FURNITURE STYLES: ART MODERNE, ART NOUVEAU, ARTS AND CRAFTS MOVEMENT, BAROQUE AND BIEDERMEIER FURNTURE

ART MODERNE. French term for the martin brothers london pitcher various schools of contemporary design, affectedly used in America during the what medium did robert adam use 1920’s to label the pewter spoon with figures in bowl bird form on handle earliest modem work. See Modem.

ART NOUVEAU. A revived interest in the examples of early pennsylvania marquetry decorative arts flowed over Europe about 1875 giving rise to a concerted rebellion against the antique sideboard cornwall stale eclecticism of the poskell liverpool time. A conscious effort to create along new lines inspired this “New Art.” It drew on various motives Gothic and Japanese principallyand established an ornamental vocabulary based on natural growing forms. The typical line is long and slightly curved, ending abruptly in a whip-like sharp curve.
Henri Van de Velde is the renaissance mouldings, decorations and pediment outstanding name of the ss bremen washstand, vanity style. His exhibitions in Brussels and Paris in 1894 and 1895 demonstrated his personal style. The copyists were numerous but less successful. His manner particularly influenced French design for about a decade, while the antique leopold desks Arts and Crafts movement in England was a contemporary expression, as were developments like the antiquerugs Jugendstil and Secession in Germany and Austria.
Generally, the antique bed construction results of the primitive shallow pine bookshelf se rebellions were more successful in the rowland ward nairobi minor arts as silver and jewelry than in furniture or architecture. Most vital is the leon albert jallott furniture designs impetus toward a clearer, more rational expression. See Modem.

ARTS AND CRAFTS MOVEMENT. A revival of interest in decorative art in England began about 1875. By 1884 it grew to a definite revolt against tasteless overmechanization, and inspired groups like the jacobean table leg Art-Workers Guild to seek to re-establish the 17th century lion head carvings individual quality in the double sided desk on bun feet floral painted crafts. The ideal was the french vincennes soft paste personal craftsmanship of the lions foot oak table Middle Ages. Neo-Gothic architects such as the leopold stickley cherry valley collection Pugins, Henry Shaw and Philip Webb, and the 19th cent worcester decorators Pre-Raphaelite group of painters led by Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones, and such strong personalities as William Morris and John Ruskin all contributed to this ideal. Their efforts created new interest and new expression in furniture and architecture, pottery, jewelry, textile and book design. A deliberately amateur quality, glorifying handwork, was too violently in opposition to ail but the antique furniture england most intellectual trends, and the knobs for victorian wash stand movement failed to elicit a popular response. In America it materialized in a parallel movement; Elbert Hubbard and his Roycroft crystallizing the chair leg shapes 1900-1910 ideal, while various degrees of success attended the porcelan art efforts of commercial manufacturers who accepted the difference between oak and mahogany outward forms for machine-made products. The Mission, style is one of the dutch marquetry chair offshoots. The furniture forms of the scottish cross stretcher chairs Arts and Crafts movement are essentially simple and crude; in the london mark 1777 silver ir joinery concepts, rudimentary. They consciously lack grace, lightness and charm. The value of the matching corner cupboards intellectual movement cannot be overestimated. It clearly set a track for later thought. Schools of design and individuals were moved to examine the antique design table tray forces at work and the tall pedestal desk with hinged top or captains desk result is only now materializing.

BAROQUE. The whole tendency of European design in the french empire ormolu loveseat 17A Century was toward exaggeration, overemphasized brilliance. The movement was a natural sequence of the antique kashan carpet ghajar increasingly
ornamental Renaissance style; its extremes resulted from the 18th century false drawer blanket chest Jesuit Counter-Reformation, the antiquetulipwood effort of the french 19th century louis philippe drop leaf militant Catholic order to recapture the antique oak dining table rectangular column legs imagination of the 4 post antique early american bed masses through over-awing splendor. Italian art had exhausted the pearlware porcelain simpler vocabulary by 1550. The need for new types opened a path for unrestrained virtuosity. The spreading Renaissance carried this free manner everywhere and for two centuries most European art was Baroque.
Motion is the antique corner cuboard essence of the curved front bedside tables Baroque, as distinguished from the vintage butterfly dropleaf tables repose of the danish sideboard nyc classic ideal. Large curves, fantastic and irregular, are explosively interpreted, reversed, ornamented. Twisted columns, distorted and broken pediments, oversized mouldings, sacrificed the antique roll top desk structural sense to a tremendous the simple square satinwood table with square tapered legs atrical effect. Scale and proportion had new meaning, everything being calculated to strike the 1860 1880 davenports with writing cupboard on top eye, to excite rather than to suggest quiet and harmony.
In furniture the art nouveau 19th century vase earlier Baroque tendencies were merely exaggeration of scale. Fantastically overloaded ornament was added later; the antique furniture with mother of pearl inlay earlier work was actually freer of plastic decoration than the most expensive antique chests preceding late Renaissance types. Cabinets whose midsections were simply, if insis-tently, panelled, were carried on excessively carved bases and bore great pediments, usually broken and capped with towering finials. Chairs were elaborately scrolled and carved. Tables had bases of rich sculpture, fancifully shaped stretchers; others
had twisted columns or complex scrolls as legs. Beds, particularly in France and England, were colossal structures of draped textiles.
Surface treatment became more splendid after 1650. Earlier solid wood surfaces were the antique porcelain cockerel jug n painted, gilded, polychromed; inlays and marquetry reached the antique gothic wood desks ir ultimate heights in the oak dining table antique paw feet base pillar work of Boulle and the old dresser in the kitchen imitative scrollwork of seaweed marquetry. Marble and imitation stone, vivid textiles, cane and metals all contributed to this unrestrained decorative orgy.
The Baroque is withal a masculine style, virile and blustering and bold. Its feminine counterpart, the 18th century mahogany pedestal table Rococo, came in the transforming a chest of drawers into a bookcase 18th century, substituting prettiness and charm for Baroque magnificence.

BIEDERMEIER. German style, first half 19th Century, chiefly based on French Empire forms. It is essentially a style of the thomas grainger pottery maker lesser nobility and the biedermeier sofa tables bourgeoisie, imitating the victorian occasional tables with harp pedestal Paris Empire “Meubles de Luxe” of the antique walnut dresser holland furniture grander houses. These adaptations, the dealers of metermorphic libary tables products of local materials and skill, are odd mixtures in varying degrees of sophisticated motives with naive proportions and techniques. Architectural the wall mount vitrine -tv mes and classic ornaments are given homely interpretation. Carved details are represented in paint, black or gold ; the czechoslovakia fine china with symbol classic flora are sometimes rendered as more familiar vegetable forms. Simplified surfaces and de-tails recall Empire outlines. The woods are largely localpear and other fruitwoods, walnut, maple, birch, beechbut much mahogany furniture remains.
The name derives from a comic-paper character, Papa Biedermeier, symbol of homely substantial comfort and well beinggemutlichkeit. It later came also to connote old fashioned, stodgy.
In either case the inlay french armoire antique style, imitative and awkward as it may be, is an interesting example of the 1780 grand orrery reproduction buy process of copying and adapting a foreign style in toto. See Germany.

ANTIQUE EUROPEAN FURNITURE PERIODS AND STYLES:

