Hardware for miniature furniture.(Column)

Antique miniature and children's furniture has always attracted attention. In the first issue of this magazine in January 1922 among the editorial offerings was an article entitled "Playthings of the Past" by Alice Van Leer Carrick. She wrote that the pursuit of these objects was "a worthy interest, for dolls are as old as mankind, and they and their small belongings mirror the past; they represent the dailiness of life, mimicking the human beings about them."

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While period dollhouse furniture is relatively rare, it is difficult to walk through an antiques show without coming across a tiny chair, chest of drawers, or some other diminutive piece of furniture. It has long been debated whether these pieces were intended to be cabinetmakers' samples or playthings. Many of the earliest were exported from England, but later they were made in the United States in some quantity. Not surprisingly, these objects have been exposed to rough treatment, and restoration has sometimes been necessary. Over the years chairs have lost casters or the casters have lost their leather wraps; chests are without pulls, escutcheons, and decorative mounts; and the hinges of secretary doors have vanished. Mrs. Carrick cited a charming eighteenth-century English rhyme that addressed the problem of wear and tear on dolls: "What children of Holland take pleasure in making,/The children of England take pleasure in breaking."

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Almost twenty-five years ago Robert Byles, an English antiques dealer and restorer in Devon, needed a handle for a piece of small-scale furniture and soon realized that reproduction hardware then available was unsatisfactory. He understood that lost-wax casting was the preferred method for making these pieces, and in 1981 he founded Optimum Brasses. Seven years later molds had been made from more than seven hundred pieces of antique hardware, and Byles produced a large ...