December, 1907 AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 463 



The Romance of Old Teakwood 



By Mary H. Northend 



With Photographs by the Author 



HERE is an elusive charm about old teak- 

 wood furniture that endears it to the heart 

 of the collectors, causing it to share in the 

 popularity of the Sheraton sofas and Chip- 

 pciidale chairs which the present craze for 

 antiques has made valuable. To this 

 charm teakwood owes much of its value, 

 although rarity, age, exquisite workmanship and beauty of 

 material ail combine to render the genuine pieces of old 

 teakwood furniture almost priceless in 

 value. Practically speaking, teakwood 

 has, with the quaint old pewter pots 

 and Wedgwood china, become a thing 

 of the past, for while there is still im- 

 ported furniture presumably made of 

 that wood, so many are the deceits prac- 

 tised in the modern importations, and so 

 poor is the workmanship when compared 

 with that of a century ago, that its value 

 is scarcely one-fourth of the original, and 

 may be said to be constantly deteriorating. 

 To find the best specimens one must look in 

 the old Colonial mansions along the coast of 

 New England, which were once the homes of 

 merchant princes, whose delight it was to fill 

 their homes with rare and curious articles from 

 abroad. 



Although the raw material grows only in India 

 and a few other countries in Southern and Eastern 

 Asia, little of the work of Indian artisans has been 

 imported, nearly all O'f the furniture which has 

 found its way to our country being the work of the 

 Chinese and Japanese, to whom the most exquisite 

 of wood carvings may be attributed. The furniture 

 used in the houses of even the wealthy Chinese 

 was plain to excess, although It was by 

 no means lacking in a certain artistic 

 merit; but the Importations have always 

 been decorated with intricate patterns 

 the carving of which meant not days 

 but weeks, months in some cases, even 

 years, of patient labor for the comple- 



Teakwood Stand and Chinese Porcelain 

 Punch Bowl 



tlon of the work. When the merchant princes of New 

 England imported the richly carved chairs and ornaments 

 of teakwood the domestic question had not yet become a 

 problem, and both mistress and maid delighted to dust the 

 quaint carvings, tedious as was the task. 



Chairs and tables of teakwood are among the more com- 

 mon pieces, nearly all of these being really wonderful speci- 

 mens of artistic skill, covered as they are with strange and 

 beautiful devices. It is not difficult to distinguish the carv- 

 ing of one nation from another, though 

 there are three represented in the work 

 which has come to our country, namely, 

 the Japanese, the Chinese and the In- 

 dian. Of these three, the Indian is most 

 crude, the carvings being fewer and 

 clumsily executed. It Is most difficult 

 for the artisans to obtain perfect speci- 

 mens of teakwood for their work, as they 

 dare not use any wood which is even re- 

 motely associated with any of the numerous 

 religious superstitions of their race, and teak 

 Is used In the construction of their temples. 

 Small articles, curious and quaint, are frequently 

 made, and the combinations of teak and other 

 substances, jade, crystal, rock salt and tortoise shell 

 be Ing prime favorites, are extremely beautiful. The 

 native styles of wood-carving are derived from the 

 old Dutch models, brought by the early traders to 

 the East. 



Some of the oldest and rarest pieces of teakwood in 

 America may be found in the Heard collection at 

 Ipswich, Mass. The old family mansion Is a veritable 

 treasure house, but among the rare and costly things 

 stored there, none are more beautiful than the Jap- 

 anese and Chinese articles, numbering among them 

 the teakwood. Nor is this house alone in Its fine 

 collection, for It Is but one of many along 

 the coast which boast behind their stately 

 portals rare pieces the equal of which can 

 not now be found among later day pro- 

 ductions. In Salctn, Mass., probably the 

 best collection of teakwood belongs to 



