Brussels, and Lawreans of Mechlin. Gibbons and his pupils founded a school of carving in England which has been continued by tradition to the present day.
[Illustration: Silver Furniture at Knole. (_From a Photo by Mr. Corke, of Sevenoaks._)]
A somewhat important immigration of French workmen occurred about this time owing to the persecutions of Protestants in France, which followed, the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, by Louis XIV., and these refugees bringing with them their skill, their patterns and ideas, influenced the carving of our frames and the designs of some of our furniture. This influence is to be traced in some of the contents of Hampton Court Palace, particularly in the carved and gilt centre tables and the _torcheres_ of French design but of English workmanship. It is said that no less than 50,000 families left France, some thousands of whom belonged to the industrial classes, and settled in England and Germany, where their descendants still remain. They introduced the manufacture of crystal chandeliers, and founded our Spitalfields silk industry and other trades, till then little practised in England.
The beautiful silver furniture at Knole belongs to this time, having been made for one of the Earls of Dorset, in the reign of James II. The illustration is from a photograph taken by Mr. Corke, of Sevenoaks. Electrotypes of the originals are in the South Kensington Museum. From two other suites at Knole, consisting of a looking glass, a table, and a pair of _torcheres_, in the one case of plain walnut wood, and in the other of ebony with silver mountings, it would appear that a toilet suite of furniture of the time of James II. generally consisted of articles of a similar character, more or less costly, according to circumstances. The silver table bears the English Hall mark of the reign.
As we approach the end of the seventeenth century and examine specimens of English furniture about 1680 to 1700, we find a marked Flemish influence. The Stadtholder, King William III., with his Dutch friends, imported many of their household goods[12], and our English craftsmen seem to have copied these very closely. The chairs and settees in the South Kensington Museum, and at Hampton Court Palace, have the shaped back with a wide inlaid or carved upright bar, the cabriole leg and the carved shell ornament on the knee of the leg, and on the top of the back, which are still to be seen in many of the old Dutch houses.
There are a few examples of furniture of this date, which it is almost impossible to distinguish from Flemish, but in some others there is a characteristic decoration in marqueterie, which may be described as a seaweed scroll in holly or box wood, inlaid on a pale walnut ground, a good example of which is to be seen in the upright “grandfather’s clock” in the South Kensington Museum, the effect being a pleasing harmony of colour.
In the same collection there is also a walnut wood centre table, dating from about 1700, which has twisted legs and a stretcher, the top being inlaid with intersecting circles relieved by the inlay of some stars in ivory.
As we have observed with regard to French furniture of this time, mirrors came more generally into use, and the frames were both carved and inlaid. There are several of these at Hampton Court Palace, all with bevelled edged plate glass; some have frames entirely of glass, the short lengths which make the frame, having in some cases the joints covered by rosettes of blue glass, and in others a narrow moulding of gilt work on each side of the frame. In one room (the Queen’s Gallery) the frames are painted in colors and relieved by a little gilding.
The taste for importing old Dutch furniture, also lacquer cabinets from Japan, not only gave relief to the appearance of a well furnished apartment of this time, but also brought new ideas to our designers and workmen. Our collectors, too, were at this time appreciating the Oriental china, both blue and white, and colored, which had a good market in Holland, so that with the excellent silversmith’s work then obtainable, it was possible in the time of William and Mary to arrange a room with more artistic effect than at an earlier period, when the tapestry and panelling of the walls, a table, the livery cupboard previously described, and some three or four chairs, had formed almost the whole furniture of reception rooms.
The first mention of corner cupboards appears to have been made in an advertisement of a Dutch joiner in “The Postman” of March 8th, 1711; these cupboards, with their carved pediments being part of the modern fittings of a room in the time of Queen Anne.
The oak presses common to this and earlier times are formed of an upper and lower part, the former sometimes being three sides of an octagon with the top supported by columns, while the lower half is straight, and the whole is carved with incised ornament. These useful articles of furniture, in the absence of wardrobes, are described in inventories of the time (1680-1720) as “press cupboards,” “great cupboards,” “wainscot,” and “joyned cupboards.”
The first mention of a “Buerow,” as our modern word “Bureau” was then spelt, is said by Dr. Lyon, in his American book, “The Colonial Furniture of New England,” to have occurred in an advertisement in “The Daily Post” of January 4th, 1727. The same author quotes Bailey’s Dictionarium Britannicum, published in London, 1736, as defining the word “bureau” as “a cabinet or chest of drawers, or ‘scrutoir’ for depositing papers or accounts.”
In the latter half of the eighteenth century those convenient pieces of furniture came into more general use, and illustrations of them as designed and made by Chippendale and his contemporaries will be found in the chapter dealing with that period.
Dr. Lyon also quotes from an American newspaper, “The Boston News Letter” of April 16th, 1716, an advertisement which was evidently published when the tall clocks, which we now call “grandfathers’ clocks,” were a novelty, and as such were being introduced to the American public. We have already referred to one of these which is in the South Kensington Museum, date 1700, and no doubt the manufacture of similar ones became more general during the first years of the eighteenth century. The advertisement alluded to runs, “Lately come from London, a parcel of very fine clocks–they go a week and repeat the hour when pulled” (a string caused the same action as the pressing of the handle of a repeating watch) “in Japan cases or wall-nut.”
The style of decoration in furniture and woodwork which we recognise as “Queen Anne,” apart from the marqueterie just described, appears, so far as the writer’s investigations have gone, to be due to the designs of some eminent architects of the time. Sir James Vanbrugh was building Blenheim Palace for the Queen’s victorious general, and also Castle Howard. Nicholas Hawksmoor had erected St. George’s. Bloomsbury, and James Gibbs, a Scotch architect and antiquary, St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, and the Royal Library at Oxford; a ponderous style characterises the woodwork interior of these buildings. We give an illustration of three designs for chimney-pieces and overmantels by James Gibbs, the centre one of which illustrates the curved or “swan-necked” pediment, which became a favourite ornament about this time, until supplanted by the heavier triangular pediment which came in with “the Georges.”
The contents of Hampton Court Palace afford evidence of the transition which the design of woodwork and furniture has undergone from the time of William III. until that of George II. There is the Dutch chair with cabriole leg, the plain walnut card table also of Dutch design, which probably came over with the Stadtholder; then, there are the heavy draperies, and chairs almost completely covered by Spitalfields silk velvet, to be seen in the bedroom furniture of Queen Anne. Later, as the heavy Georgian style predominated, there is the stiff ungainly gilt furniture, console tables with legs ornamented with the Greek key pattern badly applied, and finally, as the French school of design influenced our carvers, an improvement may be noticed in the tables and _torcheres_, which but for being a trifle clumsy, might pass for the work of French craftsmen of the same time. The State chairs, the bedstead, and some stools, which are said to have belonged to Queen Caroline, are further examples of the adoption of French fashion.
[Illustration: Three Chimneypieces. Designed by James Gibes, Architect, in 1739.]
Nearly all writers on the subject of furniture and woodwork are agreed in considering that the earlier part of the period discussed in this chapter, that is, the seventeenth century, is the best in the traditions of English work. As we have seen in noticing some of the earlier Jacobean examples already illustrated and described, it was a period marked by increased refinement of design through the abandonment of the more grotesque and often coarse work of Elizabethan carving, and by soundness of construction and thorough workmanship.
Oak furniture made in England during the seventeenth century, is still a credit to the painstaking craftsmen of those days, and even upholstered furniture, like the couches and chairs at Knole, after more than 250 years’ service, are fit for use.
In the ninth and last chapter, which will deal with furniture of the present day, the methods of production which are now in practice will be noticed, and some comparison will be made which must be to the credit of the Jacobean period.
* * * * *
In the foregoing chapters an attempt has been made to preserve, as far as possible, a certain continuity in the history of the subject matter of this work from the earliest times until after the Renaissance had been generally adopted in Europe. In this endeavour a greater amount of attention has been bestowed upon the furniture of a comparatively short period of English history than upon that of other countries, but it is hoped that this fault will be forgiven by English readers.
It has now become necessary to interrupt this plan, and before returning to the consideration of European design and work, to devote a short chapter to those branches of the Industrial Arts connected with furniture which flourished in China and Japan, in India, Persia, and Arabia, at a time anterior and subsequent to the Renaissance period in Europe.
Chapter V.
The Furniture of Eastern Countries.
CHINESE FURNITURE: Probable source of artistic taste–Sir William Chambers quoted–Racinet’s “Le Costume Historique”–Dutch influence–The South Kensington and the Duke of Edinburgh Collections–Processes of making Lacquer–Screens in the Kensington Museum. JAPANESE FURNITURE: Early History–Sir Rutherford Alcock and Lord Elgin–The Collection of the Shogun–Famous Collections–Action of the present Government of Japan–Special characteristics. INDIAN FURNITURE: Early European influence–Furniture of the Moguls–Racinet’s Work–Bombay Furniture–Ivory Chairs and Table–Specimens in the India Museum. PERSIAN WOODWORK: Collection of Objets d’Art formed by General Murdoch Smith, R.E.–Industrial Arts of the Persians–Arab influence–South Kensington Specimens. SARACENIC WOODWORK: Oriental customs–Specimens in the South Kensington Museum of Arab Work–M. d’Aveune’s Work.
Chinese and Japanese Furniture.
[Illustration]
We have been unable to discover when the Chinese first began to use State or domestic furniture. Whether, like the ancient Assyrians and Egyptians, there was an early civilization which included the arts of joining, carving, and upholstering, we do not know; most probably there was; and from the plaster casts which one sees in our Indian Museum, of the ornamental stone gateways of Sanchi Tope, Bhopal in Central India, it would appear that in the early part of our Christian era, the carvings in wood of their neighbours and co-religionists, the Hindoos, represented figures of men and animals in the woodwork of sacred buildings or palaces; and the marvellous dexterity in manipulating wood, ivory and stone which we recognize in the Chinese of to-day, is inherited from their ancestors.
Sir William Chambers travelled in China in the early part of the last century. It was he who introduced “the Chinese style” into furniture and decoration, which was adopted by Chippendale and other makers, as will be noticed in the chapter dealing with that period of English furniture. He gives us the following description of the furniture he found in “The Flowery Land.”
