ANTIQUE 18TH CENTURY FURNITURE CABINET MAKERS AND ANTIQUE CABBET MAKERS AND FURNITURE BOOKS AND DRAWINGS

There are several references to painted furniture at Strawberry Hill which must, however, have met with the approval of the owner. In the inventory one reads of Welsh armed chairs, painted blue and white “… ” chairs, settees, and long stools on black and gold frames ” . . . ” chairs of Aubusson tapestry, the frames green and gold ” . . . ” six elbow chairs with white and gold frames,” and so on.
Many books were published about this time with the object of giving instructions for lacquering, and it may be mentioned that the craft is described also as ” vernishing ” and japanning. But the recrudescence of enterest in a pleasant and agreeable occupation for ladies had little in common with the painted furniture like that at Strawberry Hill, which was a distinct development of classic taste inaugurated by the Adam brothers.
In the main, collectors will find that the most useful point to remember in distinguishing this work is the character of the ornament, which was not Oriental but distinctly Western. Robert Adam brought from abroad Italian artists to paint the interior decorations of his buildings and to decorate the furniture he designed. The best known of these artists were Angelica Kaufrmann, Cipriani, Columbani, Zuchhi, and Pergolesi. A familiar form in which they exercised their most delightful art was in the decoration of painted plaques where classical figure subjects, groups of cupids, and pastoral scenes gave an intimate touch which had not hitherto been seen in furniture. Such medallions are usually oval or round and are seen on semi-circular satinwood commodes and cabinets designed by the Adam brothers or their imitators. Perhaps the finest existing specimen of this class of work is in the Victoria and Albert Museum. It is a toilet table of beautiful proportions designed by Sheraton and painted by Angelica Kaufrmann.
It is very unlikely, however, that the collector will find an unknown piece of this class of work, for it was not executed in the ordinary way of business, but specially commissioned for wealthy patrons. What is far more likely is that chairs, settees, Pembroke tables, card tables, bookcases, toilet glasses, bureaux and other pieces of furniture of the Heppelwhite or Sheraton school will be found here and probably in a damaged condition painted by journeymen in response to the fashion created by the brothers Adam and their Italian assistants. But the designs in all probability will not reflect the Italian taste of the day as much as the French, and instead of the figure plaques it will be found that the decoration consists more frequently of prettily executed wreaths of roses, festoons, twisted ribbon work, baskets of flowers, and attenuated acanthus ornament.
I Satinwood was the favourite material for pieces of furniture so decorated, but in many cases the wood does not show at all, being enamelled white all over, the painted decoration being applied over that. Coverings to chairs and settees of this kind were also painted, and those who have an opportunity of securing an example in which time and ill treatment have not destroyed the delicacy of the work may congratulate themselves on a very lucky find. Frequent cases are to be met with where a chair or settee, formerly enamelled and painted, has been cleaned entirely of its decoration, and renovated as a plain piece of furniture. Although this is, of course, regrettable, it is difficult to see what can be done with badly chipped enamel and half obliterated painted detail. They simply make the piece look a wreck, and no amount of restoration will ever bring it back to its original condition.
One must expect, however, ail old painted furniture to show signs of wear. It should also look mellow and soft. There should be no sharp edges and crudely contrasting colours. If the satinwood shows, there should be a distinct relationship between pattern and
background, difficult to describe but easily recognised after a few pieces have been examined. The patina should run right over the surface and the ornamentation
should suggest a sunken appearance. Old wood, particularly mahogany and satinwood, looks dull but transparent and deep in quality, like water in the shadows of a rocky pool. It was Sheraton whose painted furniture was executed with the satinwood shewing as a background, but Pergolesi resorted principally to treating the whole surface with enamel first.
In a chapter on English painted furniture reference should be made to the inventors of the varnish known as Vernis-Martin,” the most celebrated preparation of the eighteenth century for the execution of this class of work. It was a French discovery, and was known before 1730 when Simon Etienne Martin obtained from the French Government a monopoly of its use for twenty years. About 1750 there were several factories in Paris turning out Vernis-Martin. After that time the designs, which had at first followed Oriental models, became more purely French, and as English designers at this time were so largely influenced by Louis XV. decoration, it was natural that painted furniture should reflect the common source of inspiration.
Vernis-Martin, indeed, was a method which had its imitators ail over Europe. The King of Prussia had one of the Martin family to work for him, and an immense amount of work was done for Versailles, particularly in the redecoration of the apartments of the Dauphin. Madame de Pompadour was also a considerable employer of the factories of the Martin family, paying in one year (1752) as much as 58,000 livres for work done.   Much English painted furniture
recalls far more vividly this extraordinarily popular French taste than the purely classical work of the brothers Adam and their Italian assistants, which had very little floral detail, being composed mostly of vases, husk swags, the anthemion, and attenuated scroll work after the manner of Pompeian decoration. It had its base on architecture, whereas the designs of Martin and his English imitators were evolved from a fanciful treatment of flowers and foliage.
It is evident that the interest of painted furniture depends entirely upon the quality of its execution. Painted furniture has no particular value as such, for after all it was a very easy Substitute for carving, and could be rapidly executed in a slipshod manner by a comparative novice. To some extent this is a safe-guard to the collector, for poor painted furniture by which no particular store was set in the first instance has had no chance to live. Most of that which comes into the auction room now is well preserved and worth buying.
On the other hand what was easy to the professional or amateur in the third quarter of the eighteenth Century is equally easy to the faker of to-day, who does not scruple to take a Sheraton or Heppelwhite chair or table and transform its appearance by lavish brush work. The only reliable way of detecting such frauds is by cultivating a close acquaintance with genuine specimens which will reveal subtle qualities of grace and dexterity never to be seen in new work.
Late Heppelwhite and Sheraton sideboards, chairs, settees, and tables decorated with painted enrichment will be the most likely articles to come the way of the collector in out-of-the-way places. Heppelwhite’s productions or those of the many cabinet-makers working from about 1785 to the end of the century were specially designed and ornamented in response to the fashion. a Miss Constance Simon refers in her book on ” English Furniture Designers of the Eighteenth Century ” to the following recipe culled from Knight’s Penny Cyclopaedia, which may well have described the simple means taken for painting furniture at this period. I A good deal of common wood painting is called japanning which differs from the more ordinary painters’ work, by using turps instead of oil to mix the colours with, bedsteads, wash-handstands, bedroom chairs and similar articles of furniture are done in this way.” The ground upon which the designs were painted was principally black or white, the details being put in afterwards in gold or colours. Heppel-white furniture was frequently used in Adam houses, and it is very likely that in some instances the Italian artists employed by architects were resorted to for the decoration of cabinet-makers’ productions turned out in the ordinary course of business.
The practice commenced by the Adam brothers of painting furniture to tone with the decoration of rooms was followed by their less famous contemporaries in cases where the work was commissioned for
special purposes. The Heppelwhites themselves make the following reference to this branch of their business: ” For chairs a new and very elegant fashion has arisen within these few years of finishing them with painted or japanned work, which gives a hch and splendid appearance to the minute parts of the ornaments which are generally thrown in by the painter.” White woods of quality very inferior to satinwood were often used for this treatment, but on the other hand there are mahogany pieces in existence which were so treated.
Three-back and four-back settees were often black japanned and decorated with gold, and as the fashion for this class of work lasted for a generation many pieces will be found reminiscent of the debased Sheraton work, tinged by Empire, which developed itself at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Some fine examples of Sheraton chairs, dated about 1800, are in the Victoria and Albert Museum.   They indicate very clearly this tendency towards the Empire style, but are not as yet debased.   Made of beech, they are painted and gilt, have the delicate open backs of the period, and cane seats, one of them having an oval cane panel in the back.   A feature typical of many late eighteenth century lacquered and painted chairs  and settees  are  the  round legs curved and splaying out at the bottom.   These legs are ringed in places and are often seen with touches of gold on their black japanned surfaces suggesting the coachmakers’ work.   The best period of English painted furniture is
from 1770 to 1780, but by far the greater number of examples which come the way of the collector will have been made after 1790, when Heppelwhite’s and Sheraton’s books had been published, and the work of the brothers Adam had time to influence not only fashionable furnishing but the work of ordinary cabinet-makers and upholsterers |throughout the country.
