Fred Ward Maple Chest of Drawers, c. 1950

• Maple - Maple, native to North America, is a dense heavy timber from light to yellow-brown in colour. It has very little distincive graining unless it is one of the variants such as birds-eye maple or burr maple, so was not used extensively for furniture in 18th and 19th century, where cabinetmakers and designers preferred timbers with more distinctive features such as mahogany, walnut, rosewood and oak.
  
  Birds-eye maple has a seres of small spots linked by undulating lines in the grain, is highly sough and is used as a decorative veneer. Burr maple has larger and irregular grain swirls than birds-eye maple.

This item has been included into following indexes:

• Australian furniture, post 1950 - bedroom furniture 93
• Myer 'Heritage' (Australia) - mid-century furniture designers and makers (Australia) 14
• Ward, Frederick Charles (Australia) - mid-century furniture designers and makers (Australia) 65