American Period Furniture Online Resources

A good starting list for all the online resources I can find.

Boston Furniture Archive: The Boston Furniture Archive is a project of the Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library in conjunction with Four Centuries of Massachusetts Furniture. The Archive’s database provides catalog information and photographs of objects produced between 1630 and 1930 in Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, Charlestown, Dorchester, and Roxbury. In addition, the Archive offers basic information about furniture design and construction and links to related online resources.

Chipstone Collection: The Chipstone Foundation was created in part to interpret the decorative arts collections of Stanley and Polly Stone. A selection of over 100 works of Early American furniture, more than 270 ceramic objects, and 135 prints dating from the 17th to early 19th century, owned or once owned by the Chipstone Foundation, are now represented in this database.

Charleston Museum - Historic Houses: Founded in 1773 and commonly regarded as “America’s First Museum,” The Charleston Museum manages the Joseph Manigault house and the Heyward-Washington house in Charleston, South Carolina.

Colonial Williamsburg Furniture Collection: The Colonial Williamsburg furniture collection encompasses a broad range of goods produced in Great Britain and America from the middle of the 17th century through the 1830s.

Detroit Institute of Arts: The heart of a great museum is its collection and The Detroit Institute of Arts is proud to claim one of the largest, most significant art collections in the nation. From the first painting donated in 1883 to the most recent acquisition, a collection of over 60,000 works brings the culture and creativity of the world to Detroit's doorstep. Ranging from classic to cutting-edge, the works housed in the DIA will challenge perceptions and enrich perspectives. Of particular note in the online catalog: The Nathan Bowen chest-on-chest, William Long side chair, a pair of Duncan Phyfe lyre-backed chairs, a Dolphin sofa, and a 'Pie crust' tea table.

Diplomatic Rooms Department of State: The Diplomatic Reception Rooms are among the most beautiful rooms in the world. For fifty years, the art of diplomacy has thrived in the Diplomatic Reception Rooms against a stunning backdrop of American art and architecture from the time of our country’s founding and of its formative years. This historically evocative suite (42 rooms) contains a museum-caliber collection of American fine and decorative art (5,000 objects) from the period of 1750-1825.

Digital Library for the Decorative Arts and Material Culture: A project of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, this database features images and documents for the researcher of American decorative arts. Contains over 120 images of furniture from Chipstone's collection.

Gulf South Decorative & Fine Arts Database: A project of the Classiscal Institute of the South in New Orleans, a database of furniture and artworks made in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi before the Civil War.

Historic Buildings Survey: Administered since 1933 through cooperative agreements with the National Park Service, the Library of Congress, and the private sector, ongoing programs of the National Park Service have recorded America's built environment in multiformat surveys comprising more than 556,900 measured drawings, large-format photographs, and written histories for more than 38,600 historic structures and sites dating from Pre-Columbian times to the twentieth century.

InCollect: InCollect combines curated content and purpose-built search tools, providing the public with the absolute best experience for discovering and acquiring art, antiques, and design.

Index of American Design: The Index of American Design is the result of a federal work project established during the Depression to provide employment for artists and to create a permanent archive of American design. The images in the index are actually watercolors rendered in extraordinary life-like detail.

Old Salem Online: Maintained by MESDA, Old Salem Online consists of two search tools: the Craftsman Database whose purpose is to collect and make accessible data on the lives and working habits of Southern artisans working prior to 1821, and the museum's library catalog which contains books, manuscripts, journals, videos, maps, and microfilm for research in local and Southern history and the decorative arts among other topics.

Origins of the Arts & Crafts Movement: Contains links to bibliographic resources and organizations relevant to the Arts & Crafts Movement.

Prices 4 Antiques (P4A): The P4A reference database provides descriptions and sale prices for hundreds of thousands of items and is updated daily. This is a completely independent reporting service for appraisers, auctioneers, museums, dealers, collectors and the general public. P4A is a subscription site, however current members of SAPFM have access to the database free of charge.

The Rhode Island Furniture Archive at the Yale University Art Gallery: This searchable database holds over 3000 records and seeks to document comprehensively all known examples of Rhode Island furniture from the earliest colonization in 1636 through the 19th century.

Silla Antiques: The collection features a large selection of American and English furniture crafted during the one hundred year period of 1740 to 1840. Each piece is documented using vivid high-resolution photography and surgical condition reports.

Winterthur Library and WinterCat: Winterthur Library's WinterCat is an online catalog including records for imprints, periodicals, rare printed materials, manuscript and ephemera holdings, photographs, and archival resources. ISeeDAPC contains photographs and catalog records of decorative and fine arts objects held in public and private collections throughout the United States. ISeeDAPC contains the Decorative Arts Photographic Collection (DAPC) and the Photographic Index of American Art and Design (PIAAD).

The Wood Database: Started as small MS Write file in 2007, the Database has grown into a comprehensive online resource with high-resolution scans of woods and informative links.

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