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I reconnected with a friend from high school several years ago. He lives in San Francisco and has made a very good living. When he learned that I was an antique dealer, he trotted out a few buzz words about what he owned--a set of twelve Chippendale chairs and a dining table with a "Cuban mahogany" top. Such buzz words--particularly chippendale and Cuban mahogany--offer a snippet of knowledge that passes for a type of connoisseurship that is anything but connoisseurship--they are handles for inexpert guidance designed to offer a snobbish rejoinder to non-aficionados or to people like me who might ask pertinent questions about his purchases. (Which I would never do.) I happened to know the San Francisco dealer he bought the items from and he was an absolute charlatan--long since faded from the scene. The first and last time I walked through the dealer's rather large store--hundreds of pieces, lots of desks, dining tables and sets of chairs--I didn't see a piece that I could label antique. Not one. I never went back because the likelihood that he would have something that I could buy and make a profit on was next to nil. He didn't buy antiques.
He did, however, know the buzz words of the antiques world. "Cuban mahogany", not unlike "Chippendale", is among the most famous of those buzz words. (There is a little magic to the appellation.) Years ago, when I was first restoring, I worked for Israel Sack, the famed American furniture dealers then run by the three sons, Harold, Albert and Robert. The Sacks loved furniture and were very good at selling their brand. Albert wrote a great book called, "Good, Better, Best" which is still a classic in the field. Judging the aesthetics of items like furniture is hard as personal taste will get in the way, but Albert showed that some pieces, because of specific details were marginally, if not better craft-wise, more complex and interesting than others. In any case, one day when I was at the gallery, Robert Sack showed me a very prettily carved shell on an interior door on the inside of a slant front bureau--the door was dark brown, like a coffee bean--that was a piece of Cuban mahogany and the only one on the entire piece--the rest was honey gold in color.
Cuban mahogany is, I presume, from Cuba, but I am not absolutely certain of that. It is, however, always very dark brown as it is a tree that has grown in swampy areas that are rich in minerals that color the wood as the minerals are drawn into the grain with the nutrient rich water. Cuban mahogany is very dense and heavy and it doesn't fade much although it polishes to a beautiful carmine after several hundred years. The British liked to use it, for example, for the baluster and cabriole legs of tripod tables. Why? The heaviness of the timber provided a kind of ballast to the table and furthermore it is a very nice wood to turn on the lathe. (It also carves well.) A really good tea table from 1750 or so, will often have quite a simple baluster and legs--the legs might be carved a bit, but the table base will often be made of that dense and heavy mahogany. The top would inevitably be made of pieces of mahogany that showed a nice splash of grain. Returning to my friend's dining table, no sane 18th century cabinetmaker would use Cuban mahogany for a dining table top--chair arms and legs perhaps, or even pedestals for a dining table, but not as a table top. The buzz words, however, worked fine for my friend and he is happy with what he has. That is all that matters.
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