Highly skilled cabinetmakers and immigrant carvers in eighteenth-century Philadelphia produced a wide array of ornate furniture forms that have long been favored by antique collectors-and by fakers as well. Like some other collectors, the Stones bought a number of expensive, high style "Philadelphia" furniture forms that are not authentic.
Nearly every major American furniture collection assembled during the last century has fake objects that were acquired unintentionally. Some of these "antiques" are completely fraudulent while others are old pieces with deliberately masked repairs or replacements. Yet, furniture fakes remain a sensitive subject in most museums-a reluctance that contributes to their ongoing production and presence in the marketplace. This exhibition examines the mind and practice of those who forge or alter early American furniture. Shown here are ten furniture fakes that in the 1950s and 1960s were sold to Stanley and Polly Stone of Fox Point, Wisconsin, whose collection is now part of the Chipstone Foundation. The pieces tell a highly illuminating story about the strategies employed by furniture fakers and the subtle physical clues that reveal their fraudulent work.
Luke Beckerdite, Exhibition Curator