Pear tree
Botanical name: Pyrus communis
The fine pores of the wood make pearwood perfect for shellac polishes.
Antique furniture made of pear tree
Pear wood is mainly found in antiques from the Biedermeier period. It is a light, restrained wood. A few pieces of furniture are made in pearwood on the entire front.
More often we see it polished black on columns, small mouldings or key plates. Pearwood, dyed black, is excellent for imitating the expensive ebony.
It was thus polished with shellac blackened by soot and "ebonised" in this way.
Pearwood is particularly suitable for this purpose because it has a wood structure very similar to ebony, only in a different colour. The texture of the wood is even, the colour is pale grey to slightly reddish in both the heartwood and the sapwood. Used unstained, it darkens relatively strongly.
Nowadays, the hard pear wood is probably best known for its use in the construction of musical instruments.
The pear wood used in the period of origin of our antique furniture came from Central Europe.