“The moveables of the saloon consist of chairs, stools, and tables; made sometimes of rosewood, ebony, or lacquered work, and sometimes of bamboo only, which is cheap, and, nevertheless, very neat. When the moveables are of wood, the seats of the stools are often of marble or porcelain, which, though hard to sit on, are far from unpleasant in a climate where the summer heats are so excessive. In the corners of the rooms are stands four or live feet high, on which they set plates of citrons, and other fragrant fruits, or branches of coral in vases of porcelain, and glass globes containing goldfish, together with a certain weed somewhat resembling fennel; on such tables as are intended for ornament only they also place little landscapes, composed of rocks, shrubs, and a kind of lily that grows among pebbles covered with water. Sometimes also, they have artificial landscapes made of ivory, crystal, amber, pearls, and various stones. I have seen some of these that cost over 300 guineas, but they are at best mere baubles, and miserable imitations of nature. Besides these landscapes they adorn their tables with several vases of porcelain, and little vases of copper, which are held in great esteem. These are generally of simple and pleasing forms. The Chinese say they were made two thousand years ago, by some of their celebrated artists, and such as are real antiques (for there are many counterfeits) they buy at an extravagant price, giving sometimes no less than L300 sterling for one of them.
“The bedroom is divided from the saloon by a partition of folding doors, which, when the weather is hot, are in the night thrown open to admit the air. It is very small, and contains no other furniture than the bed, and some varnished chests in which they keep their apparel. The beds are very magnificent; the bedsteads are made much like ours in Europe–of rosewood, carved, or lacquered work: the curtains are of taffeta or gauze, sometimes flowered with gold, and commonly either blue or purple. About the top a slip of white satin, a foot in breadth, runs all round, on which are painted, in panels, different figures–flower pieces, landscapes, and conversation pieces, interspersed with moral sentences and fables written in Indian ink and vermilion.”
From old paintings and engravings which date from about the fourteenth or fifteenth century one gathers an idea of such furniture as existed in China and Japan in earlier times. In one of these, which is reproduced in Racinet’s “Le Costume Historique,” there is a Chinese princess reclining on a sofa which has a frame of black wood visible, and slightly ornamented; it is upholstered with rich embroidery, for which these artistic people seem to have been famous from a very early period. A servant stands by her side to hand her the pipe of opium with which the monotony of the day was varied–one arm rests on a small wooden table or stand which is placed on the sofa, and which holds a flower vase and a pipe stand.
On another old painting two figures are seated on mats playing a game which resembles draughts, the pieces being moved about on a little table with black and white squares like a modern chessboard, with shaped feet to raise it a convenient height for the players: on the floor stand cups of tea ready to hand. Such pictures are generally ascribed to the fifteenth century, the period of the great Ming dynasty, which appears to have been the time of an improved culture and taste in China.
From this time and a century later (the sixteenth) also date those beautiful cabinets of lacquered wood enriched with ivory, mother of pearl, with silver and even with gold, which have been brought to England occasionally; but genuine specimens of this, and of the seventeenth century, are very scarce and extremely valuable.
The older Chinese furniture which one sees generally in Europe dates from the eighteenth century, and was made to order and imported by the Dutch; this explains the curious combination to be found of Oriental and European designs; thus, there are screens with views of Amsterdam and other cities copied from paintings sent out for the purpose, while the frames of the panels are of carved rosewood of the fretted bamboo pattern characteristic of the Chinese. Elaborate bedsteads, tables and cabinets were also made, with panels of ash stained a dark color and ornamented with hunting scenes, in which the men and horses are of ivory, or sometimes with ivory faces and limbs, the clothes being chiefly in a brown colored wood.
In a beautiful table in the South Kensington Museum, which is said to have been made in Cochin-China, mother of pearl is largely used and produces a rich effect.
The furniture brought back by the Duke of Edinburgh from China and Japan is of the usual character imported, and the remarks hereafter made on Indian or Bombay furniture apply equally to this adaptation of Chinese detail to European designs.
The most highly prized work of China and Japan in the way of decorative furniture is the beautiful lacquer work, and in the notice on French furniture of the eighteenth century, in a subsequent chapter, we shall see that the process was adopted in Holland, France and England with more or less success.
It is worth while, however, to allude to it here a little more fully.
The process as practised in China is thus described by M. Jacquemart:–
“The wood when smoothly planed is covered with a sheet of thin paper or silk gauze, over which is spread a thick coating made of powdered red sandstone and buffalo’s gall. This is allowed to dry, after which it is polished and rubbed with wax, or else receives a wash of gum water, holding chalk in solution. The varnish is laid on with a flat brush, and the article is placed in a damp drying room, whence it passes into the hands of a workman, who moistens and again polishes it with a piece of very fine grained soft clay slate, or with the stalks of the horse-tail or shave grass. It then receives a second coating of lacquer, and when dry is once more polished. These operations are repeated until the surface becomes perfectly smooth and lustrous. There are never applied less than three coatings and seldom more than eighteen, though some old Chinese and some Japan ware are said to have received upwards of twenty. As regards China, this seems quite exceptional, for there is in the Louvre a piece with the legend ‘lou-tinsg,’ i.e. six coatings, implying that even so many are unusual enough to be worthy of special mention.”
There is as much difference between different kinds and qualities of lac as between different classes of marquctcrie.
The most highly prized is the LACQUER ON GOLD GROUND, and the specimens of this which first reached Europe during the time of Louis XV., were presentation pieces from the Japanese Princes to some of the Dutch officials.
Gold ground lacquer is rarely found in furniture, and only as a rule in some of those charming little boxes, in which the luminous effect of the lac is heightened by the introduction of silver foliage on a minute scale, or of tiny landscape work and figures charmingly treated, partly with dull gold and partly highly burnished. Small placques of this beautiful ware were used for some of the choicest pieces of Gouthiere’s elegant furniture made for Marie Antoinette.
Aventurine lacquer closely imitates in color the sparkling mineral from which it takes its name, and a less highly finished preparation is used as a lining for the small drawers of cabinets. Another lacquer has a black ground, on which landscapes delicately traced in gold stand out in charming relief. Such pieces were used by Riesener and mounted by Gouthiere in some of the most costly furniture made for Marie Antoinette; some specimens are in the Louvre. It is this kind of lacquer, in varying qualities, that is usually found in cabinets, folding screens, coffers, tables, etageres, and other ornamental articles of furniture. Enriched with inlay of mother of pearl, the effect of which is in some cases heightened and rendered more effective by some transparent coloring on its reverse side, as in the case of a bird’s plumage or of those beautiful blossoms which both Chinese and Japanese artists can represent so faithfully.
A very remarkable screen in Chinese lacquer of later date is in the South Kensington Museum; it is composed of twelve folds each ten feet high, and measuring when fully extended twenty-one feet. This screen is very beautifully decorated on both sides with incised and raised ornaments painted and gilt on black ground, with a rich border ornamented with representations of sacred symbols and various other objects. The price paid for it was L1,000. There are also in the Museum some very rich chairs of modern Chinese work, in brown wood, probably teak, very elaborately inlaid with mother-of-pearl; they were exhibited in Paris in 1867.
Of the very early history of Japanese industrial arts we know but little. We have no record of the kind of furniture which Marco Polo found when he travelled in Japan in the thirteenth century, and until the Jesuit missionaries obtained a footing in the sixteenth century and sent home specimens of native work, there was probably very little of Japanese manufacture which found its way to Europe. The beautiful lacquer work of Japan, which dates from the end of the sixteenth and the following century, leads us to suppose that a long period of probation must have occurred before the Arts, which were probably learned from the Chinese, could have been so thoroughly mastered.
Of furniture, with the exception of the cabinets, chests, and boxes, large and small, of this famous lac, there appears to have been little. Until the Japanese developed a taste for copying European customs and manners, the habit seems to have been to sit on mats and to use small tables raised a few inches from the ground. Even the bedrooms contained no bedsteads, but a light mattress served for bed and bedstead.
The process of lacquering has already been described, and in the chapter on French furniture of the eighteenth century it will be seen how specimens of this decorative material reached France by way of Holland, and were mounted into the “_meubles de luxe_” of that time. With this exception, and that of the famous collection of porcelain in the Japan Palace at Dresden, probably but little of the art products of this artistic people had been exported until the country was opened up by the expedition of Lord Elgin and Commodore Perry, in 1858-9, and subsequently by the antiquarian knowledge and research of Sir Rutherford Alcock, who has contributed so much to our knowledge of Japanese industrial art; indeed it is scarcely too much to say, that so far as England is concerned, he was the first to introduce the products of the Empire of Japan.
[Illustration: Japanese Cabinet of Red Chased Lacquer Work. XVII to XVIII Century.]
The Revolution, and the break up of the feudal system which had existed in that country for some eight hundred years, ended by placing the Mikado on the throne. There was a sale in Paris, in 1867, of the famous collection of the Shogun, who had sent his treasures there to raise funds for the civil war in which he was then engaged with the Daimio. This was followed by the exportation of other fine native productions to Paris and London; but the supply of old and really fine specimens has, since about 1874, almost ceased, and, in default, the European markets have become flooded with articles of cheap and inferior workmanship, exported to meet the modern demand. The present Government of Japan, anxious to recover many of the masterpieces which were produced in the best time, under the patronage of the native princes of the old _regime_, have established a museum at Tokio, where many examples of fine lacquer work, which had been sent to Europe for sale, have been placed after repurchase, to serve as examples for native artists to copy, and to assist in the restoration of the ancient reputation of Japan.
There is in the South Kensington Museum a very beautiful Japanese chest of lacquer work made about the beginning of the seventeenth century, the best time for Japanese art; it formerly belonged to Napoleon I. and was purchased at the Hamilton Palace Sale for L722: it is some 3 ft. 3 in. long and 2 ft. 1 in. high, and was intended originally as a receptacle for sacred Buddhist books. There are, most delicately worked on to its surface, views of the interior of one of the Imperial Palaces of Japan, and a hunting scene. Mother-of-pearl, gold, silver, and aventurine, are all used in the enrichment of this beautiful specimen of inlaid work, and the lock plate is a representative example of the best kind of metal work as applied to this purpose.
H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh has several fine specimens of Chinese and Japanese lacquer work in his collection, about the arrangement of which the writer had the honour of advising his Royal Highness, when it arrived some years ago at Clarence House. The earliest specimen is a reading desk, presented by the Mikado, with a slope for a book much resembling an ordinary bookrest, but charmingly decorated with lacquer in landscape subjects on the flat surfaces, while the smaller parts are diapered with flowers and quatrefoils in relief of lac and gold. This is of the sixteenth century. The collections of the Earl of Elgin and Kincardine, Sir Rutherford Alcock, K.C.B., Mr. Salting, Viscount Gough, and other well-known amateurs, contain some excellent examples of the best periods of Japanese Art work of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
The grotesque carving of the wonderful dragons and marvellous monsters introduced into furniture made by the Chinese and Japanese, and especially in the ornamental woodwork of the Old Temples, is thoroughly peculiar to these masters of elaborate design and skilful manipulation: and the low rate of remuneration, compared with our European notions of wages, enables work to be produced that would be impracticable under any other conditions. In comparing the decorative work on Chinese and Japanese furniture, it may be said that more eccentricity is effected by the latter than by the former in their designs and general decorative work. The Japanese joiner is unsurpassed, and much of the lattice work, admirable in design and workmanship, is so quaint and intricate that only by close examination can it be distinguished from finely cut fret work.