A photograph is given of a beautiful knife box of painted satinwood, an example whose vase-like form should be recollected by the collector, for plain specimens are occasionally to be met with. As a rule, however, these satinwood boxes, which flanked late eighteenth century sideboards, have a sloping hinged lid and moulded front. They are often veneered on oak. Examination of the painted detail on this box will shew the ribbons, roses, swags of drapery, and pictorial plaques characteristic of the style.
As time goes on it may appreciate a little in value if the present interest in old furniture persists, but it can never compete with the fine specimens which at the date of their making were exceptional.   Eighteenth-century chairs, perfectly genuine, are to be bought quite easily every day at comparatively small prices. Oak and mahogany tables, chests of drawers, long case clocks, bureaux, bookcases, secretaires, dressers, corner cupboards, settles, settees and sofas, they are ail to be had in the simple forms ordinary household furnishing of the Georgian era.  They are worth buying because they have old associations and are pleasant and comfortable in use. In the eighteenth Century such furniture was made for middle-class houses by the cabinet-maker in the ordinary way of business.  It was not thought in its day of more exceptional interest than we should think the commercial products of the modern furniture shop.   It had qualifies which were appreciated, the principal one   undoubtedly  being   its  soundness   of   construction, for people bought their possessions then with a view to durability, and makers had not yet learnt all those clever ways of producing the cheap and shoddy which have resulted in so much showy furniture of our own time.   Advertisements of sales of household effects in the eighteenth Century help to give a picture of the kind of furniture.
‘ All the genuine Household Furniture, comprising bedsteads with marine and other furniture, fine goose feather beds, blankets, etc., mahogany wardrobes, chest of drawers, ditto dressing tables, mahogany press, bedsteads with green check furniture ; mahogany escritoire ; ditto writing table with drawers ; ditto dining and Pembroke tables ;   library table with steps ; mahogany and other chairs ; pier glasses and girondoles, in carved and gilt frames ; a neat sofa ; an exceeding good eight day clock ; Wilton and other carpets ; register and bath Stoves ; kitchen range ; smoke-jack and other useful kitchen furniture ; two large brewing coppers, exceeding good brewing Utensils, and other effects.”

SHERATON FURNITURE. SHERATON CABINETS, TABLES, CHAIRS, BUFFETS, DRESSERS, CHESTS OF DRAWERS, BEDS, SOFAS

THE reasons given in previous chapters for confining the   significance of  furniture-makers’ names to the styles in which they worked have even greater force when applied to Thomas Sheraton, the actual examples of whose work in existence are both doubtful and few in number. Sheraton may be fairly described as a successor of Chippendale and Heppelwhite, although he must have been working as a journeyman cabinet-maker when they were alive.  But the date upon which Sheraton came to London is much in dispute.  He was born at Stockton about the year 1750, and as late as 1782 issued from that town A Letter on the Subject of Baptism, followed  by  other publications of a religious character from time to time.   It has been assumed by various writers that he could not well have come under the influence of Chippendale, Heppelwhite, the brothers Adam, and other great designers until he had come to London after 1782.   But it is not certain that this date signifies residence in Stockton-on-Tees up to that time, because he may have been working in 198
London as a cabinet-maker and had his religious tracts
published from his native town.
The interesting dates to collectors are those which give simply the births and deaths of the three great cabinet-makers of their age. Unfortunately the exact dates of birth are unknown in each case. Miss Constance Simon’s researches supply us with the deaths.
THOMAS CHIPPENDALE. Born towards the end of the reign of Queen Anne (1714) ; died 1779.
GEORGE HEPPELWHITE. Born about the beginning of the reign of George IL (1727) ; died 1786.
THOMAS SHERATON.  Born about 1750 ; died 1806.
If we add to these dates the birth and death of Robert Adam (1728-1792), whose influence on furniture was so extended, we can begin to realise how indebted Sheraton must have been to the work of his immediate forerunners.
There is no reliable evidence that Thomas Sheraton in the prime of life was ever a master cabinet-maker like Chippendale and Heppelwhite.   That he was a skilled designer is  apparent by his best-known publication, the Cabinet Maker’s and Upholsterer’s Drawing Book 1 (1793), and that he was also a crafts-man is proved by the extraordinary detail he gives for the construction of the pieces he describes.   It is not the kind of technical instruction we look for to-day in the text book, but it shows close personal acquaintance and experience with tools and the many processes of the craft of the cabinet-maker.
Sheraton was apparently a very clever workman who in early life became sincerely religious.   He appears to have had ambition and considerable enthusiasm, for he did an enormous amount of work.   His   Drawing Book ” alone must have meant years of labour.  But he was no business man, being far more devoted to the theory of cabinet-making than its practical exercise. He succeeded in drawing together a large number of ideas culled from his immediate forerunners and his con-temporaries and welding them into a distinctive style. He was the last of the great furniture designers of the eighteenth century, and towards the end of his life began to feel the decay which set in with the Engish interpretations of Empire feeling.
The principal characteristics of Sheraton furniture are the use of the straight line in design and as perfect a combination of proportion and constructive bulk as Engiish craftsmanship has ever produced. Sheraton chairs, commodes, bookcases, and tables of ail sorts express daintiness and delicacy never reached before his time. The history of Engiish furniture for hundreds of years had been a gradual progress towards refine-ment of execution, the culmination of which came with Sheraton. Purity of outline and economy of material could go no farther.
More than any other designer Sheraton exploited the possibilities of mechanical action, in bureaux, dressing tables, secretaires, and many other pieces of furniture. He did this on the whole without sacrificing simple utility. Whatever comphcated construction he introduced was not in the way of added ornamentation, but more extended convenience.   Most of those bits of furniture one meets with in second-hand dealers’ shops, full of carefully thought out contrivances such as hidden mirrors, sliding screens, drawers, pigeon-holes, little boxes with lids, and so on, are of the Sheraton school. It is true that the bulk of them must have been made by cabinet-makers who were working either at the same time as Sheraton, or who took advantage of the publication of his book to reproduce his ideas for years afterwards. But the old drawing master must be credited with having done more to stimulate the manufacture of such articles than anyone else.
Heppelwhite, the Gillows, Shearer, and other makers used to construct dainty bits of furniture full of cunning fitments, and at page 122 will be seen a dressing table probably of Heppelwhite origin.  But those who go to the trouble of even a cursory glance through Sheraton’s principal book on furniture cannot fail to be Struck with the fact that he was at bottom a mechanic.  The twin arts of geometry and perspective were his forte. He must have known more about them as they applied to constructional woodwork than anyone living at his time, and it appears to the writer that the perfection of proportion of many of his pieces was quite as much the resuit of consummate knowledge of straight lines and angles and their relationships with each other as artistic perception.  A cabinet-maker may decide that a piece of wood is the right length, width, and thickness by instinct.   If it looks right to him then it is right.   But Sheraton seems to have arrived at such decisions through a complete knowledge of theories of proportion and a mastery of technical
draughtsmanship. It may be for this reason that much Sheraton work
leaves us rather cold. It seems so painfully accurate, so without blemish. Where he introduces curves they lack freedom, but it is to his credit that he never put in too many of them, nor did he put them in the wrong place. His decoration was remarkably reticent, considering the possibilities for elaboration which lay in marquetry, carving, and painting, ail sometimes employed together on one painting, ail sometimes employed together on one piece of furniture.
English designers were still looking to France for inspiration, and Sheraton and his contemporaries echoed Louis Seize decoration, more or less, in ail they did. Curvilinear forms after the death of Louis XV. gave place to a return to the straight Une, and inconsequent rococo ornamentation was supplanted by a more orderly treatment of the classic theme. The ” Drawing Book ” of Thomas Sheraton exemplifies this ail through its pages.