The major antique European furniture styles have all been related to other arts, upholstered sideboards fine and applied, crendenza, foreigen designs and especially to architecture. Most were international, walnut chest on chest but subject to national and regional variations. They seldom changed abruptly; a transitional phase would usually intervene so that elements of both old and new styles were often seen in the same piece.
Provincial and country work reflected these changes, 19th century stand up silver chest but only after a delay sometimes a lengthy one while perpetuating both local traditions and styles that had, oak twist leg table and chairs years before, carpets kazak iranian been fashionable in the cities; and even there, how to make bookcase mouldings revivals of earlier styles were promoted from time to time.
These factors, wash bowl stand not to mention the modern reproductions and downright fakes that abound, cupboard armoire kast cross make it unsafe to assume that any given piece is necessarily of the period its style implies. Familiarity with styles, hinged farmhouse tables restored important though it is, antique claw foot buffets with glass should ideally go hand in hand with a knowledge of the materials and methods in use at different times and in different places.
ANCIENT AND CLASSICAL FURNITURE STYLES
The private collector is unlikely to acquire an authentic piece of furniture from the ancient civilizations, matchbox holder with the ashtray set engraved but can hardly escape becoming the owner of something that derives from them; so it is helpful to have an understanding of the sources.
The Egyptians were making sophisticated furniture in about 3, antique plaques 000 BC and, worcester fbb relief by 1, victorian walnut breakfront 500 BC, antique draw leaf desk were employing mortise-and-tenon, antique small walnut bookcases dovetail and mitred joints to produce beds, world most amazing mechanism for extending dining table tables, antique vincennes winged angel w/roses figurine stools (including an X-shaped folding type), brass paw furniture legs chairs and chests many decorated with carving, 1800’s walnut linen presses veneering, antique split pedestal dining table inlay and painting. These methods were taken over and developed by the Greeks, wood lion head chair Etruscans and Romans. Turning on the lathe, flat top nine drawer highboys made in the 20th century and casting in bronze and silver were added to the techniques of furniture-making.
Left, lichte-wallendorf white vase Ancient Egyptian sphinx.
Below Antique Roman sphinx.
Left, wells fargo antique desk Classical Greek lyre.
A repertoire of ornament was built up that included animal forms for legs and feet (lion paws, chiffonier furniture hooves); sphinxes and other mythological beasts; human and semi-human figures such as caryatids, 18th century french pill boxes used as decorative supports; leafy scrolls, victorian black slate and brass-mounted mantel clock wreaths and floral motifs including anthemion (honeysuckle) and acanthus; columns and pediments based on classical architecture.
Although the fall of the Roman Empire in the west in the 5thC AD resulted in the decay of furniture-making skills, 19th century italian mirror not all were lost, antique metal chest of drawers and from the Renaissance onwards, millefiori small handled vase with stopper their rediscovery led to a whole series of classical revivals, antque tea pots crown dorset from the 16th to the 19thC.
BYZANTINE FURNITURE STYLE
Many of the old skills were retained in Constantinople, antique wedgwood plates imari design capital of the Eastern Empire, antique furniture james ii built in the 4thC AD near the Hellenic city of Below, satyr handled silver wine urns Byzantine carved ivory throne, 1930’s jacobean revival timber sideboard 6thC, used drop leaf dining table and chair
Byzantium. To them were added those of Middle Eastern craftsmen who were adept at the intricate carving of religious figures, antique dresser 6ft plants and animals, antique austrian chairs on ivory panels set in a frame, domed corner cabinet for chests and box-seated chairs. Similar subjects were painted on large wooden cupboards.
ROMANESQUE FURNITURE STYLE
Painted cupboards were among the furniture made in Italy in the early Middle Ages, english silver centerpiece pierced baskets probably by itinerant Byzantine craftsmen. The northern invaders also grafted their own ideas of decoration on to residual Roman types, art nouveau wood carved figures on table and a composite style emerged which, italy silver square handled tea tray by the I IthC, elegant small victorian writing table had slowly spread to France, antique charles ii settle the Netherlands and Scandinavia. The furniture, typical wood in 1940 furniture inlay coffee table whether meant for churches or castles, - eugene gaillard buffet was mainly ecclesiastic in flavour; box-seated chairs, basin stand antique functional stools on turned legs, how to make rococo commode carved ones that served as thrones and status
symbols, mirrored antique end table massive chests carved with rounded arches supported by squat classical columns a form of decoration that continued until after 1600.
GOTHIC FURNITURE STYLE
This style owed nothing to the Goths, art deco folding open desk who had been defeated 400 years before the first `Gothic’ church was begun in France in 1140. Another 400 years later, mould velvet removal the term was used by an enthusiast for a new style (Renaissance), old clocks made of giltbronze to decry medieval architecture. By the 15thC, large ornate rococo gilt mirrors the Gothic style had spread throughout most of Europe, gothic monks chair surviving in some areas until the 16thC. Main features: pointed arches, stand-away hinge tracery, japanese pottery with gold lacquer repairs
carving of animals and foliage, rectangular barley twist gateleg table panels carved to represent the folds of parchment or linen (`linenfold’), 1920 - 1930 european breakfront wrought-iron scrolls on chests, early chippendale pembroke table coats-of-arms. Much was painted in bright, antique console table with barley twist legs heraldic colours. Main types: trestle tables, computers internet blog lidded chests, myott son & co. ltd. slab-ended stools, antique cigarette stands box-seated and X-framed chairs, bird pattern silver spoon posted beds.
A revival of interest in ancient culture began in Italy in the 14thC, german pottery - jugs grew over the next hundred years into the Renaissance in Florence and spread widely. Little was known of Greek or Roman furniture, european style couches louis 13 but decorative features from classical architecture were grafted on to existing forms, antique english porter chair canework and new ones created. Carved, walnut antique bedside cabinet claw foot painted and gilded decoration on 15thC cassoni (lidded chests) bore coats-of-arms and depicted Olympian gods and goddesses as well as Christian saints; 16thC examples were shaped to resemble the Roman sarcophagus.
Columns and pilasters were applied to the credenza (low cupboard). Tables, william and mary buffet copied from fragments of Roman originals in marble, lenci pottery were carved with animal subjects. Intarsia inlaid decoration inspired by Roman mosaics depicted landscapes and still-life subjects in vivid perspective. Carved strapwork a flat, dining chairs with walnut legs
Carved walnut meuble-a-deux-corps, cattaneo of london barometer 16thC.
continuous geometric pattern was popular in northern Europe.
The Mannerist movement in art led to the carving of the nude or semi-nude human figure with elongated, armchair stylistic development distorted limbs; an extreme version of this style, 1800 german dresser hidden drawers known as Auricular, handle types on antique asian porcelain involved demonic caryatids on bed-heads, paris porcelain and marks and grotesque masks with huge ears as chair-backs.
Printed pattern books on architecture and furniture design began to appear in the 16thC. Works by Serlio, 18th century english shell crested chair Vredeman de Vries, satinwood pembroke tables Flotner, old oak table, 2 drop flaps Sambin, antique dragon table Du Cerceau and the German master known only as ‘H.S.’ were widely circulated and used by craftsmen internationally.
Some countries, antique writing table with thick square legs however, classicism furniture developed very individual versions of the Renaissance style. Spain, regency chair construction at the height of its power and wealth in the 16thC, three famous person art deco embellished furniture with silver from the New World, built-in cabinet by antonio gaudi and abstract decoration derived from the Islamic culture of the resident Moors. Doors and drawer-fronts were
Left, antique czechoslovakia vases armchair with panels of linenfold carving, hepplewhite footstool 16thC.
Right, capodimonte saucers cups antique 16thC carved caryatid with grotesque mask.
Drawer front with geometrical mouldings, cabinet makers chest fashionable throughout the 17th Century, gold bell shaped flower seed pearls earrings
decorated with mouldings arranged in geometric patterns a fashion that spread to the Spanish Netherlands and thence to much of Europe in the 17thC, georgian silver cream pail becoming a feature of many pieces regarded now as baroque.
BAROQUE FURNITURE STYLE
The word baroque means ‘irregular pearl’, vauxhall glass reproduction and many pieces in the style are partly asymmetrical, czechoslovakian antique porcelian vases being the work of sculptors such as Brustolon who carved life-size human figures in the round as supports for console tables and candle-stands. Most other pieces, thomas tompion tall case clock however, why are chairs called smokers bow
were symmetrical, frencj arm chair how to paint velvet chaies formal and heavy-looking.
The style first developed in Italy early in the 17thC, arts & craft settee using classical architecture as a basis but adding bold, reproduction victorian octagonal work table restless curves and rich decoration gilding, bergama rug painting in imitation of oriental lacquer, american art deco furniture veneering and marquetry (inlaying into veneers) in exotic woods, french regency rococo furniture pietre dure (hardstones) and metal.
In France, neoclassical candlesticks during the reign of Louis XIV (effectively 1600-1715), antique double chair back settee carved shell 1700 photo the royal cabinetmaker A.C. Boulle perfected the technique of boullework inlaying a turtleshell veneer with brass scrolls. He also created new shapes, sheffield silver company candelabera e.g. the commode (chest) with curved outline.
Louis XIV boulle bureau Mazarin, rococo scroll corners about 1690.
ROCOCO FURNITURE STYLE
Known in France, zanzibar doors cup board where it originated, antique furniture drawer construction with nails as rocaille, round antique molding the rococo (’rock and shell’) style was a reaction to the pompous, william and mary veneer tables macho, art nouveau development Louis XIV version of baroque. Soon after the king’s death in 1715, antiques chippendale dining tables restorers rococo was created by Meissonier and Pineau, card table inlaid shell and developed during the Rgence when Louis XV was still a child. The cabinetmaker Crescent perfected the bombe (’blown up’) commode (see CHESTS OF DRAWERS P. 234-246). The cabriole leg, 17th century oak carved four panel coffer with the delicate curve of an elongated ‘S’, wood storage cabinet sideboard table furniture replaced the turned or scrolled legs of the baroque.
Surfaces were decorated with floral marquetry or lacquer. Carving and ormolu (gilded bronze) mounts were often asymmetrical, italian lacquer furnitures/versailles especially in some areas (Spain, antique painted card table country #2 Scandinavia) where the style was adopted almost too eagerly; but at its best, breakfront furniture, painted it was charming.
The Paris guild of cabinet-makers and joiners enforced quality control on its members who, hooded french chairs 18th century from 1743 until the Revolution in 1789, small quarter-round table had to stamp their products with their names.
Foreign craftsmen and makers to the Crown were excused, antique german side board so contrary to popular belief not all fine French furniture is signed.
Chairs and settees were richly upholstered. Large mirrors, antique murano glass mirrors previously a Venetian monopoly, small 2 drawer antique dresser were produced in France for the Palace of Versailles which was imitated by the rich all over Europe. Those with less money to spend adopted a diluted version of the baroque style one that involved (in Portugal especially) much bold turning on the lathe to produce baluster, 1800 century decorating stile bulbous and spiral profiles.
NEO-CLASSICAL FURNITURE STYLE
The rococo style was replaced in France several years before the death of Louis XV in 1774 by what is now known as the Louis XVI style. This was heralded as a return to discipline after the frivolities of rocaille. Shapes changed from sinuous curves to rectilinear, german porcelain maker wallendorf 1764 circular or oval outlines. Cabriole legs gradually gave way to straight ones, meissen girl with basket figurine lamp and bombe carcases were soon outmoded in Paris, sideboard form the early 1900’s though remaining popular in Holland and Sweden.
Once again, wooton desk a paris designers returned to the ancient civilizations for their inspiration. In the late 1750s, chinese fretwork chairs a cosmopolitan group mingled in Rome, forms of famous saxon pottery Pompeii and Herculaneum, antique iredescent tea sets where recent excavations aroused fresh enthusiasm for classical ideas, 1807 fusee pocket watch although little more was known about ancient furniture itself than had been familiar to the men of the Renaissance. In the first phase of neo-classicism, antique french arm chair it was only the ornament on neo-classical furniture urns, watteau style porcelain plates rams’ heads, antique free standing lighted ashtray masks and so forth that owed much to antiquity.
Marquetry was as popular as ever, antique kneehole desk & bookcase and although mythological figures were favourite subjects for it in Northern Italy, moorse bros ceramics with no mark the French still liked their flowers, antique florentine mirror and many pieces were inset with Svres porcelain plaques painted
with floral subjects. Some of the finest craftsmen in Paris were German, macasar in paris and one of the greatest David Roentgen supplied the Crown with furniture made in his Neuwied workshops. Famous for his marquetry, how to find the maker of a carriage clock he was among the first to abandon it when fashion dictated a plainer style.
Left, rug two dogs symbol kingwood secretaire incorporating Sevres porcelain plaques, antique spindle bed about 1780.
Louis XVI gilded fauteuil, antique dragon carved hexagonal marble top table about 1770-1780.
DIRECTOIRE FURNITURE STYLE
The first to attempt furniture based on ancient prototypes was the artist David, antique armoire no-1600 on the back of it? who copied couches and chairs from paintings on Greek vases and had them made for him, spanish antique armchairs in about 1787, antique william and mary chest of drawers by the royal chairmaker, thomas tompion tall case clock Jacob, antique corner cabinet cupboard an admirer of English furniture and the first major French craftsman to use solid mahogany a wood that had been fashionable in England for 50 years. The severe, wallace sideboard no-nonsense style continued after the Revolution in 1789, victorian button back, under the short-lived Directoire.
EMPIRE FURNITURE STYLE
A partial return to grandeur accompanied a new phase of neo-classicism in the early years of the 19thC, hand painted antique bedside tables when Perrier and Fontaine dressed it up with eagles, vintage swiss silver gilt pearlset enamel pendant watch laurel wreaths and other imperial symbols to echo the glory of the Emperor Napoleon, bruce talbert pet sideboard and added sphinxes to mark his Egyptian campaign. These motifs were cast in bronze and applied to pieces of austere shape, louis 15th rococo chair legs some based on Roman or Greek prototypes. Great play was made with black and gold paint, bear and stag japanese jug and drinking mugs and fabrics striped like the tents of the armies. The style was imitated
across Europe, french feet on antique english furniture what period is it? even in countries at war with France, mahagony so that terms such as ‘Russian Empire’ are sometimes used misleadingly to describe the French Empire style as it was interpreted elsewhere. In Paris, reproduction le courte coffee table 10, antique maple gateleg drop leaf table with 3 leaves 000 hands were employed in the furniture trade, antique folding chairs the Jacob family being the leading manufacturers.
Directoire mahogany chair, antique-style.com about 1790-1800.
Empire X-frame stool, art deco writing desk about 1810.
BIEDERMEIER FURNITURE STYLE
This term should be confined to Austrian, art nouveau ring box 1800s German and Scandinavian furniture of 181S-SO, lion’s paw furniture feet but many pieces Russian (Alexander 1), regency vases Polish (the ‘Simmler’ style) and French (Charles X) strongly resemble early Biedermeier, 18th century fusee which followed the neo-classical principles of the Empire, antique george ii oak library table three drawer but expressed them more soberly.
Light-coloured woods were favoured. Comfortable sofas with swan-neck arms, sofa leg wheel antique brass hefty fall-front secretaires, victorian bedside commode lyre-backed chairs and circular dining tables on central supports, antique furniture prices were typical items designed mainly for the middle-class which the name originally satirised, bureau english nineteenth century value though the most notable designer was the Berlin court architect Schinkel. The biggest manufacturers in Vienna were Danhauser from 1804 to 1838, spiral reeded leg rectangular pine table and Thonet, love coat of arms lions head who set up a factory in 1842 for making bentwood furniture.
‘Late Biedermeier’ and ‘Second Empire’ are terms used to describe the European bourgeois home in the later 19thC: over-stuffed seating and over-decorated woodwork in a medley of styles based on romantic revivals. In France, compagnie general transatlantique chamberpot good copies of 18thC pieces were made, historismus double eagle side table price while a few designers notably Violletle-Duc attempted scholarly re-creations of medieval types. In Italy, antique fold top table with pedestal legs magnificent pastiches in the Renaissance and baroque styles were produced.
ART NOUVEAU FURNITURE STYLE
This style takes its name from Bing’s shop in Paris which, octagonal oak gate leg table in the 1890s, antique carved wood chair sold both oriental imports and new, antique sellers cupboard upright revolutionary furniture.
Plant-form inspired the ‘whiplash line’ and asymmetrical shapes reminiscent of the rococo. Marquetry decoration was used by Majorelle and Gall of Nancy. Other leading designers were Endell of Germany and the Belgian, neoclassical upholstery fabric van de Velde. ‘Viking’ furniture was dreamed up in Scandinavia, bureau bookshelf while Munthe’s offbeat chairs in black and white, antique walnut italian mid 19th century mirror based on peasant patterns, louise the 14 chairs anticipated Art Deco.
French art nouveau cabinet, antique knee hole desks with marquetry decoration, victorian inlaid rosewood table about 1900.
Charles X dressing-table, antique oak lion head round table about 1850.
Biedermeier birchwood sofa, jacobethan dining room set about 1820.
In the 1920s, antique dutch pine bedside the Bauhaus was set up in Germany, drop leaf butler’s tray coffee table under the direction of Gropius, sevres boucher plate to create furniture suited to modern needs, italian mahogany china hutch to which Le Corbusier’s concept of the home as a

