Two Roycroft Forgeries Surface On the Market

Two Arts & Crafts chairs have recently come to our attention - but for the wrong reason.

Syracuse antiques dealer David Rudd (www.daltons.com) was contacted by a friend and antiques restorer who had been asked to refinish two chairs with suspicious-looking shopmarks. Upon seeing these photographs David immediately had his doubts and, when he heard about the piano with suspicious Gustav Stickley shopmarks (see next story), he shared these photographs with us as well.

Roycroft furniture is so unique in its construction and its shopmarks that it has virtually escaped the attention of furniture forgers. Recently, however, someone has attempted - rather crudely - to brand two pieces of non-Roycroft furniture with shopmarks that anyone even remotely familiar with the Roycrofters would immediately deem suspicious.

The first chair in question is a typical Arts & Crafts dining room chair with three vertical slats in the back and a drop-in seat. Across the front of the seat the word "Roycroft" has been branded into the wood (see lower photo). Scroll over either photo for a close-up view.

The second is an Arts & Crafts Morris chair with the familiar Roycroft orb-and-cross branded into the front seat rail.

This forger made a couple of key mistakes.

First, the Roycrofters are not known for using a branded shopmark. Their marks were either carved or routed into the wood.

Second, their woodworkers reserved the complete word "Roycroft" for more important pieces. In this case the forger should have used the word "Roycroft" on the Morris chair and the smaller orb-and-cross on the standard side chair.

I point out these mistakes not to aid any forgers, but to stress the point that just as there is no perfect crime, there is no perfect forgery. Forgers are basically lazy and, if you look hard enough, you will find their fatal flaw. In some cases it may be the use of a Phillips head screw (introduced after 1934), thinner boards, modern upholstery materials or nylon furniture glides.

And if you want to learn more about recent forgeries, check out Collector's Guide and my Little Journeys articles.

- Bruce Johnson

Thanks to David Rudd at Daltons for bringing these chairs to our attention (http://www.daltons.com).