As seen in The Antique Shoppe Newspaper, July 2009

Let There Be Light With Caution

Have you ever stopped to think how important light is to your antique furniture? A good place to start is the fact that without the right light the trees that were used to provide the lumber of your furniture would never have grown. That’s easy and obvious enough.

Another less obvious but equally as important aspect of light is the effect it has on the color of the wood in your furniture. The general rule of thumb is that wood lightens over time with exposure to light even without the effects of moisture. A piece of lumber left exposed in the desert eventually bleaches out to almost white. An exception to that rule is how certain woods change color over time with exposure to light. For example, walnut has a generally brown appearance when properly cured. But over time, after a hundred years or more exposure to light the walnut begins to take on a slightly reddish hue. Conversely the Red King, mahogany, starts out in a blaze of red glory but after long term exposure to light it begins to “brown out” and look an awfully lot like walnut. That’s why, in addition to similar grain patterns, mahogany and walnut can be hard to differentiate after two hundred years. The possibility of light damage is so severe in some cases that extreme measures are employed. In one example a notable museum with a fantastic collection of American 17^th and 18^th century furniture allows no large natural or artificial light source to shine on any of the objects. The rooms are kept in darkness, illuminated only by the flashlights of the docents who lead the guided tours. 

A more drastic example of light damage can be seen within a single lifetime. I once had the pleasure of being hired to refinish a Depression era extension mahogany dining room table and the matching set of chairs. The good news is the set was in good condition structurally needing only finish work. The bad news is that the set had sat more or less undisturbed in the dining room for many, many years with the exception of the occasional holiday family meal. The chairs that had their backs to the window had never been moved. The chairs that faced the window suffered a similar fate. The backs of half the set were lightened by exposure to a significant degree as were the fronts of the other half of the set. And after I removed the doily and the mirror based epergne from the center of the table I was rewarded with a matching size area of wood that had the original finish color which contrasted greatly with the rest of the table that had quietly lost its color, without notice by the owner, over the course of less than a single lifetime due to exposure to the light from a large picture window in the dining room. The problems were fixable but it wasn’t easy without showing a “shadow” on the table top.

Another case where light can influence the color of your furniture, especially when seen in photographs, is the actual light source. When taken in available light under a fluorescent light, a photograph will show your furniture with a more greenish tint than it actually has to your eyes. Under incandescent light the tendency is for the furniture, and everything else in the photo, to have a dark reddish warm tint. This can present a problem in a shop when the furniture craftsman must match a color to an existing piece. Of course the preferable light source is filtered northern morning light from the sun but that is not always available, not always the right intensity and it also varies by time of day. The solution is the constant output light source provided by “daylight” fluorescent bulbs. That light is almost neutral, very cool and not harsh.

Light can also influence the way furniture is made. Have you ever carefully examined the carving on an elegant 18^th century piece?  If so you no doubt have noticed the crisp detail and the high relief of the carving. It stands proudly above its background. Is that the craftsman’s pride or an exhibition of his art? No. That is so that the carving can be seen in the low light conditions of most 18^th century residences. If the carvings were rounded with low relief they would disappear into the background in the low lig

But for all the potential for harm that light provides, it also provides some very beneficial features. Of course it allows us, with the use of portable light sources (flashlights), to explore the inner regions and the shadowed portions of an antique piece of furniture. One of the greatest benefits of exploratory light is realized when the light source is placed at an extreme angle to provide a “raking” light. The raking light acts like a sun at sunset emphasizing elongated shadows and variances in a surface. A raking light can be used to determine how a drawer bottom was made. It can reveal the rough furrows and ridges made by a scrub plane, the parallel but uneven kerf marks of a pit saw, the parallel and matched strokes of a gash or mill saw or the curved kerf marks of a 19^th century circular saw.

A raking light can also reveal anomalies in a veneered surface such as lifts or wrinkles. It can show inconsistencies in a finish such as crackling, wear patterns or loss of adhesion and it can even be used to spot sagging springs across a large upholstered surface.

All of this of course is in addition to the use of extra light to just let us see a piece better. Don’t forget to carry one of your basic antique hunter weapons, the small flashlight. 

Send your comments, questions and pictures to me at PO Box 215, Crystal River, FL 34423 or email them to me at info@furnituredetective.com

Visit Fred’s website at www.furnituredetective.com. His book “HOW TO BE A FURNITURE DETECTIVE” is now available for $18.95 plus $3.00 shipping. Send check or money order for $21.95 to Fred Taylor, PO Box 215, Crystal River, FL 34423.

Fred and Gail Taylor's dvd, "IDENTIFICATION OF OLDER & ANTIQUE FURNITURE", ($17.00 + $3.00 S&H) and a bound compilation of the first 60 columns of “COMMON SENSE ANTIQUES by Fred Taylor”, ($25.00 + $3.00 S&H) are also available at the same address. For more information call (800) 387-6377, fax 352-563-2916, or e-mail info@furnituredetective.com.  

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