Indian Furniture.
European influence upon Indian art and manufactures has been of long duration; it was first exercised by the Portuguese and Dutch in the early days of the United East India Company, afterwards by the French, who established a trading company there in 1664, and since then by the English, the first charter of the old East India Company dating as far back as 1600. Thus European taste dominated almost everything of an ornamental character until it became difficult to find a decorative article the design of which did not in some way or other shew the predominance of European influence over native conception. Therefore it becomes important to ascertain what kind of furniture, limited as it was, existed in India during the period of the Mogul Empire, which lasted from 1505 to 1739, when the invasion of the Persians under Kouli Khan destroyed the power of the Moguls; the country formerly subject to them was then divided amongst sundry petty princes.
The thrones and State chairs used by the Moguls were rich with elaborate gilding; the legs or supports were sometimes of turned wood, with some of the members carved; the chair was formed like an hour glass, or rather like two bowls reversed, with the upper part extended to form a higher back to the seat. In M. Racinet’s sumptuous work, “Le Costume Historique,” published in Paris in 20 volumes (1876), there are reproduced some old miniatures from the collection of M. Ambroise Didot. These represent–with all the advantages of the most highly finished printing in gold, silver, and colours–portraits of these native sovereigns seated on their State chairs, with the umbrella, as a sign of royalty. The panels and ornaments of the thrones are picked out with patterns of flowers, sometimes detached blossoms, sometimes the whole plant; the colors are generally bright red and green, while the ground of a panel or the back of a chair is in silver, with arabesque tracery, the rest of the chair being entirely gilt. The couches are rectangular, with four turned and carved supports, some eight or ten inches high, and also gilt. With the exception of small tables, which could be carried into the room by slaves, and used for the light refreshments customary to the country, there was no other furniture. The ladies of the harem are represented as being seated on sumptuous carpets, and the walls are highly decorated with gold and silver and color, which seems very well suited to the arched openings, carved and gilt doors, and brilliant costumes of the occupants of these Indian palaces.
After the break up of the Mogul power, the influence of Holland, France, and England brought about a mixture of taste and design which, with the concurrent alterations in manners and customs, gradually led to the production of what is now known as the “Bombay furniture.” The patient, minute carving of Indian design applied to utterly uncongenial Portuguese or French shapes of chairs and sofas, or to the familiar round or oval table, carved almost beyond recognition, are instances of this style. One sees these occasionally in the house of an Anglo-Indian, who has employed native workmen to make some of this furniture for him, the European chairs and tables being given as models, while the details of the ornament have been left to native taste.
It is scarcely part of our subject to allude to the same kind of influence which has spoiled the quaint bizarre effect of native design and workmanship in silver, in jewellery, in carpets, embroideries, and in pottery, which was so manifest in the contributions sent to South Kensington at the Colonial Exhibition, 1886. There are in the Indian Museum at South Kensington several examples of this Bombay furniture, and also some of Cingalese manufacture.
In the Jones Collection at South Kensington Museum, there are two carved ivory chairs and a table, the latter gilded, the former partly gilded, which are a portion of a set taken from Tippo Sahib at the storming of Seringapatam. Warren Hastings brought them to England, and they were given to Queen Charlotte. After her death the set was divided; Lord Londesborough purchased part of it, and this portion is now on loan at the Bethnal Green Museum.
The Queen has also amongst her numerous Jubilee presents some very handsome ivory furniture of Indian workmanship, which may be seen at Windsor Castle. These, however, as well as the Jones Collection examples, though thoroughly Indian in character as regards the treatment of scrolls, flowers, and foliage, shew unmistakcably the influence of French taste in their general form and contour. Articles, such as boxes, stands for gongs, etc., are to be found carved in sandal wood, and in _dalburgia,_ or black wood, with rosewood mouldings; and a peculiar characteristic of this Indian decoration, sometimes applied to such small articles of furniture, is the coating of the surface of the wood with red lacquer, the plain parts taking a high polish while the carved enrichment remains dull. The effect of this is precisely that of the article being made of red sealing wax, and frequently the minute pattern of the carved ornament and its general treatment tend to give an idea of an impression made in the wax by an elaborately cut die. The casket illustrated on p. 134 is an example of this treatment. It was exhibited in 1851.
The larger examples of Indian carved woodwork are of teak; the finest and most characteristic specimens within the writer’s knowledge are the two folding doors which were sent as a present to the Indian Government, and are in the Indian Museum. They are of seventeenth century work, and are said to have enclosed a library at Kerowlee. While the door frames are of teak, with the outer frames carved with bands of foliage in high relief, the doors themselves are divided into panels of fantastic shapes, and yet so arranged that there is just sufficient regularity to please the eye. Some of these panels are carved and enriched with ivory flowers, others have a rosette of carved ivory in the centre, and pieces of talc with green and red colour underneath, a decoration also found in some Arabian work. It is almost impossible to convey by words an adequate description of these doors; they should be carefully examined as examples of genuine native design and workmanship. Mr. Pollen has concluded a somewhat detailed account of them by saying:–“For elegance of shape and proportion, and the propriety of the composition of the frame and sub-divisions of these doors, their mouldings and their panel carvings and ornaments, we can for the present name no other example so instructive. We are much reminded by this decoration of the pierced lattices at the S. Marco in Venice.”
[Illustration: Casket of Indian Lacquer Work.]
There is in the Indian Museum another remarkable specimen of native furniture–namely, a chair of the purest beaten gold of octagonal shape, and formed of two bowls reversed, decorated with acanthus and lotus in repousee ornament. This is of eighteenth century workmanship, and was formerly the property of Runjeet Sing. The precious metal is thinly laid on, according to the Eastern method, the wood underneath the gold taking all the weight.
There is also a collection of plaster casts of portions of temples and palaces from a very early period until the present time, several having been sent over as a loan to the Indian and Colonial Exhibition of 1886, and afterwards presented by the Commissioners to the Museum.
A careful observation of the ornamental details of these casts leads us to the conclusion that the Byzantine style which was dominant throughout the more civilized portion of Asia during the power of the Romans, had survived the great changes of the Middle Ages. As native work became subject more or less to the influence of the Indo-Chinese carvers of deities on the one side, and of the European notions of the Portuguese pioneers of discovery on the other, a fashion of decorative woodwork was arrived at which can scarcely be dignified by the name of a style, and which it is difficult to describe. Dr. Birdwood, in his work on Indian Art, points out that, about a hundred years ago, Indian designs were affected by the immigration of Persian designers and workmen. The result of this influence is to be seen in the examples in the Museum, a short notice of which will conclude these remarks on Indian work.
The copy in shishem wood of a carved window at Amritzar, in the Punjaub, with its overhanging cornice, ornamental arches, supported by pillars, and the whole surface covered with small details of ornament, is a good example of the sixteenth and seventeenth century work. The various facades of dwelling-houses in teak wood, carved, and still bearing the remains of paint with which part of the carving was picked out, represent the work of the contemporary carvers of Ahmedabad, famous for its woodwork.
Portions of a lacquer work screen, similar in appearance to embossed gilt leather, with the pattern in gold, on a ground of black or red, and the singular Cashmere work, called “mirror mosaic,” give us a good idea of the Indian decoration of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This effective decoration is produced by little pieces of looking-glass being introduced into the small geometrical patterns of the panels; these, when joined together, form a very rich ceiling.
The bedstead of King Theebaw, brought from Mandalay, is an example of this mixture of glass and wood, which can be made extremely effective. The wood is carved and gilt to represent the gold setting of numerous precious stones, which are counterfeited by small pieces of looking-glass and variously-coloured pieces of transparent glass.
Some of the Prince of Wales’ presents, namely, chairs, with carved lions forming arms; tables of shishem wood, inlaid with ebony and ivory, shew the European influence we have alluded to.
Amongst the modern ornamental articles in the Museum are many boxes, pen trays, writing cases, and even photograph albums of wood and ivory mosaic work, the inlaid patterns being produced by placing together strips of tin wire, sandal wood, ebony, and of ivory, white, or stained green: these bound into a rod, either triangular or hexagonal, are cut into small sections, and then inlaid into the surface of the article to be decorated.
Papier mache and lacquer work are also frequently found in small articles of furniture; and the collection of drawings by native artists attests the high skill in design and execution attained by Indian craftsmen.
Persia.
The Persians have from time immemorial been an artistic people, and their style of Art throughout successive conquests and generations has varied but little.
Major-General Murdoch Smith, R.E., the present Director of the branch of the South Kensington Museum in Edinburgh, who resided for some years in Persia, and had the assistance when there of M. Richard (a well-known French antiquarian), made a collection of _objets d’art_ some years ago for the Science and Art Department, which is now in the Kensington Museum, but it contains comparatively little that can be actually termed furniture; and it is extremely difficult to meet with important specimens of ornamental wordwork of native workmanship. Those in the Museum, and in other collections, are generally small ornamental articles. The chief reason of this is, doubtless, that little timber is to be found in Persia, except in the Caspian provinces, where, as Mr. Benjamin has told us in “Persia and the Persians,” wood is abundant; and the Persian architect, taking advantage of his opportunity, has designed his houses with wooden piazzas–not found elsewhere–and with “beams, lintels, and eaves quaintly, sometimes elegantly, carved, and tinted with brilliant hues.” Another feature of the decorative woodwork in this part of Persia is that produced by the large latticed windows, which are well adapted to the climate.
[Illustration: Door of Carved Sandal Wood, from Travancore. India Museum, South Kensington. Period: Probably Late XVIII. Century.]
In the manufacture of textile fabrics–notably, their famous carpets of Yezd and Ispahan, and their embroidered cloths in hammered and engraved metal work, and formerly in beautiful pottery and porcelain–they have excelled: and examples will be found in the South Kensington Museum. It is difficult to find a representative specimen of Persian furniture except a box or a stool; and the illustration of a brass incense burner is, therefore, given to mark the method of design, which was adopted in a modified form by the Persians from their Arab conquerors.