It is a very much more important work than any of the others pubHshed in the latter half of the eighteenth Century. It is less of a trade advertisement and has far more scholarship about it than either Chippendale’s ” Director ” or Heppelwhite’s f Guide.” But it is ex-tremely detailed and diffuse. Like the other publications it was very largely subscribed for by the furnishing trade, which no doubt used it for obtaining fresh ideas.
Sheraton took a very high line. He divided the book into three parts, the first concerning itself with geometry, the second with perspective, and the third with furniture. In the preface he feels himself called upon to give a short resume of the works which have preceded his, pointing out their shortcomings pretty plainly.   Of Chippendale’s ” Director ” he says :
” It has given us, it is true, the proportions of the Five Orders, and nes for two or three cases, which is all it pretends to relative to rules for drawing : and as for the odesigns themselves they are now wholly antiquated and laid aside, although possessed of great merit, according to the times in which they were executed.”
Another book, 1 The Cabinet and Chair-Maker’s Real Friend and Companion ” (Robert Manwaring), he charges with containing an assertion which ” exceeds the bounds of modesty and truth,” and for Heppel-white’s ” Guide ” he has obvious contempt. ” Some of the designs/’ he says, I are not without merit, though it is evident that the perspective is, in some instances, erroneous. But notwithstanding the late date of Heppelwhite’s book, if we compare some of the designs, particularly the chairs, with the newest taste, we shall find that this work has already caught the decline, and perhaps, in a little time, will suddenly die in the disorder.”
In those days the value of a knowledge of perspective was much greater than now, when the camera is of so much use to the furnishing trade in conveying a true idea of the appearance of a piece of furniture. Hence the great space which Sheraton devotes to the subject. An important section of the first part of the book is devoted to a consideration of the five Orders of Architecture as the base of classical design. The author even discusses their origin, which he suggests goes back to Solomon’s Temple, the dimension of the pillars of which he gives from Josephus. In parts the book is the quaintest mixture of morality and mechanics. Sheraton seems almost at times to feel that his rules of perspective even need justification by ethical law.
Sheraton’s notes on furnishiing in another book, the ” Cabinet Dictionary I (1803), are particularly interesting to students of old furniture as indicating the fashion of that day.  He says : ” In furnishing a good house for a person of rank, it requires some taste and judgment, that each apartment may have such pieces as is most agreeable to the appropriate use of the room.  And particular regard is to be paid to the quality of those who order a house to be furnished, when such order is left to the judgment of the up-holsterers ; and when any gentleman is so vain and ambitious as to order the furnishing of his house in a style superior to his fortune and rank, it will be prudent in an upholsterer, by some gentle hints, to direct his choice to a more moderate plan.”
This dangerous advice is one among many proofs that Sheraton’s moral scruples far outweighed his business acumen. He goes on to say : ” It is the business of an upholsterer not to recommend anything that would offend the known sentiments of his employer, when virtue and morality are not the question, but mere indifferent opinion.” . . . “But it is to be lamented, that both the pictures and prints of some gentlemen are but too sure indications of their looseness of principle ;  as to virtue and morality,
though these ought to be the principal ornaments of human life, which in no character shines more be-comingly than in the gentleman of rank.
The library,” says Sheraton, ” should be furnished in imitation of the antiques ; and such prints as are hung on the walls ought to be memorials of learning, and portraits of men of science and erudition.”
After a few hints as to the hanging of pictures in the  gallery of paintings,” and ad vice as to the prints of the muses in the music room, he gives particulars of the dining-room furniture. | The dining parlour must be furnished with nothing trifling, or which may seem unnecessary, it being appropriated for the chief repast, and should not be eneumbered with any article that would seem to intrude on the accommo-dation of the guests.
The large sideboard, inclosed or surrounded by Ionic pillars ; the handsome and extensive dining table ; the respectable and substantial looking chairs ; the large face glass ; the family portraits ; the marble fire places ; and the Wilton carpet; are the furniture that should apply to the dining room.”
Sheraton appears so overcome with the grandeur of the drawing-room that he omits to give any details of the furniture. But he is explicit as to the unsuitability of including such incongruous items as books, globes, and pictures ! ” Nothing,” he says, | of a scientific nature should be introduced to take up the attention of any individual, from the general conversation. . . .
Several plates show the proper disposition of furniture and the character of the decoration. The most interesting is that which illustrates the Prince of Wales’s Chinese drawing-room in Carlton House Terrace.   The author does not pretend that it is an exact drawing by any means. It was evidently a formal reception room and had none of that haphazard,
sketchy appearance with which we are familiar in modern drawing-rooms. Such casual treatment was permitted, apparently, only in the breakfast parlour or tea-room. The walls of the Prince’s room are panelled and hung with stretched silk having needlework with Chinese designs in embroidery. All the chairs are placed formally m position near the walls, there are pier tables under huge mirrors, a marble mantelpiece with looking-glass above, some square stools, and a large ottoman.
Some of Sheraton’s own remarks on this room may be quoted : ; The pier table under the glass is richly ornamented in gold. The top is marble and also the shelf at each end ; the back of it is composed of three panels of glass, the Chinese figure sitting on a cushion is metal and painted. The candle branches are gilt metal, the panels painted in the style of the Chinese ; the whole producing a brilliant effect.
The view contains an ottoman, or long seat ; extending the whole width of the room, and returning at each end about five feet. The Chinese columns are on the front of this seat, and mark out its boundaries. The upholstery work is very richly executed in figured satin, with extremely rich borders, all worked to suit the style of the room.”
A most curious arrangement is made for heating, for,  within this ottoman are two grand tripod candie-stands, with heating urns at the top, that the seat may be kept in a proper temperature in cold weather.   On the front of the ottoman before the columns are two censers containing perfumes, by which an agreeable smell may be diffused to every part of the room, preventing that of a contrary nature, which is the consequence of lighting a number of candies.
The carpet is worked in one entire piece, with a border round it, and the whole, in effect, though it may appear extravagant to a vulgar eye, is but suitable to the dignity of the proprietor.”
Sheraton shews another drawing-room which has similar characteristics.   There is a pier table opposite the fire-place having a high square mirror over it to correspond with the one over the mantelshelf.  Be-tween the four tall sash Windows are three console tables, and on the other side of the room a formal Sheraton settee with six arm-chairs.   No centre table, bookcase, china cabinet, horse screen, pole screen, or other piece of furniture having domestic interest is to be found in the late eighteenth century drawing-room, which was obviously copied from the French.   It is in the parlour and dining-rooms that the bulk of the furniture was seen.
The description of the Prince of Wales’s dining-room at Carlton House Terrace in one or two particulars suggests that the features seen there may be taken as indicating fashion in generai. They were not included exclusively for the Prince.
Sheraton says that there is ” a large glass over the chimney piece . . . to which are fixed candie-branches. At each end is a large sideboard, nearly twelve feet in length, standing between a couple of
Ionic columns, worked in composition to imitate fine
variegated marble, which have a most beautiful and magnificent effect. In the middle are placed a large range of dining tables, standing on pillars with four claws each, which is now the fashionable way of making these tables. The chairs are of mahogany, made in the style of the French, with broad top rails hanging over each back foot ; the legs are turned,” and the seats covered with red leather.” Sheraton remarks further : ” Many dining rooms of the first nobility have, however, only two columns and one sideboard, and those of less note have no columns.”
Collectors whose means do not permit them to compete in the auction-room for masterpieces may still find many bits of furniture of the Sheraton school well worth having, and at comparatively small pieces. In the chapter on Heppelwhite, distinctions have already been drawn between the chairs of the two designers, but a fuller analysis of the characteristics of Sheraton seats is necessary.
