Don't trust the keyholes Directory This cabinet dates from the late 17th century, or even the early 18th. These keyholes are clearly not original. In fact, the piece retains few original features, apart from the drawers, the frame, and the base. The veneer on the front, sides, and top has been altered. It is quite evident that the locks have been changed and the original keyholes filled in.
Its structure is made of solid cherry, fir and poplar. It is veneered with cherry, walnut, violet wood and rosewood.
The main damage to this piece of furniture is to the marquetry. There are some missing pieces on the drawers, a large part of the veneer is peeling off, and the top is badly warped.
When I started the restoration, I wondered why there was no glue at all in some places, and why the wood was burned, both under the veneer and on the surface.
The answer came with the removal of the top veneer, and the explanation is simple. To glue marquetry with hot glue, cabinetmakers heated the wood near a "smoke oven" ( The name cabinetmakers give to the fireplace where they melt glue, heat the gluing irons, and also heat the wood to be glued. The hearth of this fireplace is high: between 80 cm and 1 m above the ground. We can therefore conclude that the panels of this cabinet were left near the fire for too long, and that the veneer began to burn from underneath during the gluing process. This was probably not visible on the surface during the initial construction. However, successive restorations and sandings thinned the veneer, and the burns became apparent.
To correct the warping of the top panel, I removed the veneer to work on the fir panels. I re-flattened, resawed, and planed them to a thickness of 2 mm. I then glued them back together in a sandwich construction onto 5 mm plywood, preserving the tool marks and the outer bark.
I re-glued the joints and the structure with fish glue, and all the veneered parts by infiltrating the glue. I reinstalled the existing keyholes and locks, as it's impossible to know precisely what was there originally. There probably wasn't a keyhole, or perhaps just a simple iron one.
