Cocus Cabinets - British Antique Furniture Restorers` Association

Two Cocus Cabinets
Philip Solomons and Jim Broughton
Hidden in Plain Sight
A little while ago I found in a provincial saleroom a cabinet which has not only led to a
fascinating restoration project, but which will also play a part in research into the origins of
English veneered cabinetwork.
Illustrated in Adam Bowett’s invaluable book on late 17th and early 18th century furniture is
a beautiful cocuswood cabinet-on-stand 1, which may be dated to around the 1660’s – the
period which has generally been taken as marking the beginning of veneered work in
England, following the return of Charles II and his court from exile on the Continent.
The cabinet in Dr Bowett’s book, which is held by the National Trust in Powis Castle, may be
considered amongst the first of its kind. The cabinet which I was lucky enough to spot is its
sister-piece.
This cabinet had very clearly “had a life”. As well as lacking a stand below the base drawer,
the pine fronts of the external drawers had been patched where the locks had been
removed, with pieces of mahogany veneer inserted. The internal drawers had been fitted
with reeded knobs and the whole piece had been liberally ebonised. There were the
inevitable shrinkage cracks and splits, veneer patches and tears and some missing pieces of
moulding.
From the stand drawer upwards, however, the cabinet was intact in all its essentials.
It is identical in form to the Powis Castle cabinet, to the extent that the case for a common
maker is compelling2. That opened up the fascinating opportunity – perhaps unique for a
piece of this period – to restore the cabinet with a high degree of certainty as to the
intentions of the original maker.
1
The “Richmond” Cabinet, as purchased, on a late 18th century mahogany chest
The Powis Cabinet
Having acquired the cabinet, the next step was to visit its sister in the splendour of Powis
Castle. The National Trust’s curators were very helpful and allowed me excellent access to
their cabinet on two occasions, on the second of which Jim Broughton was also able to be
present.
The Trust has records of the cabinet being in the Castle for at least a hundred years, but
none before that date. Its condition is certainly consistent with life in a grand house. The
exterior is somewhat faded, but the oak linings of the internal drawers are as fresh as if they
had only rarely been opened, and the interior veneers are a glorious golden brown.
2
The Powis Cabinet
Like the Richmond cabinet (as I will refer to mine, to distinguish it from its Welsh sister) the
Powis cabinet is oyster veneered in cocus onto a pine carcase, with finely cut mouldings of
solid cocus run along the grain, both on the exterior of the cabinet and on the drawer
edges 3. With minor differences, the overall construction and design of the two cabinets are
essentially identical; more particular features in common include a tromp l’oeil double
drawer in the interior, a slide (more probably for display purposes than for writing), also
veneered in cocus, which is concealed in the moulding above the base drawer, and the
locations of the secret drawers.
One of the more unusual features of the Powis cabinet is an almost embryonic apron below
the base drawer, made from oak veneered with cocus. It stands on five bobbin-turned legs
of solid cocus, with straight stretchers and feet also of cocus. Marks were clearly visible on
the underside of the Richmond cabinet where the apron and the five legs had been, which
would eventually help to guide the restoration process.
The Powis cabinet has had some restoration, probably in the late nineteenth or early
twentieth century. All the metalwork appears replaced with the possible exception of the
internal drawer handles. The stretchers have been re-veneered in what looks like rosewood
and may well be replaced in their entirety.
3
There is a mirrored perspective in the central recess, typical of continental cabinets of the
period 4 and possibly contemporary, but probably not part of the original construction of the
piece; it seems slightly too large for the space and the internal door is a replacement,
perhaps because the original door had to be removed when the perspective was fitted 5.
Having had the advantage of thoroughly examining my cabinet, I was able to point the
curators at Powis Castle to a secret drawer inside the central recess, in which we found a
small leg bone. I understand that it has since been identified as of animal origin, possibly a
dog, but it is anyone’s guess as to when it was first put there, or for what purpose!
Overall Approach to Restoration
The most important decision in restoring the cabinet was, of course, to choose a restorer. It
needed someone who would take a rigorous line even when it exceeded normal commercial
practice. I have been very lucky that Jim Broughton (www.broughtonrestorations.co.uk),
whose high standards I was already familiar with, has matched my enthusiasm throughout.
The only acceptable approach to restoring the Richmond cabinet was to apply as faithfully
as possible whatever we could learn from Powis. We were fortunate in that the two pieces
were almost entirely mutually complementary – what was missing or replaced on one,
mostly was present on the other.
As mentioned above, the whole of the stand below the base drawer needed to be
constructed, for which Powis provided a complete guide in all respects except probably the
stretchers 6. We took the view that their straight form reflected the originals, which would
have been veneered in cocus, probably along the grain.