[Illustration: Incense Burner of Engraved Brass. (_In the South Kensington Museum_).]
This method of design has one or two special characteristics which are worth noticing. One of these was the teaching of Mahomet forbidding animal representation in design–a rule which in later work has been relaxed; another was the introduction of mathematics into Persia by the Saracens, which led to the adoption of geometrical patterns in design; and a third, the development of “Caligraphy” into a fine art, which has resulted in the introduction of a text, or motto, into so many of the Persian designs of decorative work. The combination of these three characteristics have given us the “Arabesque” form of ornament, which, in artistic nomenclature, occurs so frequently.
The general method of decorating woodwork is similar to that of India, and consists in either inlaying brown wood (generally teak) with ivory or pearl in geometrical patterns, or in covering the wooden box, or manuscript case, with a coating of lacquer, somewhat similar to the Chinese or Japanese preparations. On this groundwork some good miniature painting was executed, the colours being, as a rule, red, green, and gold, with black lines to give force to the design.
The author of “Persia and the Persians,” already quoted, had, during his residence in the country, as American Minister, great opportunities of observation, and in his chapter entitled “A Glance at the Arts of Persia,” has said a good deal of this mosaic work. Referring to the scarcity of wood in Persia, he says: “For the above reason one is astonished at the marvellous ingenuity, skill, and taste developed by the art of inlaid work, or Mosaic in wood. It would be impossible to exceed the results achieved by the Persian artizans, especially those of Shiraz, in this wonderful and difficult art…. Chairs, tables, sofas, boxes, violins, guitars, canes, picture frames, almost every conceivable object, in fact, which is made of wood, may be found overlaid with an exquisite casing of inlaid work, so minute sometimes that thirty-live or forty pieces may be counted in the space of a square eighth of an inch. I have counted four hundred and twenty-eight distinct pieces on a square inch of a violin, which is completely covered by this exquisite detail of geometric designs, in Mosaic.”
Mr. Benjamin–who, it will be noticed, is somewhat too enthusiastic over this kind of mechanical decoration–also observes that, while the details will stand the test of a magnifying glass, there is a general breadth in the design which renders it harmonious and pleasing if looked at from a distance.
In the South Kensington Museum there are several specimens of Persian lacquer work, which have very much the appearance of papier mache articles that used to be so common in England some forty years ago, save that the decoration is, of course, of Eastern character.
Of seventeenth century work, there is also a fine coffer, richly inlaid with ivory, of the best description of Persian design and workmanship of this period, which was about the zenith of Persian Art during the reign of Shah Abbas. The numerous small articles of what is termed Persian marqueterie, are inlaid with tin wire and stained ivory, on a ground of cedar wood, very similar to the same kind of ornamental work already described in the Indian section of this chapter. These were purchased at the Paris Exhibition in 1867.
Persian Art of the present day may be said to be in a state of transition, owing to the introduction and assimilation of European ideas.
Saracenic Woodwork From Cairo and Damascus.
While the changes of fashion in Western, as contrasted with Eastern countries, are comparatively rapid, the record of two or three centuries presenting a history of great and well-defined alterations in manners, customs, and therefore, of furniture, the more conservative Oriental has been content to reproduce, from generation to generation, the traditions of his forefathers; and we find that, from the time of the Moorish conquest and spread of Arabesque design, no radical change in Saracenic Art occurred until French and English energy and enterprise forced European fashions into Egypt: as a consequence, the original quaintness and Orientalism natural to the country, are being gradually replaced by buildings, decoration, and furniture of European fashion.
The carved pulpit, from a mosque in Cairo, which is in the South Kensington Museum, was made for Sultan Kaitbeg, 1468-96. The side panels, of geometrical pattern, though much injured by time and wear, shew signs of ebony inlaid with ivory, and of painting and gilding; they are good specimens of the kind of work. The two doors, also from Cairo, the oldest parts of which are just two hundred years earlier than the pulpit, are exactly of the same style, and, so far as appearances go, might be just as well taken for two hundred years later, so conservative was the Saracenic treatment of decorative woodwork for some four or five centuries. Pentagonal and hexagonal mosaics of ivory, with little mouldings of ebony dividing the different panels, the centres of eccentric shapes of ivory or rosewood carved with minute scrolls, combine to give these elaborate doors a very rich effect, and remind one of the work still to be seen at the Alhambra.
The Science and Art Department has been fortunate in securing from the St. Maurice and Dr. Meymar collections a great many specimens which are well worth examination. The most remarkable is a complete room brought from a house in Damascus, which is fitted up in the Oriental style, and gives one a good idea of an Eastern interior. The walls are painted in colour and gold; the spaces divided by flat pilasters, and there are recesses, or cupboards, for the reception of pottery, quaintly formed vessels, and pots of brass. Oriental carpets, octagonal tables, such as the one which ornaments the initial letter of this chapter, hookas, incense burners, and cushions furnish the apartment; while the lattice window is an excellent representation of the “Mesherabijeh,” or lattice work, with which we are familiar, since so much has been imported by Egyptian travellers. In the upper panels of the lattice there are inserted pieces of coloured glass, and, looking outwards towards the light, the effect is very pretty. The date of this room is 1756, which appears at the foot of an Arabic inscription, of which a translation is appended to the exhibit. It commences–“In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate,” and concludes; “Pray, therefore, to Him morning and evening.”
[Illustration: Governor’s Palace, Manfalut. Shewing a Window of Arab Lattice Work, similar to that of the Damascus Room in the South Kensington Museum.]
A number of bosses and panels, detached from their original framework, are also to be seen, and are good specimens of Saracenic design. A bedstead, with inlay of ivory and numerous small squares of glass, under which are paper flowers, is also a good example of native work.
[Illustration: Specimen of Saracenic Panelling of Cedar, Ebony, and Ivory. (_In the South Kensington Museum._)]
The illustration on p. 142 is of a carved wood door from Cairo, considered by the South Kensington authorities to be of Syrian work. It shews the turned spindles, which the Arabs generally introduce into their ornamental woodwork: and the carving of the vase of flowers is a good specimen of the kind. The date is about the seventeenth century.
For those who would gain an extended knowledge of Saracenic or Arabian Art industry, “_L’Art Arabe,”_ by M. Prisse d’Aveunes, should be consulted. There will be found in this work many carefully-prepared illustrations of the cushioned seats, the projecting balconies of the lattice work already alluded to, of octagonal inlaid tables, and such other articles of furniture as were used by the Arabs. The South Kensington Handbook, “Persian Art,” by Major-General Murdoch Smith, R.E., is also a very handy and useful work in a small compass.
While discussing Saracenic or Arab furniture, it is worth noticing that our word “sofa” is of Arab derivation, the word “suffah” meaning “a couch or place for reclining before the door of Eastern houses.” In Skeat’s Dictionary the word is said to have first occurred in the “Guardian,” in the year 1713, and the phrase is quoted from No. 167 of that old periodical of the day–“He leapt off from the sofa on which he sat.”
[Illustration: A Carved Door of Syrian Work. (_South Kensington Museum._)]
From the same source the word “ottoman,” which Webster defines as “a stuffed seat without a back, first used in Turkey,” is obviously obtained, and the modern low-seated upholsterer’s chair of to-day is doubtless the development of a French adaptation of the Eastern cushion or “divan,” this latter word having become applied to the seats which furnished the hall or council chamber in an Eastern palace, although its original meaning was probably the council or “court” itself, or the hall in which such was held.
Thus do the habits and tastes of different nations act and re-act upon each other. Western peoples have carried eastward their civilisation and their fashions, influencing Arts and industries, with their restless energy, and breaking up the crust of Oriental apathy and indolence; and have brought back in return the ideas gained from an observation of the associations and accessories of Eastern life, to adapt them to the requirements and refinements of European luxury.
[Illustration: Shaped Panel of Saracenic Work in Carved Bone or Ivory.]
[Illustration: Boule Armoire. Designed by Le Brun, formerly in the “Hamilton Palace” Collection and purchased (Wertheimer) for L12,075 the pair. Period: Louis XIV.]
Chapter VI.
French Furniture.
PALACE OF VERSAILLES: “Grand” and “Petit Trianon”–the three Styles of Louis XIV., XV. and XVI.–Colbert and Lebrun–Andre Charles Boule and his Work–Carved and Gilt Furniture–The Regency and its Influence–Alteration in Condition of French Society–Watteau, Lancret, and Boucher. Louis XV. FURNITURE: Famous Ebenistes–Vernis Martin Furniture–Caffieri and Gouthiere Mountings–Sevres Porcelain introduced into Cabinets–Gobelins Tapestry–The “Bureau du Roi.” Louis XVI. AND MARIE ANTOINETTE: The Queen’s Influence–The Painters Chardin and Greuze–More simple Designs–Characteristic Ornaments of Louis XVI. Furniture–Riesener’s Work–Gouthiere’s Mountings–Specimens in the Louvre–The Hamilton Palace Sale–French influence upon the design of Furniture in other countries–The Jones Collection–Extract from the “Times.”
[Illustration]
There is something so distinct in the development of taste in furniture, marked out by the three styles to which the three monarchs have given the names of “Louis Quatorze,” “Louis Quinze,” and “Louis Seize,” that it affords a fitting point for a new departure.
This will be evident to anyone who will visit, first the Palace of Versailles,[13] then the Grand Trianon, and afterwards the Petit Trianon. By the help of a few illustrations, such a visit in the order given would greatly interest anyone having a smattering of knowledge of the characteristic ornaments of these different periods. A careful examination would demonstrate how the one style gradually merged into that of its successor. Thus the massiveness and grandeur of the best Louis Quatorze _meubles de luxe_, became, in its later development, too ornate and effeminate, with an elaboration of enrichment, culminating in the rococo style of Louis Quinze.
Then we find, in the “Petit Trianon,” and also in the Chateau of Fontainebleau, the purer taste of Marie Antoinette dominating the Art productions of her time, which reached their zenith, with regard to furniture, in the production of such elegant and costly examples as have been preserved to us in the beautiful work-table and secretaire–sold some years since at the dispersion of the Hamilton Palace collection–and in some other specimens, which may be seen in the Musee du Louvre, in the Jones Collection in the South Kensington Museum, and in other public and private collections: of these several illustrations are given.
