Queen Anne, second daughter of King James II by his first wife Lady Anne Hyde (1637-71), was born at St James's Palace in London on 6 February 1665. Her sister Mary and her husband William of Orange ascended the throne (as Mary II and William III) when the Catholic James II fled the country and abdicated. Her reign is remembered for the Union of England with Scotland in 1707, and the Duke of Marlborough's victories in Europe, as well as for the establishment of the General Post Office, the first daily newspaper and Queen Anne's Bounty, a fund set up to aid poor clergymen.She married Prince George of Denmark (1653-1708), youngest son of Frederick III, King of Denmark, at Whitehall on 28 July 1683. Only five of their eighteen children were born alive and none reached maturity.As Mary and William had no children Anne then succeeded to the throne on William III's death and was crowned in the Abbey on 23 April 1702. She was suffering from gout (being fond of brandy) and had to be carried into the Church by Yeomen of the Guard on an open chair as she was unable to walk.
She died at Kensington Palace on 1 August 1714 and was buried on 24 August next to her husband in the Stuart vault in the south aisle of Henry VII's chapel. Some burial sentences set by William Croft were sung. Hers is the earliest royal funeral for which a topical anthem is known - again by Croft The Souls of the Righteous. Her mother Anne lies in a vault nearby, as does her son William, Duke of Gloucester (d.1700) and many of her infant and stillborn children. There was no room in the chapel to erect a monument to her. Only a small stone marks her grave.A seated wax effigy of the Queen was purchased by the Abbey and was displayed in the Museum for many years. The Museum is now closed but the effigy will be on display in the new Jubilee Galleries, due to open 2018.A photograph of the wax effigy can be purchased from Westminster Abbey Library.See under the Hyde family on the website and under Mary II.Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004Queen Anne by Edward Gregg, 1980.The funeral effigies of Westminster Abbey by A. Harvey and R. Mortimer, 2003 revised editionBritish Royal and State funerals.... by M.Range, 2016The ceremonial for the interment is Westminster Abbey Muniment 6475*.
A PAIR OF QUEEN ANNE WALNUT SIDE CHAIRS One chair marked II with its original slip-seat frame marked II; the other chair marked VI with a slip-seat frame marked I from the original set 38½ in. high, 22 in. wide, 21½ in. deep (2) A rare survival as a pair and embellished with expertly carved ornament, these chairs illustrate costlier models of a form popular in 1740s Boston. As explored by Joan Barzilay Freund and Leigh Keno, the use of walnut, compass-seats, carved shells and ball-and-claw feet, were all more expensive options available on top of the price of 26 shillings for a basic standardized form. A mahogany example at Chipstone is dated to the early 1740s by Freund and Keno and with a similar crest shell with wider central lobe and ball-and-claw feet with the same deep webbing, suggests a similar date of production for this pair (see Joan Barzilay Freund and Leigh Keno, "The Making and Marketing of Boston Seating Furniture in the Late Baroque Style," American Furniture 1998 (Milwaukee, WI, 1998), pp. 24-26, fig. 43).
This pair is further distinguished by their slip-seat frames, one of which is original to the chair and the other is from the same original set. At the time of its sale in 1992, the chairs were noted to have descended in the Deblois and Wesson families. Comprising a tall-case clock, clothespress and desk-and-bookcase, several other examples Boston-made furniture from the same period have survived with a history of ownership from Gilbert Deblois (1725-1791) and he stands as a possible first owner of these chairs. One of Boston's leading merchants of his time, Deblois married Ann Coffin in 1749; while he was a Loyalist and removed to England upon the outbreak of the Revolution, his estate remained intact and passed down to his descendants (Alan Miller, "Roman Gusto in New England: An Eighteenth-Century Boston Furniture Designer and His Shop," American Furniture 1993 (Milwaukee, WI, 1993), pp. 180-182, figs. 27-30); Jonathan L. Fairbanks et al., Collecting American Decorative Arts and Sculpture 1971-1991 (Boston, 1991), p. 33, cat.
