England
The Middle Ages to the Restoration
English furniture of the Middle Ages had little to recommend it either in style or in excellence of craftsmanship. Linenfold carving (see page 17) was one of a few exceptions. England was also slow to accept the new Renaissance styles, especially in outlying parts of the country where the craftsmen were ?and continued to be right into the nineteenth century ?extraordinarily conservative. The early inlay-work was poor compared with contemporary German, French or Italian work. When Renaissance ornamentation did appear in England it was considerably more restrained than examples from the rest of Europe and the architectural designs seem to have been definitely ‘watered down’.
Despite the inferior quality of English inlay-work, it was used on a fairly wide scale, not only on pieces made for the rich but also on more simple furniture in humble homes. Many pieces made in both the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries were decorated with wood inlay of box, holly-wood and ‘bog oak’ (which had a very dark tinge). Patterns varied considerably, but there was a noticeable preference for geometric designs, known as parquetry, and for squares and lozenges. The writing box illustrates both the poor quality of the work and the preference for parquetry.
This inferior standard was to improve very greatly in the middle of the seventeenth century and in the Restoration period marquetry was being done in England that compared well with European standards.
In the time of Elizabeth I the heightening of national pride and the growing wealth of the new middle classes provided opportunities for bolder experiment among craftsmen. Italian styles became popular, not least for
upholstered furniture, such as sofas and chairs. While some pieces in great Beechwood upholstered couch. This English piece follows the Renaissance style and is bolder than most contemporary English furniture
houses show considerable experimentation there seems to have been an undercurrent of simplicity in furniture which became more emphasized as the nation, for the most part, began to lean towards the Puritan ideal of life. Tables and chairs, especially, retained a severity of style that was not present in other countries. Armchairs with rush seats and high backs of three or four cross-bars (wrongly called ladder-back chairs) were simple and staid, and fitted in well with the new austerity.
Most furniture in England of the period was made of oak, although country pieces were occasionally made of one or other kind of fruitwood. Walnut was used for veneering, although not on the same scale as in Europe.
But as the taste for walnut, with its superior grain for veneer and with its suitability for solid construction, increased in popularity, walnut trees began to be planted in England. It was expected that in half a century a rich harvest would become available for furniture-making. Such a harvest was not forthcoming. Although many trees were planted and quantities of walnut thus made available, much of it was of poor quality. Conse-Typical English 17th-century oak gate-legged table. It is functional rather than aesthetic, but the style was nonetheless copied thousands of times over The English produced some very fine oak refectory tables in the earlier half of the 17th century. This example is in the Victoria and Albert Museum quently, the better walnuts used in Europe for furniture had to be imported.
Typical of the items that have survived from Tudor and early Stuart times are settles with box seats, both the movable kind and the kind that fits a window recess, the table bench with a back which slides up and across
to make a table top, gate-legged tables with two hinged flaps and a gate on each of the longer sides of the central rectangular top, and a continued variety of chests, boxes and coffers used both as seats and for
storage. These chests were properly constructed with thin wood panelling between the main members, carved either simply or elaborately.
One piece of considerable importance in the larger houses was the bed. A number of late Tudor and early Stuart examples have survived and they reflect the progress of English furniture design. The bed has four posts supporting a canopy. The carving on the bed posts varies considerably, so does the width of the posts where they are turned. Sometimes the bulbs are narrowed so much as to be almost cut in half and they are quite out of proportion with the rest of the bed which usually has a break-front cornice at the top of the canopy with a vague claim to architectural style. In Stuart times the bulbing becomes generally narrower and so more attractive.
The Great Bed of Ware
But even if much of the furniture of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century in England is not as ornate or as exuberant as that of its contemporaries in Europe, it was now so well made ? and in such quantity that a great deal of it has lasted to the present day. (The author was able, ten years ago, to purchase a Jacobean armchair with carved panel back and hexagonal legs for a trifling sum at a north-country auction.)
Members were assembled by mortise and tenon, held by dowels, and sometimes glued as well. Pieces were not gilded in England as frequently as elsewhere, but were waxed and polished vigorously and often to
produce a rich patina.
It seems that even as early as the sixteenth century woodworkers were experimenting with polishes which have hardly altered to this day. Boiled linseed oil rubbed into wood in its natural state accentuated the grain.
Cabinetmakers today still advise using this treatment. Alternatively, they recommend turpentine and beeswax mixed, and this was probably being used in late Plantagenet times. No amount of modern silicon wax polishing will produce anything like the surface that these centuries-old recipes invariably do. French polishing is to be avoided at all costs.
English furniture does not really begin to bear comparison with European styles until the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, when rich exiles, who during their years abroad had familiarized themselves with the trends in European art and craftsmanship, came home to commission work for the houses they were to build or rebuild in a new age that was liberal not only in the field of art.
17th-century oak chairs in England were for a long time severe and rigid in style, but they were also well made. This oak chair with elaborately carved back was made in about 1650