factory for living was first cousin.
Gerrit Rietveld Red and Blue chair; 1918.
ART DECO FURNITURE STYLE
Many people, value my antique roll top desk value however, antique frosted epergne of woman still yearned for luxury. At an exhibition of decorative arts in Paris in 1925, dinning room table against wall Le Corbusier’s display was in stark contrast to the lavish flavour of Ruhlmann’s exhibits, 19th century shaving which gave a new and very expensive twist to adaptations of 18thC design, classicism furniture using costly materials for items purporting to be functional.
Art Deco wrought-iron console table, bergere high white 1930s.
MODERNIST FURNITURE STYLE
A reaction against art nouveau began in Vienna soon after 1900 and continued in Berlin with the setting up of workshops for producing good inexpensive furniture, edwardian narrow bookcase using hand skills in association with machinery. During the 1914-18 war, gate-legged, ball foot tables Rietveld worked in neutral Holland on angular chairs, french art deco club chair put together without recourse to normal joinery, antique desk bible and painted in red, 19th century bell mortar blue and yellow.
Debased versions of jazzy Art Deco were soon being mass-produced, antique burgundy indigo blue oriental rugs but there was much good, pietre dure antiques galleries medium-range furniture made between the two world wars, antique watch bracelet enamel especially that produced under Scandinavian influence. Plain and simple, victorian carved floral panel cupboard modern but not ultra-modern, antique furniture with hand inlay it owed at least in spirit as much to the Biedermeier tradition as to the Bauhaus and art nouveau.
Palisander wood card table and chairs, burr walnut piano top davenport by Maurice Dubene, art nouveau maple china hutch 1930s.

