Graduated

jT)rawers

BY GEORGE WALKER

Two sets of dividers are all you need to achieve well-proportioned drawers.

JL. or centuries artists honed tbcircraflbycopyinglhc works of i he masters. The goal was no« to become a copyist; instead t he intense focus of exploring a masterpiece was a prov en way to unlock the mysteries hidden within. Often it s the subtle details- proportion, light, shadow, color and texture-that set apun great work. Muchcan be learned studyinggreat furniture, ami it's not limited just to i hose interested in period reproductions. Good design is timeless.

A fine example of this is the period drawing on the facingpage of a chest on clicst. circa 1760 from the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It is a rare artifact for two reasons. First, because almost no shop drawings have survived from the 18thcentury,but more importantly because it offers a unique glimpse of a great design. The finished chest might have included elaborate decorative carving, but w hat we see are the stripped-down bare lines of the piece.

fust beneath live surface on many great pieces of American furniture are design secrets based on architecture. The Mkklc chest drawing illustrates two met hods to arrange drawer fronts tocarry the eye toa focal point, which in thiscase would be some dramatk carvingon the large cent ral d rawer at I he top. aswrllasa dccorat i ve carving to crown the pediment.

Your first glimpse of a large chest on chest from a distance across a room only reveals the most apparent features - the overall pro-port ions of the case, and the dramatic mouldings that emphasize the overall form. As you come closer, details like tin* arrangement of drawers direct the eye upward The secretary pictured at right usesgraduateddrawers to pull the eye up. Notice howcachdrawer diminishes in height as the drawers rise up the case. It's a simple and elegant solution to deal with a series of monotonous horizontal Kinds (drawer fronts) that can tend to look static if left identical.

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