I was walking through the furniture room at one of my favorite auction houses recently when I noticed something:
Several pieces of furniture – seemingly more than usual – were showing off the work of a craftsman’s hands: They all had hand-painted designs on them. A rocking chair, a baby or doll cradle, a headboard, a matching wall shelf and buffet. The paint was fading on several of them while others had retained their original color and drawings.
The auctioneer called them Pennsylvania Dutch. Once he moved on, I picked up and read a catalog that accompanied the pieces. On the front were the German words “Handbemalte Bauernmobel” or handpainted Bauernmobel, as I found out in translation. The word Bauernmobel came up in several searches on the web but most were in German, a language I do not speak. I did find some information about it in an answer to a question on identifying similar furniture.
It apparently is a style of rustic hand-painted furniture with elaborate decorations. It was also called “farmer’s furniture.” The catalog showed several pieces of the same type of furniture, including a buffet that looked like the auction piece. It was selling for $680 alone.
The two pieces at auction went for $110. Someone got a bargain.
After noticing these hand-painted pieces, I recalled that I had seen others on the floor. So I went searching for these pieces, which obviously had been personally handled by someone rather than commercially made.
I came upon a neat little child’s rocker that appeared to have been lovingly used. Some of the green paint had chipped in spots, but the designs on it were still recognizable. Another auction-goer had apparently thought so, too, because someone had left an absentee bid. Stuck to the rocker was a yellow sticker with a buyer’s number on it.
The painting on the seat of the chair was a red fox curled up in a ball. On the headrest at the top of the back of the chair were three hunting dogs or English pointers. Were they after the fox, I wondered. An imaginative child could have fun putting them all together in a story.
Propped against a wall was what looked like a twin bed, yellow with red accents. It had seen better days, but on the headboard was a faded scene of a house with pointed roof surrounded by trees and something else I could not identify. Much of the craftsman’s handiwork had flaked off.
The final piece was a delight – a light green baby or doll cradle with birds and flowers. It still had some bedding on it.