GUIDE TO ENGLISH ANTIQUE FURNITURE PERIODS AND STYLES
English furniture styles developed in ways broadly in line with those of mainland Europe, art deco figurine but were interpreted in a distinctive fashion. There were also many regional variations within the British Isles — a term that once encompassed England, 1930’s folding wood card table Wales, edwardian inlaid chair styles Scotland and Ireland.
In England itself, antique walnut cabinet, union furniture co regional accents are marked by the differences between, antique bed end table attached englis say, antique buffet furniture North Country chairs and those of the West Country; Salisbury and Norwich were noted centres of production at an early date.
Wales retained the dresser and the press cupboard as status symbols long after they had ceased to be fashionable in England, antique bed foot stools and further distinctions are to be drawn between those of North and South Wales.
In late-18thC Scotland, regency columns Edinburgh was producing sophisticated furniture, used art deco dresser some of it with distinctive differences from that of London.
In the mid-18thC, johann hoffmann sitzmaschine Irish furniture was so extravagant in its use of richly carved mahogany — especially for side tables on cabriole legs — that a whole class is described as ‘Irish Chippendale’.
The following summary concentrates, antique empire style coffee table in common with the rest of the book, wooden chair frames for upholstry trade on the mainstream.
If you are a ‘mainland’ European (or an American) you will find it useful to understand the broad relationships between British and mainland European styles; and of course vice-versa.
MEDIEVAL
Romanesque Imported to Britain by the Normans following the conquest in 1066. Rounded arches — a typical Romanesque feature — occur on chests as late as the 17thC, antique crocodile silver flask james but the few examples still in existence which date from earlier than 1300 are simply constructed and mostly carved with roundels bearing little relation to Romanesque architecture.
Gothic About 1300 to 1550. The change from Romanesque was gradual. Panelled construction from about 1480, louis xiv bombe ormulu lions paw feet boulle the panels often carved with linenfold. The coronation chair at Westminster Abbey has a back with a pointed arch; made in 1296 by Master Walter of Durham, a. j. beatty & sons antique glassware it was the first English piece firmly attributable to a named maker. The Gothic style was revived in the mid-18thC and again in Regency and Victorian times.
ELIZABETHAN
Renaissance When Elizabeth I came to the
throne in 1558, english gothic tudor most furniture was functional and plain. After 1570, meissen victorian chamber pot a version of Renaissance style owing more to France and the Netherlands than to Italy found expression in fat turnings surmounted by Ionic capitals, antique 18th and 19th century german blue white cups and saucers cornflower solid inlay, antique german india table lamps brass with velvet lining carved caryatids, old chest of drawers with large top drawer strapwork, paterns and three leg tables split baluster turnings.
JACOBEAN
Strictly speaking, define edwardian style furniture the reign of James I, antique british cupboards 1603-25 but also used to cover that of Charles I (162549). Geometric mouldings, longines antique 1898 watch silver case split balusters, zen trestle table bobbin-turnings; popular until about 1720.
CROMWELLIAN OR COMMONWEALTH
Plain mid-17thC furniture said to be made for Puritans. Square-backed chairs on turned legs, cattaneo of london barometer
with leather upholstery fixed with large-headed nails; so-called ‘refectory’ tables on turned legs. Wood is generally oak, antique acorn leaves porcelain vase but solid walnut occurs.
RESTORATION
Sometimes known as Carolean, arabesque ivory design for frames in reference to Charles 11, antique metal branch lamp with vase restored to the throne in 1660. Also covers the reign of James II, whiting 1910 lady baltimore sterling silver gravy ladle 1685-9. Dominant style is baroque but more Franco-Dutch than Italian. Twist legs, 1930s queen anne bow cabinets carved scrolls, antique desk types caned seats, console vitrines top veneering, tall antique desk with front latch floral marquetry, 19 century french furniture sale japanning. Skilled French workers sought refuge in Britain when Louis XIV of France ceased to protect Protestants, antique round cherry dining table 1685.
Japanned oriental cabinet oil gilded stand, george walton arts and crafts chair about 1670- 1680.
WILLIAM AND MARY
More foreign craftsmen (Dutch and French) arrived in Britain following the accession of William of Orange and his wife Mary, neeldework workbag the daughter of James II, symbols, blue stripe over black field in 1689. Fine cabinet-William & Mary walnut bureau on stand, writing tables western about 1690.
Carted and panelled oak coffer, bosio seal stamp about 1650, antique french clock face making, 1940’s era draw leaf table reference walnut and ebony veneers, mahogany floral foliage antique bureau floral and `seaweed’ marquetry. Legs are turned to trumpet shapes or scrolled; scroll develops into cabriole leg by end of William’s reign in 1702.
QUEEN ANNE
During her reign, lionhead carving rocking chairs 1702-14, antique 18th century german furniture the cabriole leg dominated; surfaces were veneered with walnut, thomas sheraton chest but marquetry became less evident. English craftsmen, antique claw foot dresser having acquired foreign skills, wooden hasps adapted these to their own style.
Queen Anne walnut ta Ilboy, 1770 antique blanket chest lock 1710-1720.
EARLY GEROGIAN
George I and early years of George II until about 1730; mainly a continuation of the Queen Anne style, concealment marble in europe but rather heavier. Clawand-ball feet became the fashionable termination of the cabriole leg. Architect William Kent designed Italianate baroque furniture as a dramatic contrast to cool Palladian interiors.
MID-GEORGIAN

George 11, serpentine antique white sideboard 1730-60 and the first years of George 111. Mahogany replaced walnut as the fashionable wood. In 1754, chamberlain and co porcelain marks Chippendale’s designs appear; Ince and Mayhew’s, french rococo round end table 1759-62. Ribbon-back chairs, anglo indian furniture ornate gilt mirrors and console tables expressed the English interpretation of rococo. Some designs closely followed French (Louis XV) fashions. Chinoiseries popular. Gothic style revived.

LATE GEORGIAN
The George III period lasted from 1765 to 1800, porcelain neoclassical french vases but the term is sometimes extended back to 1730. First came the neo-classical style led by Adam – vertical lines, antique cachepot chinoiserie ovals, british united clock co wooden mantle circles, lichte-wallendorf white vase columns, small crown gold brooch with ruby and emerald urns, history of hardware english antique cabinet door hinges dating age disciplined carving, louis majorelle chair gilding and painting related to the Louis XVI style. Designs by Hepplewhite appear 1788, rockingham rhinoceros finials those of Sheraton 1791-4, art deco tambour front cupboard london providing a domestic, small george 111 dining table middle-class version of neo-classicism.
Gilded side-table in the style of William Kent, russian imperial malaquite furniture about 1750.
Mid-Georgian Chippendale-style mahogany chair, 80 year old round oak claw table antique about 1750.
Sotheby , antique card table with cabriole legs carved knees Late-Georgian Hepplewhite-style mahogany chair, jacobean antigue furniture about 1780.
REGENCY AND GEORGE IV
About 1800-30. Sometimes included with Late Georgian. Furniture has much in common with French Empire style. Greek, trestle table pullout Roman and Egyptian models used — sabre legs on chairs, advantage and disadvantage of tudor ( arches) lion monopodia, early sevres pottery sphinx mounts. Thomas Hope and George Smith head the list of designers, how to clean inlaid brass antique some featuring a second Gothic revival; also Chinese and Indian styles.
Regency rosewood secretaire, czecho slovakia identification marks in French Empire style, glass mould design about 1820.
WILLIAM IV AND EARLY VICTORIAN
Much furniture made 1830-50 was still neoclassical, period for bentwood chair? but heavier than Regency; some affinity with Charles X (French Restauration), billiet and roblin paris Biedermeier in Austria and Germany. Parallel with this are the Gothic revival led by Pugin and the rococo revival by commercial manufacturers making balloon-back chairs, english r. w. winfield brass bed asymmetrical chaises longues on cabriole legs. Increasing use of machines.
MID-VICTORIAN
The Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace, 1935 bing dining tables 1851, english style mirrors brought Continental exhibitors to London, triple stand for small decoration stimulating an eclectic taste for revivals of almost all historic styles, cupboard arches and imitated in poorer quality, painted display cabinet mass-produced furniture. Massive dining and bedroom suites; but parlour pieces more elegant, mahogany chest screw press with some sofas and chairs fringed and deep-buttoned in Napoleon III style. There were serious attempts at reviving medieval craftsmanship by reformers, small pices of glass for decoration such as Morris, carolean chair leg Burgess, antique ormolu candlesticks Talbert.
Godwin experimented with Japanese concepts.
Mid-Victorian rococo-style mahogany extending table, fretwork style bookcases about 1860.
LATE VICTORIAN, burled mahonogy veneer ART NOUVEAU AND EDWARDIAN
Heavy Victorian styles persisted until about 1910, desk with brass handles from the 30s along with reproductions of English, antique buffet chippendale French and Italian historic types, 1920’s queen anne revival dining chairs but the Arts and Crafts Movement, art deco secretary led by Mackintosh, voigt brothers figurines Ashbee, oak refectory tables carpenter Baillie Scott and Voysey introduced new ideas in sympathy with some aspects of European art nouveau, table-dining; victorian, oak, circular, 5 leaves, columnar standard, splayed legs, paw feet to which are often married commercial products that are partly an offshoot of the Edwardian revival of Sheraton styles in mahogany with inlaid decoration.
Oak buffet by M.N. Baillie :Scott, antique chair types barley sugar eclesiastic about 1897.
MODERNIST AND ART DECO
The period between the two world wars, swan neck cornice secretary marked by genuine desire for greater simplicity and honest, antique louis xv candelabra 1750 economically made furniture of the type produced by Heal and Russell, antique porcelain drop leaf table but in competition with mass-produced junk on the one hand and finely made but expensive products on the other. The term Art Deco — like most stylistic labels — was unknown at the time the furniture was being made. It derives from the 1925 Arts Decoratifs exhibition in Paris, antique metal tripod tray table and only came to be applied to the style in the 1960s.

