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Bob Olesen writes:
This Empire console is made of the honest-to-Pete Cuban mahogany
everyone's heard so much about but few have actually seen.
It's sheet laminated and almost a quarter inch thick, applied to
the oak core wood by animal hide glue in 1803 by the firm of
Jacob Fr'eres y Rue Meslee, cabinetmakers to Napoleon I in Paris.
This piece came into the country before the French started designating
certain items as "historical treasures" and disallowing their export,
as would have surely been the case here.
Even now, I understand there has been a lawsuit filed to try and reclaim it.
This desk is a Tulipwood bureau plat inlayed with Satin and
King woods. The greenish boarder is called "charmwood".
Both the desk and the console have been French polished
and note the clarity of this process.
This cocktail style table is a much later piece in an ebonized
wood that just happens to have some interesting inlay I liked.
BobO
FL