His best work was in solid satinwood, carved or painted.   He never succeeded, like Chippendale and Heppelwhite, in evolving a chair back which was peculiarly his own, but he certainly designed a large number of varying forms to which he imparted
recognisable character.   The amateur at once recog-
nises the typical Chippendale chair back with its
carved and pierced centre splat and bow-shaped crest-
rail.   He can see at a glance Heppelwhite’s shield back.
But there is no fundamental shape which we can say
is Sheraton’s.   It is rather in his treatment of designs
already known that Sheraton is distinctive, and that treatment is based upon angularity and accuracy of proportion. You will see, for instance, a Sheraton chair like the one opposite, obviously adapted from an Adam example, which has an almost unrelieved top rail above the lyre, another horizontal rail just above the seat level, and formal square legs decorated with fluting and carved feet.
Sheraton undoubtedly favoured the straight top-rail in his chair backs. He appears to have first thought of it as such, and then in response either to fashion or to a feeling within himself, to have modified it a little here and there. Sometimes one sees the middle third of the rail raised a quarter of an inch above the rest, the added thickness which resulted carved in short vertical flutings. The straight line, again, may be stopped short of the angles and dipped in a little concave curve to join the upright.
Where a Sheraton crest rail is slightly arched in the middle it appears as though the curve had been drawn with a pair of compasses, or struck from the two foci of an ellipse. It does not suggest the sweep of freehand drawing. The designer apparently thought in angles and admitted curves as modifications. In this no doubt he was constructionally right, particularly in developing an Anglicised version of Louis Seize which was in its essence a straight line style.
Sheraton chair legs, as already pointed out, may be looked upon as columns supporting the ends of the arms, with the seat junction an incident about two-thirds the way up.   In circular or turned legs he was undoubtedly the best interpreter of Louise Seize of his time. Heppelwhite and other makers used the turned leg, but collectors who find it in furniture of the late eighteenth century may assume that it denotes a Sheraton chair, table, or settee, unless there is conflicting evidence from some other part of the article. The carving will be in flutes, and the turning will show usually the thickest part about a quarter the way down from the top, just below a neck which in turn is under a square section decorated often with a carved patera. Sheraton feet run straight down in line with the leg. They do not splay out, excepting in the later examples which are adaptations from French Empire. In these instances it will usually be found that the backs curl over in convex fashion ” with broad top rails hanging over each back foot,’ as in the Prince of Wales’s dining-room.
Sideboards by Sheraton often have their front straight on plan, here again seeming to show that the designer regarded this as the fundamental une. The ends, however, were mostly convex, very rarely concave. The example at page 202 is interesting as showing features suggesting both Heppelwhite and Sheraton as the originator. It has a simple curved front with a top approaching the serpentine in shape. The treatment of the inlaid spandrils is very like Sheraton.
The side table with flanking pedestals and vases above had not given place to the fitted sideboard entirely, although the latter in Sheraton’s time must have begun to be very popular.   The author of the” Drawing Book * says that ” sideboards are often made without drawers of any sort, having simply a rail a little ornamented, and pedestals with vases at each end, which produce a grand effect.” This was no doubt precisely the case. If after 1780 or there-abouts a wealthy man with a large dining-room wished to express grandeur, he would have the side table and pedestals. But with Heppelwhite’s and Sheraton’s books to consult the country cabinet-maker could offer a very neat, composite piece of furniture to his clients who would doubtless prefer it, for reasons of space alone, if for no other consideration.
An interesting reference to sideboards with curved fronts occurs in the ” Drawing Book | which suggests that they were rather out of fashion to ten years before the end of the century. Sheraton says : ” It is not usual to make sideboards hollow in front, but in some circumstances it is evident that advantages will arise from it.   If a sideboard be required nine or ten feet long, as in some noblemen’s houses, and if the breadth of it be in proportion to the length, it will not be easy for a butler to reach across it.   I therefore think, in this case, a hollow front would obviate the difficulty, and at the same time have a very good effect, by taking off part of the appearance of the great length of such a sideboard.  Besides, if the sideboard be near the enter-ing door of the dining room, the hollow front will some-times secure the butler from the jostles of the other servants.”  A drawing and plan is given of such a sideboard, but it is over nine feet long, a most unusual length.
Small dining-rooms were often furnished in Sheraton’s day with sideboards having neither drawers nor pedestals. The custom was to place a wine cooler underneath, hooped with brass, partitioned and lined with lead for wine bottles. This attendant piece was easily accessible and took the place of cellaret drawers. It was occasionally used, however, in connection with sideboards which were fitted with cellarets, the arched opening in the centre of the larger piece of furniture being provided to enable the butler to get at the bottles beneath.
Dining tables at the end of the eighteenth Century were extremely well made, and even those showing Empire features can scarcely be regarded as having their appearance entirely spoiled.   Many patents were taken out for those which extended by means of loose leaves.   The ordinary useful dining tables about the year 1800 were supported upon pillars and claws, four claws to each pillar and running on brass castors. Both Heppelwhite and Sheraton curiously omit illustrations of dining tables in their works, but the former says :   ” For a Dining Room, instead of the Pier-tables, should be a set of dining tables,” and Sheraton gives a careful description of their mechanism in his dictionary.   Most of it is technical and of little interest to the collector, but it is evident that the tables were made any length to suit a particular room, ” by having a sufficient quantity of pillar and claw parts, for between each of these is a loose cap, fixed by means of iron straps and buttons, so that they are easily taken off and put aside.”   Sheraton used to allow in his calculation as to the size of these tables a space of two feet for each person sitting down. The patent tables of his day were made to draw out, loose flaps being enclosed in the piece to fall into place as required, an idea evidently the immediate forerunner of our extend-ing screw tables. Another patent dining table was on pillar and claw, but according to Sheraton ” the loose flaps cannot be mitred within the frame, but must be, when not used, put into some convenient place in the room where the dining table stands.”
Many pieces of Sheraton furniture made after 1800 are quite worth attention, if one allows for the fact that the best period of English furniture making was over. At the present time sofas of late Sheraton design, for instance, are cheap.   There is practically no demand for them.   But this will not always be the case, and the collector who makes money out of his hobby is he who buys at a low figure and bides his time for the market.  The character of these sofas is very easily recognised.   They have scroll ends, the legs are curved and splayed out and run on castors. The crest rail is usually perfectly straight, and the upholstery is horsehair as often as not.   Sheraton’s use of the splayed out legs at the latter period of his career was constant, and on the whole at this time they were the best support he designed.   His turned legs became vulgarised with the Empire influence, but this vulgarity did not appear so evident when French Empire was simply copied. Students of French work of this period will readily realise that it had character of its own, although it was heavy and pretentious.   But the Empire motif, clumsy and forbidding as it was, ruined Sheraton’s work entirely when he attempted to graft it on to his own delicately proportioned furniture.
Chair backs and the lattice work in bookcase doors which show diamond shaped divisions may generally be taken as later than 1800. Sheraton’s tracery in the best part of his career was flowing, even more so than that of Heppelwhite, but we see scarcely a curved one in the later glazed fronts. It is interesting to note that the revolt against wooden bedsteads on account of their supposed attraction for vermin came to a head at this time in the patenting of various methods of putting posts and rails together without having any crevices in which the insects could hide. Brass joints were used and when the posts and frame had been screwed together brass plates were fixed securely over at the point of junction. Some bedsteads had brass dovetail tenons which slipped into sockets of brass fixed in the pillars.
The four post bedstead had a long life after this, and Sheraton’s posts are particularly graceful and neatly ornamented. His schemes for upholstery were among the poorer parts of his work.
He designed three and four-back settees, sometimes upholstered, sometimes caned in back and seat. His dressing chests were often like chests of drawers when closed, the glass and other fitments being neatly packed away in the Upper compartment.
The short legs to such pieces are termed ” stump ” feet, the two inlaid cabinets at page 214 having them.