English Furniture
The Age of Walnut
The Restoration of Charles II to the secretary bookcase desk painted throne of England and Scotland in 1660 heralded a new age in Britain, which was to break away from the ebonized edwardian sideboard with queen anne legs mood of asceticism imposed under the chinese inspired sideboard puritan rule of Cromwell and the art deco diner figurine
Commonwealth. This was reflected as much in the victorian military chest furniture as in any other artistic field. Walnut, which had been used extensively for furniture for some time in many European countries, now came into fashion in
England. Almost from the chinese man bowl pottery start it dominated English furniture and continued to do so for nearly a century. It replaced oak in solid form for chairs, etc., and it was also used as veneer on oak or other woods for
cabinet-making. Some experts consider the manufacture de reveil francaise (uti) walnut creations of this period finer than anything else in the antique rocking chair brass inlaid history of English furniture.
Walnut has a natural beauty of grain, and it acquires a mellow colour and patina through age. When worked with skill it lends itself to the antique bookcase fretwork most complex kinds of decoration. Today,
Long-case clock veneered with walnut, about 1715
the walnut furniture of this period is extremely popular, but it is also very expensive, despite the expand dining table rectangle slide fact that a vast amount was made during the plain cabriole legs century. Some antique shops in Britain have one or two genuine pieces, and one can often find the chinese black lacquer desk m at auction sales.
Typical walnut items that have survived from the gate leg table stretcher styles period in some quantity include chairs, bureaux, chests of drawers, tallboys, pedestal dressing tables and long-case clocks. But the italian majolica antique re are, on the long scroll foot legs other hand,
comparatively few surviving tables, bookcases or china cabinets, probably because less of the pine drop leaf tables 1800 se items were made at the silver shoe buckles time. Far more common are oak or mahogany tables.
Walnut furniture styles in England after 1660 developed very quickly, and the veneer card table with heart shaped base y were influenced by European characteristics, such as the antique plaster picture frames for sale bow stretchers for chairs from Spain, bulb leg and inverted cup motif from
Portugal, and C- and S-shaped scroll-work from the masonic fobs that fold open Low Countries. English pieces were either walnut-veneered, walnut with marquetry, or walnut lacquered in the antique table with shell Chinese or Japanese manner. Architectural features were imporant.
one piece of the cobalt blue taylor & kent period which underwent considerable development was the antiques french glass lamp gold circa 1900s chair, two examples of which are illustrated here. The Charles II type had twisted legs and balusters, carved cresting, straight stretchers and often canework seat and back. With the jacot carriage clock timepiece advent of the oak roll top desk uk Dutch king, William III, chairs began to incorporate C- and S-shaped scroll motifs. Then the george iii chest of drawers stretchers were joined to all four legs in a wavy X-shape. By the skultuna brass kettle pot time of Queen Anne (1702-1714) cabriole legs had become predominant. At first the 1940’s carved feather dining chairs se were joined by stretchers, but by 1710 or so the all artists who worked for wedgwood in the 19th century y were standing on the louis xiv gold desk ir own. Another prominent chair leg shape was a cabriole leg with carved knee and ball-and-claw foot.
While English cabinet-makers were constructing the rococo kneehole kidney shaped desk ir splendid walnut creations, the antique furniture miami art of marquetry arrived from Germany, France and Italy, in such a way that the english fire screens English did not need to evolve the chrome hearts chair ebony ir own type but
merely learnt how to emulate the myott son & co hanley est 1880 European. The English exponents proved to be very skilled, but the antique hand carved table square y were seldom as liberal with colour or as gay with design as the restoring antique wax flowers ir European contemporaries. English styles were
exemplified by jessamine flowers in white ivory
Typical Jacobean walnut armchair of about 1685, with cane back and seat, and carved cresting and stretcher
and leaves in ivory stained green.
The beginning of the russian mahogany cylinder bureau eighteenth century witnessed significant changes in walnut furniture in England. Influenced by Maroc (see page 80), whose originality of design had powerfully affected Dutch furniture, new styles developed. Pieces had decorative outlines, pediments, single or double domes, complete or broken arches, and scrolls. Doors of large pieces such as wardrobes and bureau-bookcases were panelled and not
flush-veneered, and the chairs with curved backs and little legs panels were protecting or recessed. In place of panelling silvered glazing became popular.
Architecture continued to be an important influence and
cabinet-makers displayed a sound sense of proportion and detail. Cross-banding, which was the antique one tier condiment table centerpiece stand effective employment of cross-grained wood to produce contrast, came into fashion. Another innovation was the satinwood and parquetry centre table, second half 19th c gilding of such pieces as wall mirrors, chairs, card tables, consoles. Looking-glasses became important pieces of furniture, as the 19th century chippendale chairs y were useful for filling gaps between windows or above heavy mantelpieces.
Most Queen Anne and George I (1714-1727) pieces, however, were straight walnut veneered, with or without banding or inlay. The carcases were of oak or pine. Mouldings were used to decorate simpler and more
rectilinear pieces, appearing around drawer fronts or along table edges. New items appeared, such as card tables with folding flaps and special ’swing-out’ bowls for money, bureau-bookcases with doors in the herculaneum furniture upper half, drop fronts in the pennsylvania house drop leaf end table middle, both concealing small drawers, cupboards and secret compartments. Another new piece was the fine 18th century berlin porcelain relief birds insects bachelor chest, which had three long
This early 18th-century walnut armchair incorporating capriole legs Win carved knees reflects a considerable development in design Walnut-veneered bureau-cupboard with double-dome top, and fitted with looking-glass panels. Made in about 1710 drawers and two short ones above, and on top a fold-over lid on which to write or for use as a dressing table.
After about 1720 walnut became increasingly hard to obtain. Embargoes were placed on importing it from Europe, and stocks of native wood were diminishing. So the antique flat desks cabinetmakers had to look elsewhere. They found a darker and closer grained variety of walnut in the empire style sofa mahogany eagle cornucopia American Colonies, and of course it was expensive to import. They also increased the japanese laquered bronzevase ir purchases of mahogany from Spain and Africa which was still not too
expensive to import in quantity. Its worm-resistant properties were already appreciated as well as its suitability for carving. From 1740 onwards the www.roma genuine italian sofa seettee .com Cuban variety of mahogany began to be imported. Its grain and figure are superior to that of walnut and it was not long before walnut was no longer used as the victorian bow fronted walnut china cabinets 1920/1930 major wood for cabinet-making.
Although this period has been called the jacob petit porcelain plate Walnut Age, the long case art deco vogue for lacquered furniture, popular throughout Europe, was enjoyed very widely in England from the american mid victorian extending mahogany d-table earlier years of Charles II’s reign. The principal item
ordered by those who could afford this luxury was the convex mirror eagle ball chain cabinet. This appeared first in about 1680, but it was by no means the antique gold coin bracelet only lacquered piece of furniture. Other pieces included long-case clocks, secretaires, chests and commodes. At first, lacquered pieces were imported from the small round wooden bureau with drawers East, the drop leaf table replacement hinges or brackets that hold up leaf of table best coming from Japan, but considerable amounts of fine quality pieces were exported also from China. The next development was for cabinet-makers to make pieces of furniture and send the wedgwood bournvita set jug m to the jacobean chair straw East to be lacquered. Finally, at the ladder back chairs by adam desk company end of the neoclassical design interior century the antique box with locked drawer open compartments brass and shield details y started to make and lacquer the vintage wooden 3 leg end table pieces the four poster bed upolstery mselves. As the william and mary period tea caddy best pieces had originally come from Japan, the 19th century american clawfoot dining table new art was called ‘japanning’. English lacquer-work was never as fine as the antique dresser with winged mirrors
Queen Anne folding top card table, with carved knees on the 17 century candelabra cabriole legs.
An innovation of the georgian painted cupboards period was the antique tripods small walnut bachelor chest, with a fold-over top that converted the antique art deco u-shaped table chest to a desk or dressing table.
A very fine example of early 18th-century English lacquer-work.
original Oriental, for it was coarse, the moser glass urn frieze reliefs were too marked and the antique rosewood flat front credenza coating was thin.
The more attractive qualities of mahogany wood as a material for furniture-making, and the white ceramic trash cans with gold outline growing dominance of French styles over all those in Europe led to changes in English styles from about 1740 onwards. The next sixty years were to be the antique buffet most famous in English furniture history.

Italian Furniture
Italy was not only the arrow mirror top smokers stand’ birthplace of the four continents antique -maps European Renaissance, it was also the antique louis xv, kingwood writing table source of the tiffany silver sewing kit Baroque style of architecture and the identifying antique chairs with horsehair padding furniture that evolved with it. As early as 1600 the antique child chair tapestry seat back restraint of the antique chairs sabre leg classical lines of
Renaissance furniture was disappearing behind exuberant ornamentation. Cabinets and tables, for example, were supported by painted and gilded understructures, with ostentatious carved naked figures such as naiads or negroes, or eagles and lions, jumbled up with scrolls, shells, cartouches, etc. Table tops were often surfaced with brilliantly coloured marble slab, or marble mosaic, or pietre dure. Chairs were richly carved and gilded, with greatly exaggerated motifs, and were upholstered in large-patterned velvet.
Some of the antique kidney shaped table best examples of this Baroque furniture were executed under the m l antique castle bear jug inspiration of Domenico da Cortona, who supervised the reproduction adam style writing table decoration of the louis sideboard with dresser design Palazzo Pitti in Florence and the antique bed turn of the century Palazzo Barberini in Rome during the bookcase 6in deep years 1630 to 1660. In the round mahogany antique dining table middle of the antique drop leaf table 1700 price century the reproduction mother of pearl chest of drawers Baroque style began to be extensively interpreted in walnut, characterized by splendid veneered surfaces, with contrasting raised panelling or moulding.
Pediments tops, sides and fronts of pieces such as cupboards were embellished with gay carved plastic ornamentation. In Venice, a leading home of fine furniture-making, the how much is a fruitwood table from 1900 worth walnut was often part-gilded for
contrast.
Venice was also the german cabinet 18 century principal home of Italian lacquered furniture, which was among the antique mirrow 1720 best in Europe. In the built in shaped dressing tables period 1650 to 1700 this lacquer was usually black and vermilion, and the french furniture sale most general decorative patterns were chinoiserie. After 1700 the japanned cabinet on stand lacquer craftsmen began to use dark green and gold panels as well, and the antique davenport burr walnut desk total effect was very fine. Commode fronts and sides were gay and irresponsible. Lacquer decoration was later extended to a host of other household items, such as small boxes, trays, ornaments, hand
Three examples of furniture styles carried to excess (top) German Rococo commode of about 1760 by Bauer, (centre) Italian Rococo gilt throne of about 1730, and (bottom) Italian Baroque chair with heavy upholstery.
The carving is over-elaborate, with negroes incorporated in the antique winged lambing chairs arm supports
This splendid example of Italian mid 18th-century lacquer-work amply illustrates the early georgian windsor chairs great skill of the 1815 : english \dressing table Venetian lacquerers looking-glasses, finger-plates for doors and even walking sticks.
Italian furniture-makers of the spoon back velvet covered victorian armchairs late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries also specialized in various kinds of inlay work. Panels made up of semi-precious stones, known as pietre dure, and imitation marble mosaic known as scagliola work were used for table tops and fronts to cabinets. Consoles, always a popular item of furniture in Italian houses, were topped with huge slabs of indigenous marble, especially from Carrara, and supported by human or mythological figures or huge shells, often heavily gesso-gilded. They were over ornate, but in a large room the vignette, antique, neoclassical style y must have looked splendid.
French influence infiltrated into Italy in the george iii mahogany square legs long stool early eighteenth century and remained a dominating feature for nearly a hundred years. Rococo fashions replaced the william and mary style antique dining sets Baroque, and, as in Germany, the galle lamps made in england style was more
frivolous and more Piffetti of Turin carried the antique u-shaped chair Rococo style to eccentric lengths in this Italian bureau of 1730, inlaid with ivory and rare woods
When Empire styles reached Italy at the figurine in austria 1751 beginning of the break arch with lead glass grandfather clock 19th century the antique boston mahogany sideboard y were quickly absorbed, to the chinese lacquer bookcases detriment of Italian 18th-century furniture traditions. This desk by Socchi of Florence has little to recommend it nounced than in France, especially in furniture from Venice and Turin. The inlaid ivory and rare wood bureau by Piffetti of Turin in the biedermeier wings armchairs Quirinale Palace in Rome is a good example.
Further south in the french art deco vitrine curved glass peninsula the display imperial desks antique more restrained Neoclassicism of Louis XVI styles began to be reflected in pieces made after 1770. There were also distinct characteristics deriving from English furniture styles,
particularly of Adam. By the paris gustavian early nineteenth century much Italian furniture had become simple and straight-lined. A writing table by Socchi of Florence is a considerable departure from earlier styles. It is in the napoleon french furniture classic Empire
style and not very attractive at that. Marquetry-work continued to feature in Italian furniture, but not always to the desks from antique sewing table best effect in rectilinear designs.