We have to recollect that the reign of Louis XIV. was the time of the artists Berain, Lebrun, and, later in the reign, of Watteau, also of Andre Charles Boule, _ciseleur et doreur du roi_, and of Colbert, that admirable Minister of Finance, who knew so well how to second his royal master’s taste for grandeur and magnificence. The Palace of Versailles bears throughout the stamp and impress of the majesty of _le Grande Monarque;_ and the rich architectural ornament of the interior, with moulded, gilded, and painted ceilings, required the furnishing to be carried to an extent which had never been attempted previously.
Louis XIV. had judgment in his taste, and he knew that, to carry out his ideas of a royal palace, he must not only select suitable artists capable of control, but he must centralize their efforts. In 1664 Colbert founded the Royal Academy of Painting, Architecture, and Sculpture, to which designs of furniture were admitted. The celebrated Gobelins tapestry factory was also established; and it was here the King collected together and suitably housed the different skilled producers of his furniture, placing them all under the control of his favourite artist, Lebrun, who was appointed director in 1667.
The most remarkable furniture artist of this time, for surely he merits such title, was Andre Charles Boule, of whom but little is known. He was born in 1642, and, therefore, was 25 years of age when Lebrun was appointed Art-director. He appears to have originated the method of ornamenting furniture which has since been associated with his name. This was to veneer his cabinets, pedestals, armoires, encoignures, clocks, and brackets with tortoiseshell, into which a cutting of brass was laid, the latter being cut out from a design, in which were harmoniously arranged scrolls, vases of flowers, satyrs, animals, cupids, swags of fruit and draperies; fantastic compositions of a free Renaissance character constituted the panels; to which bold scrolls in ormolu formed fitting frames; while handsome mouldings of the same material gave a finish to the extremities. These ormolu mountings were gilt by an old-fashioned process,[14] which left upon the metal a thick deposit of gold, and were cunningly chiselled by the skilful hands of Caffieri or his contemporaries.
[Illustration: Boule Armoire, In the “Jones” Collection, S. Kensington Museum. Louis XIV. Period.]
Boule subsequently learned to economise labour by adopting a similar process to that used by the marqueterie cutter; and by glueing together two sheets of brass, or white metal, and two of shell, and placing over them his design, he was then able to pierce the four layers by one cut of the handsaw; this gave four exact copies of the design. The same process would be repeated for the reverse side, if, as with an armoire or a large cabinet, two panels, one for each door, right and left, were required; and then, when the brass, or white metal cutting was fitted into the shell so that the joins were imperceptible, he would have two right and two left panels. These would be positive and negative: in the former pair the metal would represent the figured design with the shell as groundwork, and the latter would have the shell as a design, with a ground of metal. The terms positive and negative are the writer’s to explain the difference, but the technical terms are “first part” and “second part,” or “Boule” and “counter.” The former would be selected for the best part of the cabinet, for instance, the panels of the front doors, while the latter would be used for the ends or sides. An illustration of this plan of using all four cuttings of one design occurs in the armoire No. 1026 in the Jones Collection, and in a great many other excellent specimens. The brass, or the white metal in the design, was then carefully and most artistically engraved; and the beauty of the engraving of Boule’s finest productions is a great point of excellence, giving, as it does, a character to the design, and emphasizing its details. The mounting of the furniture in ormolu of a rich and highly-finished character, completed the design. The _Musee du Louvre_ is rich in examples of Boule’s work; and there are some very good pieces in the Jones Collection, at Hertford House, and at Windsor Castle.
The illustration on p. 144 is the representation of an armoire, which was, undoubtedly, executed by Boule from a design by Lebrun: it is one of a pair which was sold in 1882, at the Hamilton Palace sale, by Messrs. Christie, for L12,075. Another small cabinet, in the same collection, realised L2,310. The pedestal cabinet illustrated on p. 148, from the Jones Collection, is very similar to the latter, and cost Mr. Jones L3,000. When specimens, of the genuineness of which there is no doubt, are offered for sale, they are sure to realize very high prices. The armoire in the Jones Collection, already alluded to (No. 1026), of which there is an illustration, cost between L4,000 and L5,000.
In some of the best of Boule’s cabinets, as, for instance, in the Hamilton Palace armoire (illustrated), the bronze gilt ornaments stand out in bold relief from the surface. In the Louvre there is one which has a figure of _Le Grand Monarque_, clad in armour, with a Roman toga, and wearing the full bottomed wig of the time, which scarcely accords with the costume of a Roman general. The absurd combination which characterises this affectation of the classic costume is also found in portraits of our George II.
[Illustration: Pedestal Cabinet, By Boule, formerly in Mr. Baring’s Collection. Purchased by Mr. Jones for L3,000. (_South Kensington Museum_)]
The masks, satyrs, and ram’s heads, the scrolls and the foliage, are also very bold in specimens of this class of Boule’s work; and the “sun” (that is, a mask surrounded with rays of light) is a very favourite ornament of this period.
Boule had four sons and several pupils; and he may be said to have founded a school of decorative furniture, which has its votaries and imitators now, as it had in his own time. The word one frequently finds misspelt “Buhl,” and this has come to represent any similar mode of decorations on furniture, no matter how meretricious or common it may be.
[Illustration: A Concert during the Reign of Louis XIV. (_From a Miniature, dated 1696._)]
Later in the reign, as other influences were brought to bear upon the taste and fashion of the day, this style of furniture became more ornate and showy. Instead of the natural colour of the shell, either vermilion or gold leaf was placed underneath the transparent shell; the gilt mounts became less severe, and abounded with the curled endive ornament, which afterwards became thoroughly characteristic of the fashion of the succeeding reign; and the forms of the furniture itself conformed to a taste for a more free and flowing treatment; and it should be mentioned, in justice to Lebrun, that from the time of his death and the appointment of his successor, Mignard, a distinct decline in merit can be traced.
Contemporary with Boule’s work, were the richly-mounted tables, having slabs of Egyptian porphyry, or Florentine marble mosaic; and marqueterie cabinets, with beautiful mountings of ormolu, or gilt bronze. Commodes and screens were ornamented with Chinese lacquer, which had been imported by the Dutch and taken to Paris, after the French invasion of the Netherlands.
[Illustration: Panel for a Screen. Painted by Watteau. Louis XIV. Period.]
About this time–that is, towards the end of the seventeenth century–the resources of designers and makers of decorative furniture were reinforced by the introduction of glass in larger plates than had been possible previously. Mirrors of considerable size were first made in Venice; these were engraved with figures and scrolls, and mounted in richly carved and gilt wood frames; and soon afterwards manufactories of mirrors, and of glass, in larger plates than before, were set up in England, near Battersea, and in France at Tour la Ville, near Paris. This novelty not only gave a new departure to the design of suitable frames in carved wood (generally gilt), but also to that of Boule work and marqueterie. It also led to a greater variety of the design for cabinets; and from this time we may date the first appearance of the “Vitrine,” or cabinet with glass panels in the doors and sides, for the display of smaller _objets d’art._
[Illustration: Decoration of a Salon in Louis XIV. Style.]
The chairs and sofas of the latter half of the reign of Louis Quatorze are exceedingly grand and rich. The suite of furniture for the state apartment of a prince or wealthy nobleman comprised a _canape_, or sofa, and six _fauteils_, or arm chairs, the frames carved with much spirit, or with “feeling,” as it is technically termed, and richly gilt. The backs and seats were upholstered and covered with the already famous tapestry of Gobelins or Beauvais.[15]
Such a suite of furniture, in bad condition and requiring careful and very expensive restoration, was sold at Christie’s some time ago for about L1,400, and it is no exaggeration to say that a really perfect suite, with carving and gilding of the best, and the tapestry not too much worn, if offered for public competition, would probably realise between L3,000 and L4,000.
In the appendix will be found the names of many artists in furniture of this time, and in the Jones Collection we have several very excellent specimens which can easily be referred to, and compared with others of the two succeeding reigns, whose furniture we are now going to consider.
As an example of the difference in both outline and detail which took place in design, let the reader notice the form of the Louis Quatorze commode vignetted for the initial letter of this chapter, and then turn to the lighter and more fanciful cabinets of somewhat similar shape which will be found illustrated in the “Louis Quinze” section which follows this. In the Louis Quatorze cabinets the decorative effect, so far as the woodwork was concerned, was obtained first by the careful choice of suitable veneers, and then, by joining four pieces in a panel, so that the natural figure of the wood runs from the centre, and then a banding of a darker wood forms a frame. An instance of this will also be found in the above-mentioned illustration.
Louis XV.
When the old King died, at the ripe age of 77, the crown devolved on his great-grandson, then a child five years old, and therefore a Regency became necessary; and this period of some eight years, until the death of Philip, Duke of Orleans, in 1723, when the King was declared to have attained his majority at the age of 13, is known as _L’Epoch de la Regence_, and is a landmark in the history of furniture.
[Illustration: Boule Commode, Probably made during the period of the Regency (_Musee du Louvre._)]
There was a great change about this period of French history in the social condition of the upper classes in France. The pomp and extravagance of the late monarch had emptied the coffers of the noblesse, and in order to recruit their finances, marriages became common which a decade or two before that time would hardly have been thought possible. Nobles of ancient lineage married the daughters of bankers and speculators, in order to supply themselves with the means of following the extravagant fashions of the day, and we find the wives of ministers of departments of State using their influence and power for the purpose of making money by gambling in stocks, and accepting bribes for concessions and contracts.
[Illustration: French Sedan Chair. (_From an Engraving in the South Kensington Art Library._) Period: Louis XV.]
It was a time of corruption, extravagance, licentiousness, and intrigue, and although one might ask what bearing this has upon the history of furniture, a little reflection shows that the abandonment of the great State receptions of the late King, and the pompous and gorgeous entertainments of his time, gave way to a state of society in which the boudoir became of far more importance than the salon, in the artistic furnishing of a fashionable house. Instead of the majestic grandeur of immense reception rooms and stately galleries, we have the elegance and prettiness of the boudoir; and as the reign of the young King advances, we find the structural enrichment of rooms more free, and busy with redundant ornament; the curved endive decoration, so common in carved woodwork and in composition of this period, is seen everywhere; in the architraves, in the panel mouldings, in the frame of an overdoor, in the design of a mirror frame; doves, wreaths, Arcadian fountains, flowing scrolls, Cupids, and heads and busts of women terminating in foliage, are carved or moulded in relief, on the walls, the doors, and the alcoved recesses of the reception rooms, either gilded or painted white; and pictures by Watteau, Lancret, or Boucher, and their schools, are appropriate accompaniments.[16]
[Illustration: Part of a Salon, Decorated in the Louis Quinze style, showing the carved and gilt Console Table and Mirror, with other enrichments, _en suite_.]