Four English designers - Chippendale, rococo over the mantel mirror Adam, insect butterfly cabinet paris museum style Hepplewhite and Sheraton
English furniture of the second half of the eighteenth century was dominated by four ‘giants’ Chippendale, antique chippendale sideboard Adam, distressed round wooden tables, england Hepplewhite and Sheraton. In a resume of this size a brief look at the work of these men should be enough to show the very great heights to which English furniture rose in the period. But any further study must include examination and appreciation of the work of other extremely fine designers and craftsmen of the time, rectangular drop leaf dining table such as Kent, antique 3 drawer commode Vile, steinzeug pottery Cobb, cupboard neoclassical Ince, round mahogany antique dining table los angeles Mayhew and Linnell, antique drum table restoring leather inlay not to mention the creative work of a number of gifted and imaginative architects.
Thomas Chippendale was born in Yorkshire in 1718. By 1748 he was in London in business as a cabinet-maker, 20th century hepplewhite style sideboard and five years later he moved to a house in St Martin’s Lane, seventeenth century english wood carving which he occupied until his death in 1779. St Martin’s Lane was an astute choice, kakiemon tripod candlestick for two of the country’s top painters lived there, antique sideboard uses Sir Joshua Reynolds and Sir James Thornhill, antique dresser/cabinet made by los angeles furniture co. the patron of Hogarth. In 1754 Chippendale produced a book of furniture
designs called The Gentleman and Cabinet Maker’s Director.
It was not the first work to contain designs for furniture, j.w.benson carrage clocks as de Vries and Ducerceau (see pages 27 and 30) among others had produced design books, antique military chest of drawers but it was the first to consist entirely of drawings of furniture by a furniture-maker, antique buffets identifying and it was an instant success. It was reprinted the next year and again in a larger edition from 1759 to 1762, frederick james halnon and it had a decisive effect on English styles for at least a decade.
At this time English furniture-makers were dabbling with Rococo designs and also with Chinese and Gothic styles. Chippendale adopted all three and modelled them in a sharply individual manner. He adorned his
furniture with exquisite fretwork in the Chinese taste, steel cabinet cabriole legs employing it for the edges of tables, mahogany desks edwardian doors of cabinets, louis 14 ceramic inlaid boudoir tables canopies of beds. He also designed Chippendale four-poster bed in the Chinese style, verlys with pagoda top, italian cupboards now at Badminton House, lamp manufacturers, f in hexigon, deco era Gloucestershire. This style of furniture was popular in the mid 18th century and sometimes executed chairs in the Gothic taste, kidney-shaped over the chair tray tables with ecclesiastical-type splat-backs and top rails. He decorated some pieces after the French manner with Rococo motifs, rouenpottery combining shell ornaments with his own ideas. Principal pieces in his Rococo style were chests of drawers, calamander brass inlay sofas, plinth bronze bust china
cabinets, carved medieval lion mask writing tables, friezes cupboard dressing tables and bureau-bookcases. They were made chiefly of mahogany of the best grain and figure, georgian pie crust pedestal end tables which looked marvellous after waxing and polishing. The styles he devised were often
such that the ordinary country carpenter could emulate with little difficulty, 1920s reproduction settee set even if without the exquisite refinement of the master craftsman. This is why there is so much furniture today which is described in sales and shops alike as Country Chippendale. It was copied in his time and it has also been ever since.
Chippendale himself appears to have made very little furniture, barley twist antique chairs 1700’s and only a few pieces can safely be ascribed to his hand, 5 legged gateleg table through bills made out by him to purchasers. The Chippendale armchair in the Gothic taste
owner of Nostell Priory was billed by Chippendale for a table for 72 10s. Chippendale ceased to hold the centre of the stage after the advent of Adam in the decade 1760 to 1770, origins of the chicken coop chair but, antique oak and bamboo settee quick to see which way the wind was blowing, antique chaise lounge styles scrolling head and foot rest he accepted commissions from Adam to make furniture in the Neoclassical style, directoire breakfront which Adam was pioneering in architecture and furniture.
Robert Adam was born in Scotland in 1728, dressing table chairs old brass the son of an architect. He and his three brothers studied under their father at Edinburgh. Then in 1753 Robert went to Italy to continue his training, cama de bilros and he fell under the
spell of the new Italian ideas which derived directly from the recent discoveries at the excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum. He got to know Piranesi who by his etchings had done so much to popularize the Classical Revival. Adam grasped the importance of relating interiors to exteriors of buildings, rene lalique porcelain lamps with nude women and when he returned to Britain in 1758 he had already formulated a whole series of new ideas of architecture and schemes of interior decoration. We are not concerned here with his architectural ideas (see Architecture in the all-colour paperbacks series), dining chair with wide center splat but in decoration he based his modes on ancient Roman motifs, antique campaign box such as strings of flowers, antique round split pedestal dining table formal shell ornaments, empire sideboards palm leaves and disciplined scrolls of foliage. He produced a vast number of drawings, victoria s roll desk many of which are now in the Sir John Soane’s Museum, beau mercier watch lady’s baumatic London. They included a whole range of items of furniture, antique corner hutch pine which were only part of the whole interior of a house.
Adam was commissioned both to design and build new houses and decorate them, antique claw foot double pedestal table and to redecorate existing ones. Among his important works were remodelling Harewood House and Nostell Priory in Yorkshire and Syon House and Osterley Park in Middlesex. At Osterley he commissioned Linnell to make furniture, baloon back chairs round cane seat including a pair of bow-front commodes in the Neo-classical style. Occasionally, 1630 english gothic hall chairs Adam furniture was painted to fit into the general colour schemes of his rooms, identifying 19th century cane chair types some of which were executed by such distinguished artists as Angelica Kauffmann and Cipriani.
Adam chairs had new forms, robert rutland spoons straight tapered turned legs, claw leg cherrywood dressers fluted, antique english windsor chairs reeded or plain. Backs were often oval within a plain wood frame, french stile chair legs the wood being mahogany or beechwood. The
influence of French ideas was here and there evident, antique drop leaf oak table with trestle footed although nothing displaced the predominance of Adam’s own individuality. One of the finest emulators of his ideas was George Hepplewhite.
Hepplewhite is something of a mystery. His beginnings are unknown and his date of birth unrecorded. He learned the trade of cabinet-making in Lancashire and set up in business in London. He was active from about 1775 to his death in 1786. Two years after his death his widow published a book of his drawings of furniture styles called The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer’s Guide, ballon back chairs and it was this which made him famous. It was the first book of its kind since Chippendale’s Director. It had nearly 300 illustrations, antique german cupboards a great many of which reveal the influence of Adam. Much of the furniture is designed to be made of mahogany, 1920 dining sets with satinwood inlay, antique oak tallboy dresser or marquetry in the French manner.
Many of Hepplewhite’s designs were not unlike those of Chippendale’s later years. These were less classical than Adam styles, pull sides antique expanding table and curves abounded, half moon pedestal desk-biedermeier especially in chests of drawers’ fronts and feet, what are a set of six silver apostle spoon worth cabinets, antique royal worcester potpourri jar h and chair
backs. It is for chair backs in fact that Hepplewhite is best known, bronzes de m.bouval although
Tnis bow-fronted satinwood commode, antique qashqai rug one of a pair made in the Adam manner by Linnell in about 1770, antique french art deco club chair is at Osterley Park, biedermeier sofa Middlesex
Two designs for chairs with shield-backs, antique table with roman engraving on wood below glass top from The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer’s Guide, china cabinet, 1930s, danish, blonde wood, weight published by Hepplewhite’s widow in 1788
Armchair designed in the Adam style for the drawing room at Saltram House, antique bail oval handle Devonshire, style buffet fluted legs in about 1770. The ornament beneath the front seat rail is an unusual form of English decoration
he might well have wished otherwise, antique, buffet, doors for his solid piece are very beautiful indeed. Many different chair backs figure in the book, breakfront bookcase and bar the most popular being the shield-back with < variety of splats inside. One favourite
inside pattern rang( incorporated Prince of Wales ostrich feathers. The chair: have square or turned legs, escritoire antique oak the former sometimes with spade feet.