The Regence
French furniture reached the standard clock mechanisms zenith of achievement in the gobelins brussel eighteenth century. The styles, and the value 1830 spindle antique bed craftsmanship with which individual pieces were made, were unquestionably the french canape maddison 3 places furniture finest in the richard & co carriage clocks history of furniture.
The styles fall into four main periods, Regency (c.1710?c.1735), Louis XV (c.1735-c.1760), Transitional (c.1760-c.1770) and Louis XVI (c.1770-c.1795). There was a fifth period, the american chest of drawers not later than 1840 Directoire (c.1795-c.1805), but this is not comparable with the william english embossed silver 1v other four-
Regence furniture was lighter and gayer than that of Louis XIV ; Boulle marquetry gave way to wood marquetry, and the italian/french style sideboards Rococo style, with its asymmetry, superseded the oval back chair origin heavy cornice and panel decoration of the furniture german buffet Baroque. The influence of Regency gilt console of about 1725, from a design by Oppenord. It is a fine example of Rococo gilt woodwork
This very handsome bureau-plat was made by Cressent in about 1730. It is in kingwood and tulipwood veneer. The mounts were probably made by Cressent as well
Berain was predominant for a long time. Historically, the french metal tambour bookcase Regency lasted but eight years, 1715-1723, but the book-rest to fit on armchair new styles of furniture began before 1715 and carried on well into the charles bevan centre table fourth decade of the black wardrobe with queen anne legs century. We see
the introduction of fantastic designs in bronze mounts, based on shell and rock forms, with elaborate flowers and foliage, curves and scrollwork, which overran the charles ashbee writing table wood frames.
We have seen that the empire mahogany chest of drawers bureau ebenistes had become independent craftsmen, even if employed by the mission style break front Crown, and some of the rosewood antique bow fronted corner cupboard m like Boulle and Charles Cressent were making very prosperous livings out of the grainger lee porcelain ir businesses.
Their work was individual although it subscribed to certain fundamental principles. They were catering for an aristocracy which enjoyed considerable wealth and the antique turret clock face leisure that came with it. Thus the japanese 18th century chairs furniture was both
practical and comfortable. The legs of chairs and sofas, for example, became shorter, chair backs were lower, chair arms were placed further back on the mid century dining table with foldable leaves seat and not directly over the antique chests american 18th century front legs. It has been said that the 19th century mojolica urns changes in women’s dress fashions led to this widening and deepening of chairs, or that the antique wocester candle snuffer lowering of the double compartment antique tea caddy los angeles height of men’s wigs, which allowed a lower chair back, was responsible. In fact it is more likely to have been for architectural reasons.
The Regent, who was the george iii pedestal sideboard nephew of Louis XIV, lived at the antique display cabinet top compartment Palais Royal in Paris, which had once been owned by Cardinal Richelieu. He also had a country house at Bagnolet. In each of the c.b. hansen biedermeier se two residences an architect
presided over the german bed antique 19th century work of improving the antique art deco italian sideboard decoration and furnishing. In Paris it was Gilles?Marie Oppenord and at Bagnolet a man of very different taste, Christophe Huet, who was a disciple of Berain. The principal
furniture-maker for both places was Cressent (1685-1768).
Although Cressent was by no means the adams demi lune games table only ebeniste of the walnut dining table with yew band time ? we have evidence of over thirty ebenistes and menuisiers working in the how to use balloon back chairs period — catalogues of his works have survived, as have accounts of his
dealings with the chinese black lacquer tea table Crown, and we can in the pair regency card tables absence of such evidence for other people regard him as the late 19th century oak carved lion mask handles desk most representative of his time.
Since each piece of furniture made personally by Cressent took many months to complete the six legged, wooden antique recliner chair re cannot have been many in his total output during the white french dinning room table Regency period. What is more, Cressent very rarely signed his
furniture, since in those days it had neither become compulsory to stamp pieces with makers’ names nor was it even customary. Thus only a few can definitely be ascribed to Cressent. They are particularly fine, as the philadelphia highboy 1800s illustrations show, and his liberal use of bronze mounts in the suce tureen james young wonderful Rococo style set an example to many ebenistes who were to follow.
During the antique resin cast faces Regency France managed to revive its trading activities after a period of recession following the copeland late spode vienna plate costly War of the rare william & mary period japanned cabinet on chest Spanish Succession. Considerable business was done in the charles ii trefid teaspoon West Indies where several
islands had already become French possessions, and one result was the antique plaster busts of women introduction of new woods such as mahogany, satinwood, rosewood (often known as kingwood), and purplewood. These became fashionable for
marquetry-work when the portuguese bronze table casket popularity of Boulle tortoiseshell and metalwork waned.
For some time the georgian footstools re had been two guilds of fondeurs-
(right) Purplewood clock and cabinet by Cressent, about 1740
(left) Another fine example of Cressent’s work, a Regence commode of matched kingwood veneer, heavily decorated in bronze. It is probably based upon a design by Pineau ciseleurs and ciseleurs-doreurs, who tried to monopolize bronze mount making, but many ebenistes made the how to repair wood gateleg spindle ir own mounts. In the sparta carpet colour 29 Louis XV period the antique german carved desk guilds became strong enough to insist on being given this work. Cressent was prosecuted by the repairing brass inlay guilds on several occasions for having the bristol crossed swords work done in his own workshops, and so were others.
The eighteenth century saw the history of pembroke table pad feet cuban growth of the charles ii chair circa 1680 number of smaller rooms with a special function in great houses such as rooms for sewing, writing, dressing, etc., and this dictated a need for small pieces of furniture.
One of the antique 6 leg side tables se was the cabinet-vitrine; napoleon iii, walnut, ebonized, glazed door, plinth base. encoignure, or corner cupboard, which had first been designed in the danish style wood frame sofa loose cushion last years of Louis XIV’s reign. It now became a regular item in the korea antique porcelain marks house. Encoignures were usually made in pairs,
sometimes in the antique sofa table c 1805 same style as a commode which would be placed between the 1800’s antique dining room table with dolphins on base m. Other new pieces were bonheurs-dujour, which were ladies’ writing desks, and small writing tables.
The Rococo style in furniture was greatly enhanced by the english pottery devon ideas of Juste Aurele Meissonnier, who was designer to the brass bird feet table king from 1726. He published a profuse range of designs for decoration and furniture in the paw foot furniture
asymmetrical rocaille form. The shell, in a variety of modes, becomes an important
feature in both marquetry work and in solid furniture. Chair backs now exposed the ice vine floral wooden surround of the italian antique card tables frame, whether upholstered or carved, and the wood claw feet table restoration shell took the chinoiserie champleve enamel clock central position. Chairs were often painted,
gilded or silvered, and it was usual for the barley \turned leg table raw woodwork to be treated in one of the sheraton card table construction se ways. Many surviving chairs of the heubach dresden porcelain figurine german period that are now in the antique furniture restorers glasgow plain wood state were once so decorated.
A word should be added of the solid silver vinaigrette by edward smith approx. 1850 continuing popularity of lacquered furniture, a style which developed in the false drawer dresser pine seventeenth century. Lacquered cabinets made in the italian velvet settee with woven cane East, for example in China or Japan, were imported and
put on home-made stands. At the silk rug with raised flowers on the ends signed turn of the antique dressers century some ebenistes tried to imitate genuine lacquer-work, but with indifferent results. A better effect was obtained by importing the wood, veneered and inlaid with engraved ivory; brass and iron mounts main front panelling and building it into an indigenous framework. In about 1730 Guillaume Martin and his brothers were granted permission, for twenty years, to market on a large scale a new transparent lac varnish mixed with colour which the silver ashtray cup hc mark 1900 moscow y had
invented. This enabled ebenistes to produce lacquered furniture of a much higher quality than the pics of jacobean chairs imitators of the 19th century royal worcester porcelain patterns previous generation, and, mounted with fine bronze-work, lacquer pieces maintained popularity for
many years.
The merging of Regency styles into Louis XV styles was a gradual process, but by 1735 to 1740 it is clear that a new era of furniture-making was on the antique table pull out leaves way.
(left) This cane seat chair of about 1730 illustrates the velvet armchairs and french art deco use of rocaille decoration on furniture, following Meissonnier. It has not been gilded or painted
(right) Lacquered furniture in France was in great demand throughout the antique regency gateleg dining table period. This encoignure incorporates a panel of Chinese lacquer and was made in about 1740
This very graceful chaise longue in carved walnut and upholstered in damask, made in about 1760, typifies the antique bed pot with lid comfort of Louis XV furniture styles

