Custom Furniture Article

HOW TO PROTECT ONESELF FROM FAKES

As we have already said, it is not sufficient to read a good book or these pages to become antique experts and to unmask fakes. But there are some rules which let us recognise disguises and the most visible restorations. The great majority of antique furniture we find on the market have been someway restored because of the antiquity. It also happens to find intact furniture: they come from patrician palaces, villas, well-to-do houses, they have been well looked after and are the most rare and valuable. Solid walnut-wood Ostia Antica original of the XVI century The italian furniture the main structure under the veering and blocks is generally made of soft wood (according to the regions they come from: popplar-wood, fir, alder, etc.) The veering, except for italian furniture of foreign workmanship, is in brier or grained walnut, olive-wood, mahogany, rosewood, maple, pear-wood. It often happens that XVIIIth. and XIXth. century furnishings are lacking (because of the antiquity or because it has been badly kept) in some parts or tiny pieces of veering, of mm 2 or 4 up to cm1. The substitution of these pieces often brings to a disagreement of colours, of the patina or of the grain. Solid walnut-wood Ostia Antica original of the XVI century The perfect maintenance of the wood can be noticed because there is no evidence of the substitution of the missing parts, but this could be synonym of a restoration made by a very talented craftsman. The restoration could have been done taking back wood to natural,or replacing the veneer, giving a new patina, tinting and polishing with a spirit-pad (94 grades) and shellack.