Jim and I were both clear that we wanted to adopt a fully transparent approach to the
restoration, with the process fully documented. Where anything needed replacing, the most
appropriate materials would be used, if possible contemporary with the piece. This would
cause more difficulties than we had at first envisaged!
Materials for Restoration
We were obviously going to need quantities of cocuswood for the five legs, the missing
mouldings and to replace missing veneer. I soon discovered that no-one in the UK stocked it,
or was able to source any, or even knew anyone that might.
Cocus (Brya ebenus) is a very dense 7, somewhat brittle tropical hardwood which became
prized by flute and bagpipe makers during the nineteenth century. With nothing done to
ensure sustainability of use, stocks were exhausted almost to extinction.
A search of instrument makers’ forums told me that cocus was regarded as completely
unavailable, except possibly in small quantities and at exorbitant cost. We were going to
need five or possibly six large logs (one per leg plus enough for mouldings and veneering).
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Settling for a substitute would have compromised the integrity of the whole restoration –
but when I was offered two logs at a cost of US$5500 plus the shipping and import duties, I
must admit to having second thoughts.
After a lot of searching we eventually found a wood yard in the Netherlands with a few logs
of cocus for sale – apparently the only supply in Europe. They were priced by the kilo and
although not cheap, the cost was manageable. My wife very kindly agreed to share the
driving on a rather lengthy day trip to the docks of Amsterdam. In total we purchased 107
kilos (in five logs), which together with the fuel, two Channel crossings and a Belgian
speeding ticket made for an expensive day!
The only other wood we would need was pine for the stretchers and to repair the external
drawer fronts, and oak for the apron. This presented no problem, as Jim had sufficient
period materials available.
That left only the metalwork. Fortunately the Richmond cabinet had good brass hinges,
slightly splayed and with five small holes for nails on each leaf, and one good door bolt from
which the other could be cast. Its two iron door locks were also intact. However, we needed
four matching drawer locks and a fifth for the base drawer, as well as various handles and
escutcheons.
Jim took on making the locks, as the chances of finding matching period locks seemed very
low. Google was again our friend, enabling us to locate what claims to be possibly the
world’s sole supplier of genuine wrought iron 8.
A cabinet in Jim’s possession has escutcheons in pleasing early patterns, conveniently in two
sizes from which casts could be taken, the larger for the external and internal doors and the
base drawer, with the smaller being used for the four external cabinet drawers.
The internal drawer handles on the Powis cabinet are the standard English bifurcated scroll
drops9. However, there were no signs that wire fixings were ever used on the Richmond
cabinet. We decided that the right option was to use simple round brass knobs. Good
reproductions are easily available commercially.
All the brass work would be gilded to match the hinges of the Richmond cabinet, on which
the original gilding was clearly visible.
The Restoration Process
Jim began the restoration process with an in-depth examination of the cabinet, removing all
the detachable parts, vacuuming a large amount of accumulated dust and dirt and carefully
cleaning off the ebonising to which the cabinet had been subjected, having first softened it
with a little methylated spirits.
5
Because cocus is so dense and also oily, the ebonising had formed a surface layer rather
than sinking in, as would have happened with a more open-grained wood. It had concealed
a number of replacements and repairs to the veneers and mouldings. All of the replacement
pieces being of mahogany of a considerable age, with only one set of holes for replaced
drawer handles, Jim’s view was that the cabinet has been worked on only once before,
almost certainly in the late 18th century, when the chest was constructed for it to sit on.
Having removed all of these later replacements, Jim stabilised any loose veneer or
mouldings, flushing out perished glue and debris with a syringe and hot water, with hot glue
made from animal hide then syringed behind the veneer. Each piece of veneer then needed
clamping with a block of wood which was covered in paper to stop it sticking to the veneer;
the next day it could be removed and any surplus glue and the paper cleaned off with water,
with the whole process then repeated on the next patch.
Shrinkage to the pine timbers had caused more serious issues in some parts of the cabinet,
such as the slide and the doors. The slide had some rather botched repairs, with slivers of
wood and filler inserted in an attempt to conceal the cracks. Rather than continue with this
approach, Jim decided to dismantle and re-build the slide, which required the lengths of
veneer that formed the banding at each side to be removed with the use of a hot air gun
and water.
They came off easily and cleanly, the glue being somewhat perished and the veneer being
very thick. Jim removed the side cleats using the same technique, and then re-joined the
two boards using a shooting board and jointing plane, before re-assembling the slide (now
very slightly smaller, but not visibly so once it was in place in the cabinet) and replacing the
veneers.
Both the right-hand external door and the internal door were similarly disassembled, with a
fillet of wood inserted into the crack and the pieces of veneer replaced.
