Karl Johan chest of drawers
The Empire chest of drawers in Sweden: heavy, symmetrical and clad in gleaming mahogany.
The French Empire style came to Sweden with Karl XIV Johan, who became king in 1818. Furniture became heavy and plain, with large areas of gleaming mahogany and mounts of gilt brass.
Because mahogany was expensive, Swedish joiners often veneered birch or pine, or stained birch dark. Light birch furniture in the same forms is sometimes called Biedermeier.
Materials: Mahogany veneer on birch or pine, gilt brass mounts
Manufacture: Joinery with veneered fronts and cast mounts.
Columns or pilasters at the corners, sometimes with gilt capitals.
The mounts: escutcheons and knobs shaped as wreaths, lion heads or rosettes.
The veneer: see whether it is thin veneer on a plainer wood, common in Swedish Karl Johan.