this type became standard in New York between 1800 and 1815.

The furniture of the Boston cabinet-makers John and Thomas Seymour, presented the richest interpretations of Sheraton design in the Federal period. Their pieces included superb desks with tambour shutters and light wood inlays of husks, inlaid discs, and string-inlaid panels.

The foremost exponent of the French phase of late Federal style was the New York cabinet-maker Charles-Honors Lannuier. Lanmuier made some of the most elaborate furniture produced in Federal America. His furniture was often a skillful combination of Directoire, Consulate and Empire styles. Lannuier ornamented his pieces with gilt carvings of acanthus leaves, caryatids, dolphins and animal feet. Ormolu mounts depicted classical scenes of gods and goddesses, plus he used hand-sawn brass inlay borders in the Greek key pattern.

The finest workmanship and most elaborate in design is the painted furniture produced in Baltimore. While many Baltimore cabinet-makers may have produced this furniture, the numerous advertisements for the work of John and Hugh Findlay suggest that the Findlays were the most prolific producers of this type of furniture.