The Low Countries
Some of the sheraton oak desk best Gothic furniture had come out of the antique individual fish knives and forks english ivory handle rich towns in Flanders, such as Brussels, Liege and Antwerp, and it was in the american antique chests of drawers cherry wood se places that the meubles carvd design new styles of the gateleg dining tables Italian Renaissance took root. Flemish furniture of the coffee table marquetry india figure wood ivory later fifteenth century already shows the victorian sheraton revival cylinder top writing desk influence of architectural principles, and in the slim buffet cabinet first half of the sheraton mohagony bureau 1800 next century Flemish styles reached a high standard of Renaissance form under Cornelis Bos and Cornelis Floris, the painted decorated antique doors latter a carver of quite exceptional skill who specialized in grotesques and scroll-work.
Perhaps the edwardian mahogany sideboard cabriole legs leading influence, however, was Hans Vredemann de Vries of Antwerp, painter, architect and engineer, who published a variety of furniture designs. Some were in a book called Differents Pourctraites de
Menuiserie, and this book had a profound influence on furniture in the mundus bentwood with cane bottom Low Countries generally. Although the 1920’s chest of drawers furniture had already adopted the drawer handles for chippendale bow front desk Renaissance ‘look’, de Vries and his followers made Low Countries
furniture among the antique cupboards and cabinets for storing food finest outside Italy. De Vries’ son, Paul, continued his father’s important work, publishing further volumes of designs in 1630. Cupboards, tables, chairs, beds, chests were ornamented in the golden age malachite chess table best Renaissance tradition with a variety of new motifs. One of de Vries’ designs was for a long refectory table with the claw foot chair dragon Flemish–style draw-top. Two sections of the flemish mouldings for picture framing same thickness and which together make up the czecho-slovakia curved back tavern chairs same length as the rodania 1970s ladies automatic gold watch top are drawn out and raised to the french oak marquetry sideboard same level as the antique chairs with stamped numbers top to make a very long table. The framework is supported by legs which are balusters with cubes, etc., linked by stretchers at the royal worcester animas painted by j. stintong lower end and resting on bun feet. Carving was an important mode of decoration on the antique opium bed with rotating head and feet rest heavy wooden cabinets and chests so popular with the antique empire drop front bureau with bookcase wealthy Dutch burghers. Biblical and classical scenes, geometrical shapes and Renaissance floral motifs overwhelm the barley twist period kitchen cabinetry surface of the antique furniture restorers glasgow se cupboards. Dutch interiors were usuallypanelled in rich woods and the chinese pillar rug carved furniture was especially designed to fit in with this fashion.
Chairs remained upright and fairly rigid, though leather seats and backs became fashionable. The leather was elaborately carved, like Spanish chair backs, and the pictures of 1800’s antique rococo renaissance side chairs tops of the libary mahogany tables two vertical chair back members were often headed by carved Low Countries furniture, especially that of the meiji shibayama cigar case box United Provinces, later called Holland, was to change again. The expansion of Dutch interests in the circa 1900 ardebil with cartouche East and the 1700s austrian antique table prosperity this brought Holland was the gunstock repair hole filler cause in the louis xiv dressing tables seventeenth century of the mategot lamps morocco reproductions development of individual furniture styles employing a variety of new, rare and exciting woods.

Italy
The Renaissance, a term that has never been satisfactorily defined, began in Italy somewhere about the antique theatre chair scroll iron 1800 end of the how much is an empire bureau worth fourteenth century. It means, roughly, the thomas sheraton twin bed revival in Europe of Greek and Roman ideals in art,
literature and architecture, and it marks the solid rosewood half moon table beginning of the belleek ireland marks without dog or tower end of the 1800’s writing desk square peg Mliddle Ages. Gradually, however, the antique chamber chairs Renaissance replaced the antique english oak sideboard 1950 sold Gothic taste.
This return to the antique rocking chaairs with mother of pearl decorations ideas of ancient Greece and Rome extended to furniture, but in so doing limitations were at once placed upon design, because few genuine relics of classical furniture had survived. What was learned
came from literature or from sculpture and stone reliefs. Furniture-makers in fact took existing patterns, not only of ancient Greece and Rome but also of Gothic styles, and tried to improve upon the linenpress with symbolic pearl inlay m by making the arm chair antique m
conform to the ewers and jugs and strasbourg principles of classical architecture, particularly with larger pieces of furniture. To a great extent the qianlong celadon ceramics y succeeded, but many early Renaissance pieces remained crude in the antique bible boxes ir proportions, especially when compared with the georgian style rosette inlay buildings of the period furniture table top base Italian architects of the edwardian chaise longue cabriole time.
There were some notable exceptions, however, particularly the 1860 wood knob chest of drawers di Giovanni cupboard which, made in about 1500, is now at the antique ebony carved table Abbazia di Monte Oliveto Maggiore, near Siena. This splendid piece not only demonstrates the art school wooden trestle second hand best in Italian Renaissance furniture design according to architectural principles. It is also an excellent example of the small tables with taapered legs art of intarsia. This technique began in Italy in Byzantine times and reached great heights in Florence in the waiter cut out wood late fifteenth century, where its greatest exponent was Francesco di Giovanni.
Intarsia is a form of wood marquetry which is made up of polygonal tesserae of wood, bone, mother-of-pearl and metal in geometric patterns. To accentuate differences in colour and shade the crescent line furniture woods used were dyed or scorched. A development of the john widdicomb claw and ball feet console table art was pictorial intarsia, and the antique oak wash stand trompe-loeil
This Italian Renaissance interior has a fine chimnevpiece with heraldic decoration. Some of the antique walnut concave display cabinet furniture has characteristics of earlier styles such as Gothic form was a remarkable version. It produced a three-dimensional picture by virtue of creating an optical illusion. The illustrated panel is an excellent example.
Italian furniture-makers improved upon a number of traditional pieces. The folding stool, for centuries limited to a seat supported by two pairs of crossed members articulating at the modern metal dressing chest centre of the crested silverware X, now had a row of crossed leg members close together, and the large table size cornucopia legs extended upwards beyond the staffordshire tin glaze seat in graceful curves. Chests, coffers and box seats were also very greatly improved. A chest now became a single unit with an architectural decoration of cornice and plinth, and sometimes pilasters. They were made chiefly of walnut which when stained and varnished took on a soft
(right) Italian walnut folding stool, of the antique china cups and saucers shapes designs early 16th century, which has a back as well as arms. The back was detachable. These stools are sometimes called X-shaped stools
(left) Intarsia panel with perspective decoration in various woods. Late 1 5th century, from Urbino
(right) This early Italian Renaissance box settle has clear architectural features
dark brown hue that accentuated the antique mahogany dining table baluster l.a. furniture architectural profile.
Dining tables of the antique czechoslovakia lusterware period generally had rectangular top! supported at each end by strong consoles, connected by stretcher. The feet of the greek antique bridal chest consoles sometimes took the antique mirrors valuation fora of lions’ paws, like classical Roman marble tripod tables and in fact a great deal of trouble was taken in decorating the covered pierced silver salt cellar se consoles, which even included boldly sculptured grotesques.
New pieces of the ming dynasty bowl porcelain barbed period included writing desks which had drawers on either side of a central niche for the ogee refectory table top knees Chairs remained essentially upright, often with straight square legs, and much attention was paid to
both carving and upholstery. Velvet cushions, velvet or leather seat coverings for stuffed seats, fixed with large-bossed nails, made the antique iron stands legs supports chairs more comfortable than the reproduction marble top end table ir predecessors, but the brightly colored porceline dinnerware made in france re was still no return to the thonet brothers art nouveau relaxed sabre-leg chair style of ancient Greece and Rome, presumably because no examples were found.
The furniture styles of the antique mahogany full bed frame orange ca Italian Renaissance spread to all Western Europe, gradually merging with, or superseding, the antique chair with mother of pearl inlay Gothic styles. The concentration on architectural principles, and the ram?s head victorian snuff box new boldness and diversity of the antique swan shaped headboard forms of carving, painting and gilding of furniture, prepared the marjorie townley art work ground for a whole range of locally varying styles in Europe. Each of the wing chairbaroquebraganza main countries was to have its own particular Renaissance, in furniture as well as in the art deco 1930 antique dining other arts, and it is interesting to see national styles growing out of this great movement.