The furniture was made to agree with this decorative treatment: couches and easy chairs were designed in more sweeping curves and on a smaller scale, the woodwork wholly or partially gilt and upholstered, not only with the tapestry of Gobelins or Beauvais, but with soft colored silk brocades and brocatelles; light occasional chairs were enriched with mother-of-pearl or marqueterie; screens were painted with love scenes and representations of ladies and gentlemen who look as if they passed their entire existence in the elaboration of their toilettes or the exchange of compliments; the stately cabinet is modified into the _bombe_ fronted commode, the ends of which curve outwards with a graceful sweep; and the bureau is made in a much smaller size, more highly decorated with marqueterie, and more fancifully mounted to suit the smaller and more effeminate apartment. The smaller and more elegant cabinets, called _Bonheur du jour_ (a little cabinet mounted on a table); the small round occasional table, called a _gueridon_; the _encoignure_, or corner cabinet; the _etagere_, or ornamental hanging cabinet, with shelves; the three-fold screen, with each leaf a different height, and with shaped top, all date from this time. The _chaise a porteur_, or Sedan chair, on which so much work and taste were expended, became more ornate, so as to fall in with the prevailing fashion. Marqueterie became more fanciful.
[Illustration: Console Table, Carved and Gilt. (_Collection of M. Double, Paris._)]
The Louis Quinze cabinets were inlaid, not only with natural woods, but with veneers stained in different tints; and landscapes, interiors, baskets of flowers, birds, trophies, emblems of all kinds, and quaint fanciful conceits are pressed into the service of marqueterie decoration. The most famous artists in this decorative woodwork were Riesener, David Roentgen (generally spoken of as David), Pasquier. Carlin, Leleu, and others, whose names will be found in a list in the appendix.
[Illustration: Louis XV. Carved And Gilt “Fauteui.” Upholstered with Beauvais tapestry. Subject from La Fontaine’s Fables.]
During the preceding reign the Chinese lacquer ware then in use was imported from the East, the fashion for collecting which had grown ever since the Dutch had established a trade with China: and subsequently as the demand arose for smaller pieces of _meubles de luxe,_ collectors had these articles taken to pieces, and the slabs of lacquer mounted in panels to decorate the table, or cabinet, and to display the lacquer. _Ebenistes_, too, prepared such parts of woodwork as were desired to be ornamented in this manner, and sent them to China to be coated with lacquer, a process which was then only known to the Chinese; but this delay and expense quickened the inventive genius of the European, and it was found that a preparation of gum and other ingredients applied again and again, and each time carefully rubbed down, produced a surface which was almost as lustrous and suitable for decoration as the original article. A Dutchman named Huygens was the first successful inventor of this preparation; and, owing to the adroitness of his work, and of those who followed him and improved his process, one can only detect European lacquer from Chinese by trifling details in the costumes and foliage of decoration, not strictly Oriental in character.
[Illustration: Commode. With Panels of fine old Laquer and Mountings by Caffieri. _Jones Collection, S. Kensington Museum._ Period of Louis XV.]
About 1740-4 the Martin family had three manufactories of this peculiar and fashionable ware, which became known as Vernis-Martin, or Martins’ Varnish; and it is singular that one of these was in the district of Paris then and now known as Faubourg Saint Martin. By a special decree a monopoly was granted in 1744 to Sieur Simon Etienne Martin the younger, “To manufacture all sorts of work in relief and in the style of Japan and China.” This was to last for twenty years; and we shall see that in the latter part of the reign of Louis XV., and in that of his successor, the decoration was not confined to the imitation of Chinese and Japanese subjects, but the surface was painted in the style of the decorative artist of the day, both in monochrome and in natural colours; such subjects as “Cupid Awakening Venus,” “The Triumph of Galatea,” “Nymphs and Goddesses,” “Garden Scenes,” and “Fetes Champetres,” being represented in accordance with the taste of the period. It may be remarked in passing, that lacquer work was also made previous to this time in England. Several cabinets of “Old” English lac are included in the Strawberry Hill sale catalogue; and they were richly mounted with ormolu, in the French style; this sale took place in 1842. George Robins, so well known for his flowery descriptions, was the auctioneer; the introduction to the catalogue was written by Harrison Ainsworth.
[Illustration: In Parqueterie with massive Mountings of Gilt Bronze, probably by Caffieri, (_Formerly in the Hamilton Palace Collection. Purchased_ (_Westheims_), L6,247 ICS.) Louis XV. Period.]
The gilt bronze mountings of the furniture became less massive and much more elaborate: the curled endive ornament was very much in vogue; the acanthus foliage followed the curves of the commode; busts and heads of women, cupids, satyrs terminating in foliage, suited the design and decoration of the more fanciful shapes; and Caffieri, who is the great master of this beautiful and highly ornate enrichment, introduced Chinese figures and dragons into his designs. The amount of spirit imparted into the chasing of this ormolu is simply marvellous–it has never been equalled and could not be excelled. Time has now mellowed the colour of the woodwork it adorns; and the tint of the gold with which it is overlaid, improved by the lights and shadows caused by the high relief of the work and the consequent darkening of the parts more depressed while the more prominent ornaments have been rubbed bright from time to time, produces an effect which is exceedingly elegant and rich. One cannot wonder that connoisseurs are prepared to pay such large sums for genuine specimens, or that clever imitations are exceedingly costly to produce.
Illustrations are given from some of the more notable examples of decorative furniture of this period, which were sold in 1882 at the celebrated Hamilton Palace sale, together with the sums they realised: also of specimens in the South Kensington Museum in the Jones Collection.
We must also remember, in considering the _meubles de luxe_ of this time, that in 1753 Louis XV. had made the Sevres Porcelain Manufactory a State enterprise; and later, as that celebrated undertaking progressed, tables and cabinets were ornamented with plaques of the beautiful and choice _pate tendre_, the delicacy of which was admirably adapted to enrich the light and frivolous furnishing of the dainty boudoir of a Madame du Barri or a Madame Pompadour.
Another famous artist in the delicate bronze mountings of the day was Pierre Gouthiere. He commenced work some years later than Caffieri, being born in 1740; and, like his senior fellow craftsman, did not confine his attention to furniture, but exercised his fertility of design, and his passion for detail, in mounting bowls and vases of jasper, of Sevres and of Oriental porcelain. The character of his work is less forcible than that of Caffieri, and comes nearer to what we shall presently recognise as the Louis Seize, or Marie Antoinette style, to which period his work more properly belongs: in careful finish of minute details, it more resembles the fine goldsmith’s work of the Renaissance.
[Illustration: Bureau Du Roi. Made for Louis XV. by Riesener. (Collection of “Mobilier National.”) (_From a pen and ink drawing by H. Evans._) Period: Louis XV.]
Gouthiere was employed extensively by Madame du Barri; and at her execution, in 1793, he lost the enormous balance of 756,000 francs which was due to him, but which debt the State repudiated, and the unfortunate man died in extreme poverty, the inmate of an almshouse.
The designs of the celebrated tapestry of Gobelins and of Beauvais, used for the covering of the finest furniture of this time, also underwent a change; and, instead of the representation of the chase, with a bold and vigorous rendering, we find shepherds and shepherdesses, nymphs and satyrs, the illustrations of La Fontaine’s fables, or renderings of Boucher’s pictures.
Without doubt, the most important example of _meubles de luxe_ of this reign is the famous “Bureau du Roi,” made for Louis XV. in 1769, and which appears fully described in the inventory of the “Garde Meuble” in the year 1775, under No. 2541. This description is very minute, and is fully quoted by M. Williamson in his valuable work, “Les Meubles d’Art du Mobilier National,” and occupies no less than thirty-seven lines of printed matter. Its size is five-and-a-half feet long and three feet deep; the lines are the perfection of grace and symmetry; the marqueterie is in Riesner’s best manner; the mountings are magnificent–reclining figures, foliage, laurel wreaths, and swags, chased with rare skill; the back of this famous bureau is as fully decorated as the front: it is signed “Riesener, f.e., 1769, a l’arsenal de Paris.” Riesener is said to have received the order for this bureau from the King in 1767, upon the occasion of the marriage of this favourite Court _ebeniste_ with the widow of his former master Oeben. Its production therefore would seem to have taken about two years.
This celebrated chef d’oeuvre was in the Tuileries in 1807, and was included in the inventory found in the cabinet of Napoleon I. It was moved by Napoleon III. to the Palace of St. Cloud, and only saved from capture by the Germans by its removal to its present home in the Louvre, in August, 1870. It is said that it would probably realise, if offered for sale, between fifteen and twenty thousand pounds. A full-page illustration of this famous piece of furniture is given.
A similar bureau is in the Hertford (Wallace) collection, which was made to the order of Stanilaus, King of Poland; a copy executed by Zwiener, a very clever _ebeniste_ of the present day in Paris, at a cost of some three thousand pounds, is in the same collection.
Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette.
[Illustration: Boudoir Furnished in the Taste of the Louis XVI. Period.]
It is probable that for some little time previous to the death of Louis XV., the influence of the beautiful daughter of Maria Theresa on the fashions of the day was manifested in furniture and its accessories. We know that Marie Antoinette disliked the pomp and ceremony of Court functions, and preferred a simpler way of living at the favourite farm house which was given to her husband as a residence on his marriage, four years before his accession to the throne; and here she delighted to mix with the bourgeoise on the terrace at Versailles, or, donning a simple dress of white muslin, would busy herself in the garden or dairy. There was, doubtless, something of the affectation of a woman spoiled by admiration, in thus playing the rustic; still, one can understand that the best French society, weary of the domination of the late King’s mistresses, with their intrigues, their extravagances, and their creatures, looked forward, at the death of Louis, with hope and anticipation to the accession of his grandson and the beautiful young queen.
[Illustration: Part of a Salon. Decorated and furnished in the Louis XVI. Style.]
Gradually, under the new regime, architecture became more simple; broken scrolls are replaced by straight lines, curves and arches only occur when justifiable, and columns and pilasters reappear in the ornamental facades of public buildings. Interior decoration necessarily followed suit; instead of the curled endive scrolls enclosing the irregular panel, and the superabundant foliage in ornament, we have rectangular panels formed by simpler mouldings, with broken corners, having a patera or rosette in each, and between the upright panels there is a pilaster of refined Renaissance design. In the oval medallions supported by cupids, is found a domestic scene by a Fragonard or a Chardin; and the portraits of innocent children by Greuze replace the courting shepherds and mythological goddesses of Boucher and Lancret. Sculpture, too, becomes more refined and decorous in its representations.