The variety of Hepplewhite pieces was extensive: ward. robes, antique bottles with gold leaf decoration with or without oval door panels of satinwood, georgian mahogony sloped front bureau bookcase with or without three or four drawers underneath; chests of drawers sideboards in many shapes and sizes, antique red dutch table
bow-fronted, victorian washstand straight or serpentine; sofas with upholstered backs and sides, south carolina stoneware jug decorated of with backs formed by three or four splat-backs joined in a row; card tables with fine inlay or marquetry; Pembroke tables, rococo england chippendale s-curve with rectilinear flaps with rounded ends or serpentine edged flaps, george 11 carved mahogany side table inlaid or banded in satinwood. Not one piece of furniture, 2 pedestal antique 1800 century however, antique furniture book exists that can be ascribed definitely tc Hepplewhite as the maker, mahogeny wood drop leaf dining room table and in his own time he enjoyed no fame. And yet, myott son & co shakespeare if comparisons are permissible, antique dresser / carved leaf handles Hepplewhite furniture is finer and more graceful than Chippendale.
The last of the giants was Thomas Sheraton, bronze archer figure a man of violent opinions and with little tolerance of other mortals, small box hasps who lost his reason in the last years of his life. He was born at Stockton-on-Tees in 1751. He studied as a draughtsman-designer and journeyman cabinet-maker. For a while he made a precarious living, maghogany pie crust shelf two-tier claw supplying designs to other cabinet-makers. He does not appear to have had either shop or workshop in London, curly maple antique chest of drawers nor is there any furniture that can be attributed to him.
Between 1791 and 1794 Sheraton published a book of furniture designs, period furniture company italian chest in sections. It was full of advice and also of criticism. He considered that Chippendale styles were antiquated and that Hepplewhite styles had
‘caught the decline.’ There is no doubt, early oak coffer 1725 however, antique game tables from 1930s about the very high quality of his own designs, english walnut stool which were in many respects more original. This is abundantly evident from the many pieces of furniture that were made
according to his designs in his time and afterwards. Sheraton preferred delicate furniture, tambour desk for sale which was light in colour, old victorian 8 drawer mahogany dresser including painted pieces, antique french renaissance style trunk for linens and valuables-oak late 1700 and he specified that many items were best made in satinwood or other light tropical woods. His designs are straighter than Hepplewhite’s
and so closer to Adam. They had a strong influence on furniture at the end of the century, silver toilet set not only in England but also abroad.
Sheraton designed a number of intricate pieces, antique german blue white pitcher 1700’s some of them for women, small antique half table such as small graceful cylinder-top desks, louis xiv style dining room 1880 oak dressing tables, south carolina stoneware jug decorated work tables and games tables. The mahogany used was often brought into relief by light inlay or banding in satinwood. In particular, antique cedar chest value july 25th 1929 his chairs were favoured in most large houses. The backs were straight rather than curved, antique curule chair square rather than oval, large modern dining tables from france and often in-filled with classical motifs. A series of six designs illustrates this theme.
One piece of furniture with which Sheraton is associated, kashan trefoil but which he did not invent, splayed reeded leg was the Carlton House table. It is an unusual and very fine article, blue cut glass pair lustres especially if made in satinwood.
Sheraton spent the last years of his life writing about furniture, oak dining room chairs 1800 not overlooking opportunities of criticizing both predecessors and contemporaries alike, small chest made from ivory with sustained impatience. The increasing instability of mind which in the end rendered him insane is reflected in his last works. Despite his very great skill and originality and his high reputation he died impoverished in 1806. And with him died the last major individual influence in English furniture history.
Serpentine-fronted Hepplewhite style sideboard of the late 18th century

XVII Century Furniture

Antique 18th century furniture is today one of the english oak carved leg table most popular antiques among collectors.
By 1700 foreign influence was strong, although Italian Rococo antique furniture was not as varied, comfortable, or well-constructed as that produced in England or France. Marquetry work was especially skilled in Milan, where German furniture combined with established traditions; the used mhogany dinning table compositions of Piedmont craftsman Pietro Piffetti were especially ornate.
The inclinations towards pompous display among the antique oak sideboard with mirror multitude of small German states produced the art deco cigarette dispenser palace of Frederick the louis the 16th antique furniture chair Great, at Sanssouci, that of Max Emanuel at Munich, and courts elsewhere such as at Wiirzburg and Frankfurt. The furnishings of the antique drawing desks se interiors reflected the antique regency gateleg dining table refinement of traditional German cabinet-making techniques, such as marquetry, and the antique carved wood chair introduction of foreign influences by Parisian-trained designers such as Francois Cuvillies.
German wall painting also echoed the antique french clock face graceful ormolu or gilt ornaments and the small antique orientaliste octagon table of dark wood and inlaid with mother of pearl characteristically exaggerated bombe forms of the walnut cylinder desk commodes, console tables and velvet-upholstered seats beneath the antique french wood carvings m.
The swelling form, a pecularly German expression of the silver chamber pot Rococo, had great influence on furniture produced in the antique oak lion head round table Scandinavian countries. There, bombe commodes and serpentine cabinets were covered with marquetry and cross-banding much as the display cabnit barley twist legs y were in Germany, as seen in pieces produced by Mathias Ortman of Copenhagen and Lars Bolin of Sweden. Organic, bulbous forms also appeared in the davenport antique pottery extremely broad commodes, secretaires and cabinets of the william france cabinet maker upholsterer Dutch Rococo. These flatter translations often had wide, chamfered corners, with central ornamental cartouches at the antique sheraton chairs apron and pediment; although the furniture, antique, dresser drawers of German bombe commodes extended to the wiener werkstatte tables serpentine edges, on Dutch pieces the antique 9 drawer dressing table marble top drawers remained rectangular, with veneered strips filling the remove resin from flatware gap to the antique cabinet makers chairs undulating side.
The Rise of the pierced ironstone Neo-classical Style
The Rococo style reached its peak in Europe in the where can i sale my cold porcelain paste?? late 1750s. Meanwhile, the regency chairs, sabre leg, hepplewhite discoveries of Herculaneum and Pompeii just before mid-century had intensified the antique dining plates already popular vogue for continental grand tours among English and French scholars, young gentlemen and dilettanti, who mixed with native scholars and artists at academies and societies in Italy, and inaugurated the early 1900’s antique bobbin twist dining room suites classical revival. The aesthetic rivalry between the belgian cupboards Italian Giovanni Battista Piranesi and the moorish chest of drawers German Johann Joachim Winckelmann, who defended the iron strong box german supremacy of Roman and Greek civilization respectively, sparked off an increased interest in classical
architecture and art as exemplified by the antique english mahogany brekfast table with drawers liege se societies.
In England, the eileen gray sinuous oriental lacquer work Scottish-born furniture designer Robert Adam (1728-92) returned from Italy and Europe in 1758. His publication in 1763 of the slate 19c mantel clock furniture added to the upholstered french desk chair growing number of volumes of engravings of classical furniture which circulated among aristocratic subscribers who were continually redecorating the antique drop leaf table styles 1700 ir homes during the transitional louis xv style sideboard 18th century according to passing fashion. Other furniture included Robert Wood’s Ruins of Palmyra of 1753, and the antique molding collector Antiquities of A the antique empire chests wooden handles ns of 1762, by James ‘Athenian’ Stuart and Nicholas Revett.
By the late art deco period early 1860s Robert Adam had established himself as the lantern clock jacobean pacesetter and leading exponent of the paper maiche tea table new ‘Neo-classical’ architectural and decorative style, derived from free combinations of the double chair back settee flemish double curve grotesques, arabesques and classical ornaments of antique and Renaissance Italian interiors, and from lively French designs such as those of Berain. While the victorian table black mother pearl with mirror earlier English Palladians had applied the 18thc paint for lit a la polonaise bed exterior accoutrements of classical architecture to the wood carved and upholstered chairs made in italy in 1926 ir rooms, Adam’s lighter schemes were based on the twist leg chair interiors of domestic Rome and Pompeii.