THE MIDDLE AGES
For centuries after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century AD there is no clear picture of the development of individual domestic furniture styles in Western Europe. Byzantium was now the capital of the Eastern Empire and of the Christian Church, and such pieces as can be dated and attributed to Western Europe were influenced by Byzantine furniture styles. In many cases they may have been made by Byzantine craftsmen. Among these are a sixth-century bishop’s throne of ivory at Ravenna in Italy and a bronze throne supposedly made in about 600 AD and used by the Frankish king Dagobert 1 (628-639). The latter is based on the folding stool principle of construction.
In the Eastern Roman Empire, meanwhile, the craft of furniture-making continued unabated, although its styles became more and more ecclesiastical. At the same time these styles also reflected the older traditions of the Near East. The graceful and relaxed contours of classical Greece and Rome gave way to upright, rigid and uncomfortable lines like the Ravenna ivory throne, which itself was closer to ancient Persian thrones. But if the gracefulness diminished, the carving and the embellishment retained their high quality, in some cases bearing comparison with the best Roman work. And when the secret of silk manufacture, for centuries the monopoly of China, was revealed in the middle of the sixth century by two Byzantine monks who had smuggled some silk-worm eggs back to Greece from the East, silk-weaving leapt into importance as an industry, not least for the drapery and upholstery of furniture.
When furniture-making as a skill reappears in Western Europe the earliest pieces of any merit are ecclesiastical, and for the most part they are fixed items, such as stalls, prayer benches, etc., in early churches. Gradually, more attention was paid to movable articles like stools and chests. Folding stools were as popular as they had been in earlier days, and now they took two distinct forms: one for ecclesiastical use and the other for regal or military use. It was the chest, however, that appears to have received the greatest attention.
When a feudal system of land ownership began to evolve in Western Europe in the sixth and seventh centuries, landlords began to accumulate domestic possessions, such as clothing, jewellery and household utensils. The nature of their way of life ? they had to travel incessantly about their often extensive territories    involved continual cartage of their belongings. Not only did seats and beds have to be. easily dismantled and then reassembled, but a variety of smaller pieces of equipment also had to be transported because they were in constant use. For this, the wooden chest became indispensable.
For centuries, then, an enormous variety of sizes and shapes of chest was produced in nearly every country in Western Europe, for both secular and ecclesiastical use. Many of them were embellished with fine carving. Some were bound with decorative ironwork strips, and even the earliest ones had iron locks or clasps. Tops were flat or gabled; if flat they would be used as seats when they were not being transported, and eventually they were made to stand on legs which were extensions of the vertical end members.
Not long after the Norman invasions of Italy and England in the eleventh century the first cupboards since Roman times appear in Europe. They are crudely constructed, in some cases so much so that they are painted with portraits or figures in vivid colours to hide the indifferent workmanship at the joints.
The same crude and uneven quality pervades surviving chairs, benches and couches from these centuries, and the best craftsmanship is confined to woodwork in ecclesiastical buildings, such as the great cathedrals and abbeys which were springing up from Wales to Austria and from Scotland to Spain in the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
The fifteenth century marked the introduction of new styles of furniture-making in Europe. Loosely described by later generations as Gothic, like the architecture of the same name, they embodied decorative motifs such as tracery, finials, pointed arches and foliage. The quality of construction also improved. Chests, for example, ceased to be just assemblages of thick planks, with here and there exuberant but not very delicate carving. They began to be made of wood in a proper framework, with rails, thin panelling and architectural ornament. They also assumed proper proportions.
The changes were first seen in Flanders where some of the towns had become extremely prosperous by virtue of the cloth trade or through shipping. One new piece of furniture which appeared was the dressoir, a tall structure consisting of a chest with doors, supported by a stand on a plinth, a natural development from the chest. The gap between the chest part and the plinth could be used for displaying exceptional items of metalware or pottery. The chest part was more or less at eye level, and therefore suitable for storage of cups, small ewers, etc.
Chests were also developed into settles with backs and sides. The area beneath the main box part began to be utilized for drawers. A whole new vista of ornamentation opened, in which asymmetry was a distinguishing feature. This is clear from the carving on the front of the chest from France illustrated here. One popular type of wood ornament was linenfold, and some of the best examples of this type of carving came from England. Much of the tracery was of ecclesiastical origin, imitating as it did the beautiful creative work in stone and wood from the cathedrals and abbeys, and this is easy to Austrian folding stool of the 1 3th century, possibly from the time of the Hapsburgs. This stool has ducks’ head ends for the feet, like the ancient Egyptian stool illustrated on page 6 understand in an age when religion played a dominant part in all men’s lives.
The principal feature, however, of this Gothic period of furniture was the appearance, for the first time, of furniture fashions. Different regions of Western Europe enjoyed individual vogues of design and manufacture. In fifteenth-century France, for example, the ornamentation on wood concentrated on foliage and animal designs and it was generally very elaborate. This was made easier by the increasing use of walnut, a wood that is softer than the oak which continued to predominate in England and Germany.
When the influence of the Italian Renaissance first made itself felt in Western Europe it began by superficial decorative impositions on basic Gothic styles. But the acceptance of the new philosophical ideas of the Renaissance among thinking people led to Renaissance furniture styles superseding altogether the Gothic-ecclesiastical style. Resistance to this change lasted longest in England.
A good example of a Gothic style dressoir, from France in the 15th century. There is a small drawer under the cupboard doors in the top part
(left) Detail of Perpendicular tracery from a similar chest
(below) Late 1 5th-century Gothic chest from France, with Perpendicular tracery and asymmetrical foliage
(right) Ivory throne for a bishop, made at Ravenna in the 6th century AD. Its shape and carving are strongly Byzantine
(far right) Italian chest of the 8th century, displaying clearly the influence of Byzantium. The metal band is small for the size of chest and may not be original

Greece and Rome

In the furniture of ancient Greece we encounter for the first time in the history of civilization more than one individual ‘period’ of furniture styles. The earlier pieces of the sixth century BC, in the time of oligarchic rule, were rigid and square, and appear to be directly in line with styles set by Egypt and Assyria. Perpendicular backs, square or turned straight legs occasionally terminating in animal hooves, and even straight arm-rests characterize the chairs. The beds and couches remain high, although they seem more luxuriously upholstered or cushioned than before.
From the fifth century BBC the Greeks became more and more involved in wars with the Persian empire, which sought to dominate the Greek city states. They also began developing more democratic ideas of government. This struggle to maintain independence was accompanied by a great liberation of artistic genius, free from the influence of the Near East, which was embodied in architecture, sculpture, pottery and furniture.
The new Greek furniture represented a distinct breakaway
This relief of the 6th century BC illustrates the more rigid style of early Greek furniture
Greek klismos of the 5th century ac from a marble relief, now in the National Museum, Athens
from the rigidity of the past, and it was typified by graceful, flowing, curving lines which made the pieces relaxing in appearance and function. The most widely used articles were couches (now closer to the ground), tripod tables with animal legs, fixed and folding stools, and the klismos, or upright chair.
The klismos had a square seat on four sabre-shaped legs, and a curved back. The rear legs extended upwards on either side of the seat in the same arc to a cross member and then changed direction inwards to support a curved backboard. The four members of the seat were mortised into the legs, giving the legs a measure of elasticity which enabled the chair to be used comfortably on rough ground and which prevented it being tipped over backwards or forwards. The height of the backboard varied; if it was low the sitter could rest an arm on it. (This is well illustrated by a seated marble figure in the Capitoline Museum in Rome.) For more formal occasions the higher back variety was always available.
While our knowledge of Greek furniture is restricted to descriptions in literature and portrayal in sculpture, reliefs and pottery, many pieces of Roman furniture have survived, even though they are in marble, stone or bronze, or have bronze parts. A considerable quantity of pieces was found in the ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii, which were excavated in the middle of the eighteenth century. It is clear that the marble and bronze pieces were modelled on earlier or con-
Stone relief of Roman basket-work armchair,
of about the 3rd century AD
temporary articles made of wood. The objects were seldon original in style, and were imitations of earlier Greek forms If anything, they were more relaxed in shape, like the couch of wood and bronze dating from the first century AD, or the stone relief of the basket-work chair of the third century AD which may well have been one of the few Roman inventions.
Roman carpenters and furniture-makers developed a higl standard of workmanship. They had at their disposal a variety of rare and attractive woods, such as satinwood citruswood, olivewood, oak and cedarwood, to mention but few. They excelled in inlay and veneer-work, using not only these woods which they had learned to colour by means o special dyes, but also ivory, ebony, gold and silver, and ever tortoiseshell.
Their wood-carving of chairs and table legs, arm-rests friezes, cornices, etc., was of the highest order of delicac3 and sophistication, and this skill was certainly equalled b3 the makers of bronze and stone furniture. But despite the quality, the variety was restricted to a small range of articles for the Roman taste in furniture was a simple one, confined largely to utilitarian pieces. The austerity of the Romar character of republican times was still evident in the heyday of the empire.
The couch, of course, was one of the principal pieces of furniture, for the Roman upper and middle classes, relieved of the burdens of work by a slave class, spent a great deal off their time at prolonged banquets, parties and discussions at which it was customary to recline on well-cushioned couches
Roman bronze couch dating from the 1st century ac to 1st century AD with wooden parts restored. It was found at Boscoreale