As with architecture, decoration, painting, and sculpture, so also with furniture. The designs became more simple, but were relieved from severity by the amount of ornament, which, except in some cases where it is over-elaborate, was properly subordinate to the design and did not control it.
Mr. Hungerford Pollen attributes this revival of classic taste to the discoveries of ancient treasures in Herculaneum and Pompeii, but as these occurred in the former city so long before the time we are discussing as the year 1711, and in the latter in 1750, these can scarcely be the immediate cause; the reason most probably is that a reversion to simpler and purer lines came as a relief and reaction from the over-ornamentation of the previous period. There are not wanting, however, in some of the decorated ornaments of the time, distinct signs of the influence of these discoveries. Drawings and reproductions from frescoes, found in these old Italian cities, were in the possession of the draughtsmen and designers of the time; and an instance in point of their adaptation is to be seen in the small boudoir of the Marquise de Serilly, one of the maids of honour to Marie Antoinette. The decorative woodwork of this boudoir is fitted up in the Kensington Museum.
A notable feature in the ornament of woodwork and in metal mountings of this time, is a fluted pilaster with quills or husks filling the flutings some distance from the base, or starting from both base and top and leaving an interval of the hollow fluting plain and free. An example of this will be seen in the next woodcut of a cabinet in the Jones collection, which has also the familiar “Louis Seize” riband surmounting the two oval Sevres china plaques. When the flutings are in oak, in rich mahogany, or painted white, these husks are gilt, and the effect is chaste and pleasing. Variation was introduced into the gilding of frames by mixing silver with some portion of the gold so as to produce two tints, red gold and green gold; the latter would be used for wreaths and accessories, while the former, or ordinary gilding, was applied to the general surface. The legs of tables are generally fluted, as noticed above, tapering towards the feet, and are relieved from a stilted appearance by being connected by a stretcher.
[Illustration: Marqueterie Cabinet. With Plaques of Sevres China (_In the Jones Collection, South Kensington Museum._)]
[Illustration: Writing Table. Made by Riesener for Marie Antoinette. Collection “Mobilier National.” (_From a-pen and ink drawing by H. Evans._) Period: Late Louis XV.]
There occurs in M. Williamson’s valuable contribution to the literature of our subject (“_Les Meubles d’Art du Mobilier National_,”) an interesting illustration of the gradual alterations which we are noticing as having taken place in the design of furniture. This is a small writing table, some 3 ft. 6 in. long, made during the reign of Louis XV., but quite in the Marie Antoinette style, the legs tapering and fluted, the frieze having in the centre a plaque of _bronze dore_, the subject being a group of cupids, representing the triumph of Poetry, and on each side a scroll with a head and foliage (the only ornament characteristic of Louis Quinze style) connecting leg and frieze. M. Williamson quotes verbatim the memorandum of which this was the subject. It was made for the Trianon and the date is just one year after Marie Antoinette’s marriage:–“Memoire des ouvrages faits et livres, par les ordres de Monsieur le Chevalier de Fontanieu, pour le garde meuble du Roy par Riesener, ebeniste a l’arsenal Paris,” savoir Sept. 21, 1771; and then follows a fully detailed description of the table, with its price, which was 6,000 francs, or L240. There is a full page illustration of this table.
The maker of this piece of furniture was the same Riesener whose masterpiece is the magnificent _Bureau du Roi_ which we have already alluded to in the Louvre. This celebrated _ebeniste_ continued to work for Marie Antoinette for about twenty years, until she quitted Versailles, and he probably lived quite to the end of the century, for during the Revolution we find that he served on the Special Commission appointed by the National Convention to decide which works of Art should be retained and which should be sold, out of the mass of treasure confiscated after the deposition and execution of the King.
Riesener’s designs do not show much fertility, but his work is highly finished and elaborate. His method was generally to make the centre panel of a commode front, or the frieze of a table, a _tour de force_, the marqueterie picture being wonderfully delicate. The subject was generally a vase with fruits and flowers; the surface of the side panels inlaid with diamond-shaped lozenges, or a small diaper pattern in marqueterie; and then a framework of rich ormolu would separate the panels. The centre panel had sometimes a richer frame. His famous commode, made for the Chateau of Fontainebleau, which cost a million francs (L4,000)–an enormous sum in those days–is one of his _chefs d’oeuvre_, and this is an excellent example of his style. A similar commode was sold in the Hamilton Palace sale for L4,305. An upright secretaire, _en suite_ with the commode, was also sold at the same time for L4,620, and the writing table for L6,000. An illustration of the latter is on the following page, but the details of this elaborate gem of cabinet maker’s work, and of Gouthiere’s skill in mounting, are impossible to reproduce in a woodcut. It is described as follows in Christie’s catalogue:–
“Lot 303. An oblong writing table, _en suite_, with drawer fitted with inkstand, writing slide and shelf beneath; an oval medallion of a trophy and flowers on the top, and trophies with four medallions round the sides: stamped T. Riesener and branded underneath with cypher of Marie Antoinette, and _Garde Meuble de la Reine_.” There is no date on the table, but the secretaire is stamped 1790, and the commode 1791. If we assume that the table was produced in 1792, these three specimens, which have always been regarded as amongst the most beautiful work of the reign, were almost the last which the unfortunate Queen lived to see completed.
[Illustration: The “Marie Antoinette” Writing Table. (_Formerly in the Hamilton Palace Collection._)]
[Illustration: Bedstead of Marie Antoinette, From Fontainebleau. Collection “Mobilier National.” (_From a pen and ink drawing by H. Evans._) Period: Louis XVI.]
The fine work of Riesener required the mounting of an artist of quite equal merit, and in Gouthiere he was most fortunate. There is a famous clock case in the Hertford collection, fully signed “Gouthiere, ciseleur et doreur du roi a Paris Quai Pelletier, a la Boucle d’or, 1771.” He worked, however, chiefly in conjunction with Riesener and David Roentgen for the decoration of their marqueterie.
In the Louvre are some beautiful examples of this co-operative work; and also of cabinets in which plaques of very fine black and gold lacquer take the place of marqueterie; the centre panel being a finely chased oval medallion of Gouthiere’s gilt bronze, with caryatides figures of the same material at the ends supporting the cornice.
[Illustration: Cylinder Secretaire, In Marqueterie, with Bronze Gilt Mountings, by Gouthiere. (_Mr. Alfred de Rothschild’s Collection._) Period: Louis XVI.]
A specimen of this kind of work (an upright secretaire, of which we have not been able to obtain a satisfactory representation) formed part of the Hamilton Palace collection, and realised L9,450, the highest price which the writer has ever seen a single piece of furniture bring by auction; it must be regarded as the _chef d’oeuvre_ of Gouthiere.
In the Jones Collection, at South Kensington, there are also several charming examples of Louis Seize _meubles de luxe_. Some of these are enriched with plaques of Sevres porcelain, which treatment is better adapted to the more jewel-like mounting of this time than to the rococo style in vogue during the preceding reign.
[Illustration: Arm Chair In Louis XVI. Style.]
The upholstered furniture became simpler in design; the sofas and chairs have generally, but not invariably, straight fluted tapering legs, but these sometimes have the flutings spiral instead of perpendicular, and the backs are either oval or rectangular, and ornamented with a carved riband which is represented as tied at the top in a lover’s knot. Gobelins, Beauvais, and Aubusson tapestry are used for covering, the subjects being in harmony with the taste of the time. A sofa in this style, with settees at the ends, the frame elaborately carved with trophies of arrows and flowers in high relief, and covered with fine old Gobelins tapestry, was sold at the Hamilton Palace sale for L1,176. This was formerly at Versailles. Beautiful silks and brocades were also extensively used both for chairs and for the screens, which at this period were varied in design and extremely pretty. Small two-tier tables of tulip wood with delicate mountings were quite the rage, and small occasional pieces, the legs of which, like those of the chairs, are occasionally curved. An excellent example of a piece with cabriole legs is the charming little Marie Antoinette cylinder-fronted marqueterie escritoire in the Jones Collection (illustrated below). The marqueterie is attributed to Riesener, but, from its treatment being so different from that which he adopted as an almost invariable rule, it is more probably the work of David.
[Illustration: Carved and Gilt Causeuse or Settee, and Fauteuil or Arm Chair, Covered with Beauvais tapestry. (Collection “Mobilier National.”) (_From a pen and ink drawing by H. Evans._) Period: End of Louis XVI.]
[Illustration: Carved and Gilt Canape or Sofa. Covered with Beauvais tapestry. (Colection “Mobilier Natioanal.”) Period: End of Louis XVI.]
Another fine specimen illustrated on page 170 is the small cabinet made of kingwood, with fine ormolu mounts, and some beautiful Sevres plaques.
[Illustration: Marqueterie Escritoire. By Davis, said to have belonged to Marie Antoinette. (_Jones Collection, South Kensington Museum._)]
The influence exercised by the splendour of the Court of Louis Quatorze, and by the bringing together of artists and skilled handicraftsmen for the adornment of the palaces of France, which we have seen took place during the latter half of the seventeenth century, was not without its effect upon the Industrial Arts of other countries. Macaulay mentions the “bales of tapestry” and other accessories which were sent to Holland to fit up the camp quarters of Louis le Grand when he went there to take the command of his army against William III., and he also tells us of the sumptuous furnishing of the apartments at St. Germains when James II., during his exile, was the guest of Louis. The grandeur of the French King impressed itself upon his contemporaries, and war with Germany, as well as with Holland and England, helped to spread this influence. We have noticed how Wren designed the additions to Hampton Court Palace in imitation of Versailles; and in the chapter which follows this, it will be seen that the designs of Chippendale were really reproductions of French furniture of the time of Louis Quinze. The King of Sweden, Charles XII., “the Madman of the North,” as he was called, imitated his great French contemporary, and in the Palace at Stockholm there are still to be seen traces of the Louis Quatorze style in decoration and in furniture; such adornments are out of keeping with the simplicity of the habits of the present Royal family of Sweden.
A Bourbon Prince, too, succeeded to the throne of Spain in 1700, and there are still in the palaces and picture galleries of Madrid some fine specimens of French furniture of the three reigns which have just been discussed. It may be taken, therefore, that from the latter part of the seventeenth century the dominant influence upon the design of decorative furniture was of French origin.
There is evidence of this in a great many examples of the work of Flemish, German, English, and Spanish cabinet makers, and there are one or two which may be easily referred to which it is worth while to mention.
