American

American furniture begins as a provincial version of the English trade and becomes something else within two generations. Early colonial work is made from local woods by joiners working from imported pattern books, so the forms are English and the material is not — oak, pine, maple and cherry standing in for walnut and mahogany, with painted finishes imitating what could not be imported.

After independence the style becomes an argument about identity. Federal and American Empire work quotes Greece and Rome because the new republic was writing itself in that language, and the eagle, the urn and the star appear as motifs with meaning rather than decoration. The result is lighter and more self-conscious than the English original, and often more inventive in inlay.

The aesthetic values plainness and optimism over age. American collectors care about provenance and original surface more than European ones do, and the later art-pottery movement carries that forward — hand-thrown, matte-glazed, signed, and made deliberately as an alternative to factory goods.

The colonial period (17th century–1780) is English forms built from American timber, with locally made hardware and painted surfaces.

Federal and American Empire (1780–1840) is the republic choosing its own classical vocabulary — inlay, eagles, and a lightness the English version does not have.

Art pottery (1870s–1920s) is the American answer to industrial tableware: individual makers, matte glazes, and a signature on the base.