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The internal door, partially disassembled
All five external drawers had been rather butchered at the front. The locks had been
removed and a patch inserted into the drawer front, covered with two pieces of mahogany
veneer. Even with the veneers and the lock replaced, an unsightly patch would still have
been left on the interior of the drawer front.
Jim resolved this by removing the strip of cocus veneer which covered the top of the drawer
front, reducing the thickness of the drawer front by ⅛”, then adding a veneer of period pine
of equal depth which was taken from a breaker. With the strip of veneer at the top
reinstalled, the patch was entirely invisible from the inside of the drawer.
7
Inside of an exterior drawer with patched front, and with veneer cut to conceal the patch
With locks in place and new pieces of cocus veneer around the lock escutcheons covering
the holes left by the later handles, the drawers would again look as originally intended.
The legs and feet were turned on a lathe, a process which Jim saw as completely standard
but which caused me some anxiety nonetheless, as we couldn’t know whether the cocus
logs were of sufficient quality until then. Despite some parts suffering from excess sap and
rot, the wood stood up to the test and the legs looked very beautiful with their bobbin
turnings and elegant feet.
Cocus being cut from a log
Bobbin turned legs and feet
Veneering the stretchers, which were made from period deal with half lapped joints, and
the apron which for additional stability was cut from oak, was a different test of Jim’s skills.
The grain of cocuswood is uneven and easily tears out, making it tricky to cut long strips of
veneer.
He started by cutting a log in half down the length, then planing it as flat as possible,
finishing it off with a scraper plane and a razor sharp cabinet scraper. Veneers were then cut
from the band saw ⅛” thick and glued with the planed side down. Once they were fixed into
place the saw marks could be removed, again with a scraper plane and cabinet scraper. This
gave a beautiful finish with greens and yellows much like polished stone, which then rapidly
began to oxidise, changing to a warm nutty colour.
8
Jim found some interesting knife marks under the veneers. A single, true knife cut can be
seen, corresponding to the edge of each piece of veneer. This might be the result of
adjoining pieces being overlaid and then cut through. But with such thick, brittle and dense
pieces of cocuswood veneer, it is not clear that this technique could have worked, even if
the cuts were made with a shoulder knife of the type used for marquetry (which of course
would imply the requisite knowledge and experience by the cabinet maker). Another
possible explanation may be that a knife was used to clean up any glue or rough edges,
before putting the next piece in place.
Single knife cuts were visible under the veneers
Scratching the mouldings was also made more problematic by the variable grain. Jim made
up a scratch stock by grinding a hack saw blade to the appropriate profile, trapping the
blade in an L shaped section of timber, and scraping it along the grain to produce mouldings
which matched those originals that had survived. Because the wood is so dense, it was hard
work cutting the mouldings; but for the same reason, intricate mouldings can be cut from
wood like cocus which might be problematic with a more open grained timber such as
walnut.
A moulding was needed for the centre of the cabinet to cover the door opening, which had
widened due to shrinkage in the doors. There was no pattern to follow as both Powis and
Richmond had the wrong mouldings on the door, so Jim based its profile on the other
carcase mouldings.
9
Scratching the mouldings
The scratch stock
Once all the cabinetwork was done, finishing was all that remained. Previous poor
preparation work had left quite a few scratch marks which were scraped out, before the
whole surface was burnished with 400 grit paper. This brought it up so well, it was almost a
finish in itself.
The new veneers and mouldings had oxidised over two or three months and reached almost
the right colour, but excessive colour variation on some pieces needed addressing. The
timber was too oily for a water stain to penetrate, and a modern naphtha stain would just
have sat on the surface. Jim’s preference was to use wax alone as far as possible, and where
necessary to promote more oxidisation with nitric acid. This removed some of the oil,
allowing a thin coat of water black to penetrate until the right colour was achieved.
After sealing the surface with a thin coat of shellac, Jim built it up with wax to get a depth to
the finish. Like other aspects of the restoration, cocus presented a very different finishing
challenge compared with other woods, and a fair bit of trial and error was required. The end
result was a beautiful, deep lustre, with plenty of colour variation and figuring in the grain,
and the occasional lighter flashes from pieces of sap wood.
That left the locks, which would be cut from two pieces of puddled iron sheet. First, Jim
made brass templates for each component, based on a seventeenth iron drawer lock, with
the backplate and the positioning of the bolt adjusted to fit the drawer front and the
cabinet. Having made one complete lock first to be sure it fitted, he then cut all the
components, each with its own tenon, then filed and fettled it to produce a good
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interference fit even without peening. Getting the spring into the back-sprung bolt was the
hardest part, requiring quite a bit of experimentation with annealing and tempering the
metal.