Creating effects of gaiety and movement, Adam covered his walls with colours and a repertoire of delicately interpreted classical ornaments arranged on ceilings, walls, friezes and decorative door and window frames. Adam designed and refurbishedfurniture, harmonizing and coordinating to the brook & son sterling pierced minutest detail the tudor period furniture schemes of ceilings, carpets, walls, furniture and even in one celebrated case the irish antique sideboard chiffonier ornament of a lady’s gold watch band to be worn in a certain room. The refined motifs he introduced, including anthemions, palmettos, rinceaux, griffins, bay leaves and peltoid shields, appeared repeatedly with minor modifications within any given room, creating a unified decorative effect. Adam’s total schemes also dictated the antique bachelors kettle placement of furniture, as in the antiques vitrine painted furniture which echo the edwardian bobbin corner chairupholstered seat wall ornament in the chinese knotted imperial carpets Etruscan Room at Osterley Park in Middlesex. This is one of several rooms Adam designed in an ‘Etruscan’ style with terracotta and black ornament derived from Greek vase painting.
The furniture Adam fitted to the 17th century english corner wall hanging cupboard se rooms was often executed by John Linnell or Thomas Chippendale. Although it followed no classical examples, it suggested the circular arts and crafts table antique through architectonic forms, straight lines, and classical symbols. Semi-circular commodes, mosaic-topped rectangular side-tables and furniture with lyre, anthemion and oval backs stood on tapering straight legs. Adam’s smooth, flat surfaces were enlivened by contrasting marquetry compositions, and inset roundels and plaques painted in the phoenix bird antique mirrors style of Angelica Kauffmann, parallelled by the brass and glass candelabras made in 1977 Sevres plaques, painted panels and marquetry work found in French Louis XVI furniture and later popular on pieces from Italy, Spain, Germany and the antique roll top desk 1920s Netherlands throughout the old beige persian rug with cherry blossum pattern Neo-classical era.
Although many contemporaries found his mature style finicky, the unusual circle on back side victorian settee influence of Adam’s example at all stages of his career was pronounced possibly because of the antique dresser with curved drawers charm it captured. Contemporary English and European architects and craftsmen, such as James Wyatt, continued to adopt elegant rectilinear forms, classical motifs and a lightened approach to interior design. The taste for delicacy and attenuation persisted even in the antique regency pedestal oval table scrolling furniture of the wooden chamber pot commodes early 19th century Neoclassical works of the thonet medallion Turin carver Giuseppe Maria Bonzanigo.
European Neo-classicism – the antique furniture leather mexican rustic sofas.osagedata.com Louis XVI Style
In mid-century, Neo-classicism was on the antique 18th century claw foot mahogany tables ascendancy in France as well, where C. N. Cochin, the beige antique vase with dragon and snake Comte de Caylus, and others were busily attacking the 1800’s commode’s Rococo as frivolous. Decorative styles derived from French studies of the george iv pedestal tray tables classics in Italy were gradually popularized by such designers as the louis 15th rococo furniture Marquis de Marigny and patrons such as Mesdames du Pompadour and du Barry, in the describe - couch and footstool with bone carvings and glass inlays ir collections at Versailles and Louveciennes. Craftsmen such as Gilles Joubert (1689-1775), Antoine Foulet (d.1775), Jean Francois Leleu (1729-1807), Jacques Dubois (1693-1763), and the george iv bureau desk value Germans Jean Francois Oeben (1720-63), Jean Henri Riesener (1734-1806), Adam Weisweiler and Guillaume Bereman, largely shaped the antique.chest.of.draws.in.uk Louis XVI style.
furniture, sofas and canapes such as those designed by Georges Jacob (1739-1814) had square or oval backs, straight fluted uprights and rails, and tapering legs. Case pieces such as secretaires, encoignures, and chests-of-drawers assumed neat, compact forms made more serviceable by caster feet. The straight lines of the romanesque turnery tops and sides were emphasized by ormolu friezes and consoles, and the antique victorian sideboard buffet rectangular panels of flat faqades and sides were articulated by ormolu borders. A widespread delight with mechanical devices spawned a variety of complicated combination forms equipped for such varied uses as writing, eating and sewing. Those of Oeben and Riesener were particularly cleverly mechanized, typifying Louis XVI restraint by enclosing a potentially ungainly variety of components, such as springing drawers and dishwarmers, inside smooth surface facades.
Although it remained unusual, the imperial mahogany end table leather top fashion for mechanical devices in furniture spread through Europe to the antique queen anne couch Netherlands and elsewhere, expressing itself in such pieces as the antique ladies portable dressing table combination desk-table-furniture of the white italian antique wardrobe Italian Giovanni Socchi, of about 1810.
Oeben, who managed one of the antique furniture most flourishing Parisian workshops, produced pieces in a transitional style with studiously naturalistic floral marquetry and cube patterns, but died before the antique bracelets with 830s h.v. markings Louis XVI style reached its peak. Floral and picturesque marquetry with classical motifs characterized the antique curved bedroom early, more truly Neo-classical work of Riesener, but soon after he became ebeniste ordinaire du Roi in 1773 he began to produce simpler geometric patterns, and frets enclosing flowers.
Pierre Gouthiere (1732–c.1813) created delicate, jewel-like bronze mounts comprised of goats, vines and cornflowers and roses, Marie Antoinette’s favourite flowers. Sevres porcelain trays and panels were incorporated in commodes and tables increasingly after about 1760 by Weisweiler, Martin Carlin and others. Towards the roentgen architect’s table hidden drawer end of the commode 1800 century, English-inspired carved furniture also showed contemporary English
influence. furniture sheathed in the antique furniture texarkana texas tortoiseshell and brass marquetry popularized by Boulle was considered collectable even during the george nelson primevera drop leaf table 18th century, when craftsmen such as Etienne Lavasseur continued to produce it.
The elements of the dent eight day wall clocks Louis XVI style were dispersed throughout Europe, where cabinetmakers such as Andries Bongen of Amsterdam produced Neo-classical marquetry compositions, and Giuseppe Maggiolini of Milan sheathed his Louis XVI-style forms with marquetry ornament. The dissemination of the spindle leg upholstered ladder back armchair for sale Adam style led in England to a second phase of Neo-classicism, more accessible to the stop fluted straight leg table middle classes because of its
use of less costly materials. Pattern-books such as George Hepplewhite’s Cabinetmaker and Upholsterer’s Guide and Thomas Shearer’s Cabinet-maker’s London Book of Prices, both of 1788, and Thomas Sheraton’s Cabinetmaker and Upholsterer’s Drawing Book (1791-94), popularized straight legs and tall light forms derived from Adam’s designs. This reductionist form of classicism abandoned Adam’s vocabulary of Neo-
classical motifs for simplified ornamental schemes comprised of large Top: Louis XVI furniture with classical lines. areas of figured veneers similar to those made fashionable on the penwork tables Bottom: Louis XV furniture. mahogany fall-fronts of Louis XVI secretaires.
Sheraton, Hepplewhite and Shearer popularized a variety of light forms such as ladies’ work tables with silk bags, serpentine-front commodes, tambour desks and cabinets with doors of bronze latticework backed by pleated silk. The backs of settees and furniture were carved with, Prince of Wales feathers and classical motifs such as swags and urns.
The purified Neo-classicism of England and France returned to invigorate Italian design, and filtered from the hepplewhite wheat chair re to craftsmen in Portugal and Spain. Light, rectilinear furniture with tapering slender legs, were produced as local interpretations of Hepplewhite and Sheraton designs in Italy and Iberia late in the crane turtle candlestick century.
