Antique Fiddleback Blackwood Kookaburra Picture Frame by August Schramm
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August Schramm (attributed), superb fiddleback blackwood antique picture frame with kookaburra print, Melbourne, Victorian origin, late 19th century. August Schramm operated from 38 Kerr Street Fitzroy from 1891-1904, and then moved to 60 Westgarth Street Fitzroy until 1924. His work using Australian native timbers was unsurpassed in his day, making spectacular specimen wood boxes and superb picture frames using the finest cuts of timber. 58 x 53 cm
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- Fiddleback - A name given to the pattern of the grain in some timbers, where the lines of the grain are compressed and at the same time wavy. Fiddleback grain is prized as a timber for furniture and musical instruments, and is expensive becasue of its scarcity.
In Australia fiddleback graining is found in blackwood. Other non-native timbers that are sometimes found with a fiddleback grain are mahogany and maple. - Victorian Period - The Victorian period of furniture and decorative arts design covers the reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1901. There was not one dominant style of furniture in the Victorian period. Designers used and modified many historical styles such as Gothic, Tudor, Elizabethan, English Rococo, Neoclassical and others, although use of some styles, such as English Rococo and Gothic tended to dominate the furniture manufacture of the period.
The Victorian period was preceded by the Regency and William IV periods, and followed by the Edwardian period, named for Edward VII (1841 ? 1910) who was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India for the brief period from 1901 until his death in 1910. - Attributed - A cataloguing term where the item in the opinion of the cataloguers, is a of the period of the artist, craftsman or designer, and which probably in whole or part is the work of that person.
- Blackwood - One of the best known and most widely used Australian timbers, blackwood (acacia melanoxylon), is a member of the Acacia (wattle) family and grows in eastern Australia from about Adelaide in South Australia, as far north as Cairns in Queensland.
The largest, straightest and tallest trees come from the wet forest and swamps of north-west Tasmania where it is grown commercially.
Blackwood timber colours range across a wide spectrum, from a very pale honey colour through to a dark chocolate with streaks of red tinge.
The hardwood timber has been commonly used in the production of furniture, flooring, and musical instruments in Australia from the late 19th century. However, the straight grain timber is not the most prized or valuable, that honour falls to blackwood with a wavy, fiddleback pattern, which is used both in the solid and as a veneer. Fiddleback was only used on the finest examples of furniture.
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