Templates and components for lock making
At the anvil
The door bolts, drawer knobs and drawer and door escutcheons were gilded to match the
original gilding visible on the internal and external door hinges. Only then was the finish
built up with layers of wax and lacquer, to create depth and variation, allowing the contours
of the metalwork to show through.
After many final touches from Jim, it left the justifiably proud restorer, and the cabinet’s
equally proud owner, with nothing more to do than to organise a final photo session!
The cabinet restored – detail of an internal drawer
11
Cabinet on stand with main doors open
12
Cocuswood cabinet on stand
13
The Cabinets’ Origins
From The Age of Walnut onwards10, the literature has gone back and forth on whether or
not cabinets of this class should be regarded as English.
The use of tropical hardwoods for veneering was widespread in many centres on the
Continent by the early and mid- 17th century. There are undoubted similarities between the
Powis and Richmond cabinets and the less extravagant contemporary French, Flemish, and
Dutch pieces, some of which are oyster-veneered (sometimes in star patterns) and largely
flat-fronted, with raised drawer mouldings and on stands with base drawers 11.
Specific features in common include the slide, the double drawer simulating two drawers,
and the small apron. Another point which Dr Bowett notes as typically French 12 are the
small mitred joints used in the internal drawer bases of the Powis and Richmond cabinets.
None of these are commonly found in the form of English cabinets which became
established in the later decades of the century.
However the materials employed – oak drawer linings and cocus veneered onto a pine
carcase – and the surviving metalwork are all suggestive of an English origin 13.
The basic construction of the cabinet carcase is consistent with English work of the period: a
pine box section, the four slabs held together with large, heavy dovetails – easily visible
where mouldings were removed during restoration – with internal divides, also of pine,
housed in ploughs in the carcase sides and slotted in from the back. Note, however, that
some Continental cabinets had similar construction techniques, albeit with the carcase as
likely to be of oak, and the divides of other softwoods such as poplar or lime, as of pine 14.
Cornice mouldings removed showing dovetails
Rear view with backboards removed
Likewise, the external drawers are of customary English construction and materials. The
surviving metalwork also conforms to contemporary English patterns, and the bobbinturned legs of the stand are far from unusual on English furniture of the period.
14
Restoration of the Richmond cabinet offered us the possibly unique opportunity to examine
its construction, including what there was to be seen underneath the veneers. Further
research is now being carried out on this class of early veneered cabinets, including the
Powis and Richmond cabinets, with a view to publication in due course.
Acknowledgments
For their encouragement and advice at various points in the process I should like to thank
Adam Bowett, Millicent Creech, Michael Durkee and Peter Hall, as well as Margaret Gray at
Powis Castle and Gwen Thomas at Ham House together with their staff, for their kind cooperation and assistance.
15
References
1
Adam Bowett, English Furniture 1660-1714 From Charles II to Queen Anne, (Woodbridge,
2002), plates 2.10-2.15, pp.41-43.
2
Dr Bowett has been kind enough to endorse this view.
3
The half-round moulding on the main door of the Powis cabinet, visible in one of the
illustrations in Dr Bowett’s book, is a later addition.
4
See, for example, Monique Riccardi-Cubitt, The Art of the Cabinet, (London, 1992) p.59.
5
The Richmond cabinet has no perspective; the central recess is oyster veneered which
conforms to the rest of the cabinet, as does the internal door.
6
With the cabinet in situ, we were unable to ascertain whether any part of the stretchers
were original.
7
Cocuswood is rated as 3720 on the Janka hardness scale, giving it a place somewhere in
the mid-thirties of the world’s 125 hardest woods (cf.
http://www.morlanwoodgifts.com/MM011.ASP?pageno=207). Its specific gravity of 1.19
means that it will sink in water.
8
http://www.realwroughtiron.com/home-12.html
9
As mentioned above, we couldn’t be sure whether these handles were original or not.
10
Percy MacQuoid, A History of English Furniture –The Age of Walnut, (London, 1904-8),
p.110.
Illustrations of such cabinets can be found in Reinier Baarsen, 17th Century Cabinets,
(Amsterdam, 2000); see also Agnès Bos, Meubles et panneaux en ébène, (Paris, 2007), p. 10
(Fig. 3) and p. 21 (Fig. 10).
11
12
Bowett op. cit., p.41.
13
Mouldings similar to those on these cabinets can also be seen on English clocks of the
mid-17th century. On display at the British Museum is a longcase clock by Joseph Knibb and
a table clock by Henry Jones of London, both dated to the early or mid-1670’s, both with
finely cut mouldings run along the grain.
See, for example, Wilfried de Kesel and Greet Dhont, Flemish 17th Century Lacquer
Cabinets, (Oostkamp, 2012), pp. 86-7.
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