Mosaic Twig Bedroom Suite

Dealers and collectors of antique rustic furniture generally agree that well-executed mosaic twigwork qualifies as the pinnacle of rustic craftsmanship. We would certainly put this bedroom suite into that superlative category.

The four-piece set (now sold) includes a full bed*, a two-drawer vanity with an attached mirror, a vanity bench, and a four-drawer dresser.

All of the front and side surfaces of each furniture piece are covered in multiple square and rectangular geometric twig panels.

The craftsman created a dynamic pattern in the headboard through varying horizontal and vertical orientations of the many twig panels. Patterns are created within each panel as well as between them as they line up side by side.

Notice how the twigwork around the sides and crown of the mirror departs from the predominantly square and rectangular twig layout elsewhere, with hourglass-shaped panels created by graduating the lengths of the twigs.

The bark-on twigs are chamfered on each end to expose the inner core of the wood, which creates a light/dark color contrast within the overall geometric pattern.

An extra flourish is that the bed’s headboard and footboard also have a floral design (tulips with leaves and stems) etched across their top four panels.

This incised detailing hints that the craftsman likely made this set for his own home rather than as a commission, adding a personal touch to the design perhaps for a daughter or wife.

In addition to the visual harmony of the geometric twig assembly, the furniture is sturdy and functional. Plus it includes two case pieces which are relatively hard to come by in the antique rustic furniture world, both in the manufactured hickory and the unique handmade realms.

Origins

As is unfortunately often the case, the history of this furniture had not been passed along to the person we purchased it from.

It is still often possible to trace the origins of rustic furniture to a particular region, and sometimes to a specific artisan, even though very few makers signed, dated or added a location name to their work.

Such tracing usually requires research such as digging into documented versions of vernacular designs, and discerning what species of natural materials were used and the native range of those trees.

But our sleuthing of origins turned out to be relatively easy in the case of this bedroom set.

When we finally received it (we had purchased it from afar via photographs) and were able to examine it in person, we found that its regional origin was documented in plain sight:

The back of the vanity mirror glass says “Bristol, VA.” Even more conveniently, the mirror glass is dated 1932, so we also know the era within which the set was made.

The town of Bristol is a place of some renown for a few reasons. First, it is one city located in two states – Virginia and Tennessee. One side of Bristol’s main commercial street (called State Street) is in VA while the other side is in TN.

The above 1931 photo of Bristol’s State Street (from heraldcourier.com) shows the state border line running down the middle of the street, with Virginia on the left and Tennessee on the right.

The original members of The Carter Family in 1927.

Bristol, TN/VA is also famous as the “Birthplace of Country Music” (designated as such by a resolution of the U. S. Congress in 1998). In 1927, a series of music recording sessions (now known as the Bristol Sessions) with artists such as the Carter Family brought the home-grown country folk music of southern Appalachia to the world, launching the wildly popular phenomenon of commercial country music.

So just five years after the genesis of country music recording in Bristol, a furniture craftsman walked into a hardware store in the same town to purchase mirror glass for a vanity he was building.

That craftsman could have resided in Virginia or Tennessee, but in either case his work is an exemplar of traditional Appalachian rustic furniture making.

This amazing set of rustic furniture was artistically (perhaps even lovingly) made during the Great Depression from free and abundant materials — salvaged wood rather than new milled lumber for the underlying frame of each piece, and natural twigs for all of the visible surfaces.

We’ll never know how the furniture got from the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains to the Midwest where we purchased it, but we’re pleased to play a role in preserving this rustic artisan’s tangible, albeit anonymous, legacy.