Sotheby's New York, January 19-21, 2007, lot 294). Descended in the Deblois and Wesson families, Boston Sotheby's New York, October 25, 1992, lot 319 Alan Miller, Quakertown, Pennsylvania David H. Conradsen, Useful Beauty: Early American Decorative Arts from St. Louis Collections (St. Louis, 1999), p. 22, fig. 4. St. Louis, Missouri, Saint Louis Art Museum, Useful Beauty: Early American Decorative Arts from St. Louis Collections, June 19 to August 15, 1999.Create an Account - Increase your productivity, customize your experience, and engage in information you care about.When you want to refinish old wooden furniture, the best place to look is the family storeroom: Check the attic, basement, garage, or wherever unwanted furniture has collected. You may also discover a real antique or two -- pieces handed down through the family for generations. Other good sources are secondhand stores, household auctions, and garage sales. With furniture, as with anything else, one person's junk is another another's treasure.
Antique stores are a good place to find furniture to refinish, but expect to pay for these pieces. If you're interested in antiques, recent or old, research before you buy anything. Real antiques and many reproductions are extremely valuable, but there are also many imitations. If you aren't sure an antique is really antique, pay for an expert opinion. Never buy an antique, or try to refinish it, until you know what you have. In this article, we'll discuss how to assess whether a piece of furniture is an antique and whether it is worth saving through the refinishing process. There are many different styles of furniture, and each type has distinguishing features. For the most part, the furniture you'll encounter will probably be limited to traditional English and American Colonial styles; you aren't likely to find a Louis XV chair at a garage sale. The basic English and American styles run the gamut from ornate to severely functional, from massive to delicate. Just remember, if you like it, the style is right.
Technically, an antique is a piece of furniture with special value because of its age, particularly those pieces embellished with fine artistry. The age factor is subjective: general antique stores label objects 50 years or older as antiques. Fine antique dealers consider objects 150 years and older to be antique. In the East, an antique is Queen Anne or earlier; in the West, it's any piece of furniture that came across the mountains in a wagon. A southern antique is a piece made before the Civil War. Wherever you look, it's a sure bet that you won't find a genuine antique from 1500 or 1600. What you may find is a genuine reproduction, and these can be extremely valuable. There are several ways you can spot an antique. The first giveaway is the joinery; machine-cut furniture wasn't made until about 1860. If the piece has drawers, remove a drawer and look closely where the front and back of the drawer are fastened to the sides of the drawer. If a joint was dovetailed by hand, it has only a few dovetails, and they aren't exactly even;
if it has closely spaced, precisely cut dovetails, it was machine-cut. Handmade dovetails almost always indicate a piece made before 1860. Look carefully at the bottom, sides, and back of the drawer; if the wood shows nicks or cuts, it was probably cut with a plane, a spokeshave, or a drawknife. Straight saw marks also indicate an old piece. If the wood shows circular or arc-shaped marks, it was cut by a circular saw, not in use until about 1860. Exact symmetry is another sign that the piece was machine-made. On handmade furniture, rungs, slats, spindles, rockers, and other small-diameter components are not uniform. Examine these parts carefully; slight differences in size or shape are not always easy to spot. A real antique is not perfectly cut; a reproduction with the same components is, because it was cut by machine. The finish on the wood can also date the piece. Until Victorian times, shellac was the only clear surface finish; lacquer and varnish were not developed until the mid-1800s.
The finish on a piece made before 1860 is usually shellac; if the piece is very old, it may be oil, wax, or milk paint. Fine old pieces are often French-polished, a variation of the shellac finish. A lacquer or varnish finish is a sure sign of later manufacture. Testing a finish isn't always possible in a dealer's showroom, but if you can manage it, identify the finish before you buy. Test the piece in an inconspicuous spot with denatured alcohol; if finish dissolves, it's shellac. If the piece is painted, test it with ammonia; very old pieces may be finished with milk paint, which can be removed only with ammonia. If the piece of furniture is very dirty or encrusted with wax, clean it first with a mixture of denatured alcohol, white vinegar, and kerosene, in equal parts. The wood itself is the final clue. Very early furniture -- before 1700 -- is mostly oak, but from 1700 on, mahogany and walnut were widely used. In America, pine has always been used because it's easy to find and easy to work;