Harry A. Alden
Misconceptions and Mistakes in Wood Identification and Furniture Scholarship: Corrections to Benno M. Forman’s American Seating Furniture, 1630–1730

American Furniture 2020

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Contents
  • Figure 1
    Figure 1

    Side chair illustrated on page 252,cat. 52, in Benno M. Forman, American Seating Furniture, 1630–1730:  An Interpretive Catalogue (NewYork: W.W. Norton for the Winterthur Museum, 1988). The wood of this chair iscataloged as “American beech.” Species of beechcannot be separated microscopically.

  • Figure 2
    Figure 2

    Heading of the catalog entry for the side chair illustrated in fig. 1.

  • Figure 3
    Figure 3

    Northern White-Cedar (after Little, Jr.) Elbert L. Little, Jr., Atlas of United States Trees, vol. 1, Conifers and Important Hardwoods, U.S. Department of Agriculture Miscellaneous Publication 1146 (Washington, D.C., 1971), 9 pp., 200 maps.

  • Figure 4
    Figure 4

    Current Range for River Birch (Betula nigra) Elbert L. Little, Jr.,Atlas of United States Trees,vol. 1, Conifers and Important Hardwoods, U.S.Department of Agriculture Miscellaneous Publication 1146 (Washington, D.C., 1971), 9 pp., 200 maps.

  • Figure 5
    Figure 5

    Current distribution of Tulip Poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera). Elbert L. Little, Jr., Atlas of United States Trees, vol. 1, Conifers and Important Hardwoods, U.S. Department of Agriculture Miscellaneous Publication 1146 (Washington, D.C., 1971), 9 pp., 200 maps.