Louis XVI influence surfaced in Italy in the rosewood sewing table lyre and oval-shaped backs of furniture, which were caned or upholstered in velvets and striped damasks as in England and France, and in the 17th centry decoupage fluted or spirally-turned straight legs of frequently parcel gilt furniture and side-tables. Marble-topped semicircular tables and commodes, with gilded friezes ornamented with fluting, guiloches and plaques, exhibited the antique drawer front architectonic preferences that Adam had refined. Other Italian furniture and tables preceded by decades the real pratt pot lids vs fake French Empire style, with elements such as sweeping S-curved arms, curved rear legs, Egyptian hieroglyphics and monopodia, and the antique onslow silverware horizontal placement at the antique pine turn top tables centre of furniture rails of symmetrical, classical foliate motifs in ormolu.
Neo-classical Spanish furniture had straight rails and stiles and oval or arched rectangular backs in the craftsman bedside table pictures Louis XVI style; the antique french pottery ir legs often combined vestiges of Baroque capping with French flutes and tapering forms. furniture with lyre backs and round seats, and caned examples with concave-sided interlaced trapezoidal backs, showed Italian influence. Rectangular console or side-tables, carved or inlaid with attenuated classical ornament, occasionally stood on legs of sweeping S-curved form. Vitruvian scrolls, acanthus leaves, masks and rinceaux appeared on drop-front Above: Carved fall-front cabinet wi h small compartments of desks, commodes, tables and beds.
Portuguese furniture revealed similar ripples of influence. Delicate English-inspired furniture and settees with tapered legs and fluted front rails were ornamented with classical plaques and roundels; marble-topped commodes, semi-circular side-tables and bureaux cylindre reflected the 1830 coalport plate flowers Louis XVI manner.
America
The federation of the french art deco lamp mark American colonies upon the kidney shaped walnut side table adoption of the piano front antique desk with reeded legs Constitution in 1789 established, in American eyes, a republic sufficiently blessed with democratic principles to bear an association with ancient Rome. At the gustavbecker same time the antique oak 1920 bowed dresser geometric rationalism of Robert Adam’s Neo-classical style reached the regency furniture seats United States in published pattern-books of engravings by Hepplewhite, Shearer and Sheraton.
Just as Thomas Jefferson would have found appeal in the italian mahogany pedestal table classical example of Palladio’s geometrical Villa Rotunda for his residence at Monticello, American craftsmen were attracted to the louis xv11 furniture purities of geometry and classicism that the antique inlaid wooden tray se later English designs evoked.
After about 1790, geometric forms and surface ornament began to appear on the 9 drawer provincial mahogany furniture most fashionable American furniture. Tables and commodes with semicircular plans were made by John and Thomas Seymour of Boston and the anteek 1800-1900 chairs Townsends of Newport. Veneered ovals and circles, bordered with narrow strips of cross-banding that emphasized the antique 5 tier graduating whatnot ir geometricity, were set in rectangular fields of contrasting colours on the antique amboyna sideboard facades of secretaires produced in Salem, Baltimore and elsewhere.
Chests-of-drawers had restrained serpentine facades and simple bracket feet, and the robert adam furniture designs legs of sofas, furniture, furniture and tables were tapered, slender and straight. The moulded glazing bars on the glass vase copper drip upper portions of secretaires from Baltimore, Massachusetts, Charleston and elsewhere were arranged in compositions of ovals, circles, and diamonds and squares.
American cabinetmakers also adopted a collection of classical ornaments in more specific allusions to the antiue monk carved chair civilizations of Rome and Greece. Allegorical figures were painted in black and white verre eglomise panels on Baltimore furniture ; the rare czechoslovakia pottery egyptian Boston Seymours inlaid desks with completely flattened trompe-l’oel pilasters ; sparingly applied paterae, bellflowers, eagles, shields and busts all alluded to the antique clawfoot chest of drawers mahogany classics.
The carved vine leaves and cornucopias that Salem architect-craftsmen Samuel McIntyre applied to his mahogany sofas and furniture similarly reflected the schreckengost french provincial value national optimism that pervaded federal America.
Clocks and mirrors were adorned with brass spheres or urn finials, quarter-columns and gilded eagles. Case pieces such as bookcases became increasingly light, and women’s secretaires and work-tables, of delicate proportion and ornament, were introduced. Tea-tables, card-tables with folding tops, Windsor furniture, four-poster beds and chests-ofdrawers on bracket turned or brass paw feet, all took on the half moon chest of drawers restrained dignity of the antique roll top single pedestal desk Federal period.
Northern Europe
The shapes and ornaments of French and English Neo-classical interior and furniture design, including arabesque wall panelling, rectilinear forms, tapering legs, ormolu mounts and mouldings, and geometrical and pictorial marquetry compositions, were also adopted in Scandinavia, the antique furniture sioux falls Netherlands and Germany. However, local traditions distinguished the clear/ruby german lead crystal with bird motif se renditions.
As in the plymouth 1850 moved to london 1874 strand Rococo era, the chippendale replica black lacquer Scandinavian royal court favoured European styles, and recruited talent from abroad ; the blue white chinese export porcelain identification Swedish craftsman George Haupt worked in England with William Chambers before returning home. Erik Ohrmark in Sweden, Nicolas Henri Jardin and Joseph Christian Lillie in Denmark, and Lillie in Norway produced furnishings showing Louis XVI and Adamesque characteristics.
The work of Abraham and David Roentgen was highly favoured internationally and the antique roman church cabinets ir designs were particularly influential in Paris on the victorian chaise has chest box development of the what did antique hat stands look like? Louis XVI style. Abraham Roentgen (171193) established his first business at Neuwied-am-Rhein in 1750 after joining a Moravian colony which had established itself the italian veneer lacquer dresser re. The furniture which he produced showed the chippendale desk dropleaf three draws influence of Chippendale perhaps due to the antique half round wood moulding period from 1731 when Roentgen had worked for various firms of cabinetmakers in London. The general style of his furniture was subdued Rococo and while it was attractive his company was often short of money.
Abraham’s son David (1743-1807) seems to have begun managing the silver makers mark i s firm some time after 1766 and formally took over the swedish antique scroll arm sofa in black management when his father retired in 1772. From the antique round display cbinets time David began handling company affairs the european 1820s beds firm rapidly prospered, almost certainly due to the antique mahogany claw foot table fact that he was not only a craftsman but also had an acute business sense. He recognized that the antique gold and silver ornamental pot 98009 Rococo style was no longer in such demand, but even more important from a purely business concern he was aware that he could not rely on local patronage alone for his prosperity. In this he was an innovator for no-one had previously successfully exploited the manner of blades candelabra European market for furniture of quality.
His first major success was a sale of furniture by lottery which he organized in Hamburg in 1769. In 1779 he widened his horizons even further by setting up a warehouse in Paris, the antique furniture identifying major market for furniture at this time. The venture was an outstanding success for the antique dresser with 4 drawers Court became his prime customer and it has been estimated that over the queen anne marble console lion feet next years the antique furniture collector Crown spent more than one million livres with him. A further indicator of his reputation and success was his appointment as ebeniste du Roi et de la Reine. The French Court was not his only Imperial customer. After a visit to St Petersburg in 1783, Catherine the furniture false lip construction Great became one of his most ardent admirers and purchased a considerable quantity of his furniture.
His business was brought to an abrupt halt by the jacobean chest French Revolution, for his warehouse in Paris was confiscated and in 1795 invading French troops wrecked his workshop at Neuwied. Only a small amount of stock at other depots was saved.
David Roentgen’s work was the art nouveau octagonal best expression of German Neoclassicism. In addition he perfected a marquetry technique in which he depicted ribbons, flower baskets and other motifs with extraordinary realism by using a variety of woods of different colours, rather than burning, to simulate shadows and depths. For a time Peter Kinzing was Roentgen’s partner and together the old piano stool thonet y specialized in furniture with built-in, elaborate, hidden mechanisms such as secret drawers, compartments or musical boxes and other pieces of 18th century furniture.