One of these is a corner cupboard of rosewood, inlaid with engraved silver, part of the design being a shield with the arms of an Elector of Cologne; there is also a pair of somewhat similar cabinets from the Bishop’s Palace at Salzburg. These are of German work, early eighteenth century, and have evidently been designed after Boule’s productions. The shape and the gilt mounts of a secretaire of walnutwood with inlay of ebony and ivory, and some other furniture which, with the other specimens just described, may be seen in the Bethnal Green Museum, all manifest the influence of the French school, when the bombe-fronted commodes and curved lines of chair and table came into fashion.
Having described somewhat in detail the styles which prevailed and some of the changes which occurred in France, from the time of Louis XIV. until the Revolution, it is unnecessary for the purposes of this sketch, to do more than briefly refer to the work of those countries which may be said to have adopted, to a greater or less extent, French designs. For reasons already stated, an exception is made in the case of our own country; and the following chapter will be devoted to the furniture of some of the English designers and makers of the latter half of the eighteenth century. Of Italy it may be observed generally that the Renaissance of Raffaele, Leonardo da Vinci, and Michael Angelo, which we have seen became degenerate towards the end of the sixteenth century, relapsed still further during the period which we have been discussing, and although the freedom and grace of the Italian carving, and the elaboration of inlaid arabesques, must always have some merit of their own, the work of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Italy will compare very unfavourably with that of the earlier period of the Renaissance.
[Illustration: A Norse Interior, Shewing Chairs of Dutch Design. Period: Late XVII. or Early XVIII. Century.]
There are many other museum specimens which might be referred to to prove the influence of French design of the seventeenth and subsequent centuries on that of other countries. The above illustration of a Norse interior shews that this influence penetrated as far as Scandinavia; for while the old-fashioned box-like bedsteads which the Norwegians had retained from early times, and which in a ruder form are still to be found in the cottages of many Scottish counties, especially of those where the Scandinavian connection existed, is a characteristic mark of the country, the design of the two chairs is an evidence of the innovations which had been made upon native fashions. These chairs are in style thoroughly Dutch, of about the end of the seventeenth or early in the eighteenth century; the cabriole legs and shell ornaments were probably the direct result of the influence of the French on the Dutch. The woodcut is from a drawing of an old house in Norwav.
[Illustration: Secretaire, In King and Tulip Wood, with Sevres Plaques and Ormolu Mountings. Period: Early Louis XVI.]
It would be unfitting to close this chapter on French furniture without paying a tribute to the munificence and public spirit of Mr. John Jones, whose bequest to the South Kensington Museum constitutes in itself a representative Museum of this class of decorative furniture. Several of the illustrations in this chapter have been taken from this collection.
In money value alone, the collection of furniture, porcelain, bronzes, and _articles de vertu,_ mostly of the period embraced within the limits of this chapter, amounts to about L400,000, and exceeds the value of any bequest the nation has ever had. Perhaps the references contained in these few pages to the French furniture of this time may stimulate the interest of the public in, and its appreciation of, this valuable national property.
[Illustration: Clock, By Robin, in Marqueterie Case, with Mountings of Gilt Bronze, (_Jones Collection. South Kensington Museum._) Louis XVI. Period.]
Soon after this generous bequest was placed in the South Kensington Museum, for the benefit of the public, a leading article appeared in the _Times_, from which the following extract will very appropriately conclude this chapter:–“As the visitor passes by the cases where these curious objects are displayed, he asks himself what is to be said on behalf of the art of which they are such notable examples.” Tables, chairs, commodes, secretaires, wardrobes, porcelain vases, marble statuettes, they represent in a singularly complete way the mind and the work of the _ancien regime_. Like Eisen’s vignettes, or the _contes_ of innumerable story-tellers, they bring back to us the grace, the luxury, the prettiness, the frivolity of that Court which believed itself, till the rude awakening came, to contain all that was precious in the life of France. A piece of furniture like the little Sevres-inlaid writing table of Marie Antoinette is, to employ a figure of Balzac’s, a document which reveals as much to the social historian as the skeleton of an ichthyosaurus reveals to the palaeontologist. It sums up an epoch. A whole world can be inferred from it. Pretty, elegant, irrational, and entirely useless, this exquisite and costly toy might stand as a symbol for the life which the Revolution swept away.
[Illustration: Harpsichord, from the Permanent Collection belonging to South Kensington Museum. Date: About 1750.]
[Illustration: Italian Sedan Chair. Used at the Baptism of the Grand Ducal Family of Tuscany, now in the South Kensington Museum. Period: Latter Half of XVIII. Century.]
Chapter VII.
Chippendale and his Contemporaries.
Chinese style–Sir William Chambers–The Brothers Adams’ work–Pergelesi, Cipriani, and Angelica Kauffmann–Architects of the time–Wedgwood and Flaxman–Chippendale’s Work and his Contemporaries–Chair in the Barbers’ Hall–Lock, Shearer, Hepplewhite, Ince, Mayhew, Sheraton–Introduction of Satinwood and Mahogany–Gillows of Lancaster and London–History of the Sideboard–The Dining Room–Furniture of the time.
Soon after the second half of the eighteenth century had set in, during the latter days of the second George, and the early part of his successor’s long reign, there is a distinct change in the design of English decorative furniture.
Sir William Chambers, R.A., an architect, who has left us Somerset House as a lasting monument of his talent, appears to have been the first to impart to the interior decoration, of houses what was termed “the Chinese style,” after his visit to China, of which a notice was made in the chapter on Eastern furniture: and as he was considered an “oracle of taste” about this time, his influence was very powerful. Chair backs consequently have the peculiar irregular lattice work which is seen in the fretwork of Chinese and Japanese ornaments, and Pagodas, Chinamen and monsters occur in his designs for cabinets. The overmantel which had hitherto been designed with some architectural pretension, now gave way to the larger mirrors which were introduced by the improved manufacture of plate glass: and the chimney piece became lower. During his travels in Italy, Chambers had found some Italian sculptors, and had brought them to England, to carve in marble his designs; they were generally of a free Italian character, with scrolls of foliage and figure ornaments: but being of stone instead of woodwork, would scarcely belong to our subject, save to indicate the change in fashion of the chimney piece, the vicissitudes of which we have already noticed. Chimney pieces were now no longer specially designed by architects, as part of the interior fittings, but were made and sold with the grates, to suit the taste of the purchaser, often quite irrespective of the rooms for which they were intended. It may be said that Dignity gave way to Elegance.
Robert Adam, having returned from his travels in France and Italy, had designed and built, in conjunction with his brother James, Adelphi Terrace about 1769, and subsequently Portland Place, and other streets and houses of a like character; the furniture being made, under the direction of Robert, to suit the interiors. There is much interest attaching to No. 25, Portland Place, because this was the house built, decorated and furnished by Robert Adam for his own residence, and, fortunately, the chief reception rooms remain to shew the style then in vogue. The brothers Adam introduced into England the application of composition ornaments to woodwork. Festoons of drapery, wreaths of flowers caught up with rams’ heads, or of husks tied with a knot of riband, and oval pateroe to mark divisions in a frieze, or to emphasize a break in the design, are ornaments characteristic of what was termed the Adams style.
Robert Adam published between 1778 and 1822 three magnificent volumes, “Works on Architecture.” One of these was dedicated to King George III., to whom he was appointed architect. Many of his designs for furniture were carried out by Gillows; there is a good collection of his original drawings in the Soane Museum, Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
The decoration was generally in low relief, with fluted pilasters, and sometimes a rather stiff Renaissance ornament decorating the panel; the effect was neat and chaste, and a distinct change from the rococo style which had preceded it.
The design of furniture was modified to harmonize with such decoration. The sideboard had a straight and not infrequently a serpentine-shaped front, with square tapering legs, and was surmounted by a pair of urn-shaped knife cases, the wood used being almost invariably mahogany, with the inlay generally of plain flutings relieved by fans or oval pateroe in satin wood.
Pergolesi, Cipriani and Angelica Kaufmann had been attracted to England by the promise of lucrative employment, and not only decorated the panels of ceilings and walls which were enriched by Adams’ “_compo_'” (in reality a revival of the old Italian gesso work), but also painted the ornamental cabinets, occasional tables, and chairs of the time.
[Illustration: Fac-simile of Original Drawings by Robert Adam (Reduced).]
Towards the end of the century, satin wood was introduced into England from the East Indies; it became very fashionable, and was a favourite ground-work for decoration, the medallions of figure subjects, generally of cupids, wood-nymphs, or illustrations of mythological fables on darker coloured wood, formed an effective relief to the yellow satin wood. Sometimes the cabinet, writing table, or spindle-legged occasional piece, was made entirely of this wood, having no other decoration beyond the beautiful marking of carefully chosen veneers; sometimes it was banded with tulipwood or harewood (a name given to sycamore artificially stained), and at other times painted as just described. A very beautiful example of this last named treatment is the dressing table in the South Kensington Museum, which we give as an illustration, and which the authorities should not, in the writer’s opinion, have labelled “Chippendale.”
Besides Chambers, there were several other architects who designed furniture about this time who have been almost forgotten. Abraham Swan, some of whose designs for wooden chimney pieces in the quasi-classic style are given, flourished about 1758. John Carter, who published “Specimens of Ancient Sculpture and Painting”; Nicholas Revitt and James Stewart, who jointly published “Antiquities of Athens” in 1762; J.C. Kraft, who designed in the Adams’ style; W. Thomas, M.S.A., and others, have left us many drawings of interior decorations, chiefly chimney pieces and the ornamental architraves of doors, all of them in low relief and of a classical character, as was the fashion towards the end of the eighteenth century.
Josiah Wedgwood, too, turned his attention to the production of plaques in relief, for adaptation to chimney pieces of this character. In a letter written from London to Mr. Bentley, his partner, at the works, he deplores the lack of encouragement in this direction which he received from the architects of his day; he, however, persevered, and by the aid of Flaxman’s inimitable artistic skill as a modeller, made several plaques of his beautiful Jasper ware, which were let in to the friezes of chimney pieces, and also into other wood-work. There can be seen in the South Kensington Museum a pair of pedestals of this period (1770-1790) so ornamented.
It is now necessary to consider the work of a group of English cabinet makers, who not only produced a great deal of excellent furniture, but who also published a large number of designs drawn with extreme care and a considerable degree of artistic skill.
The first of these and the best known was Thomas Chippendale, who appears to have succeeded his father, a chair maker, and to have carried on a large and successful business in St. Martin’s Lane, which was at this time an important Art centre, and close to the newly-founded Royal Academy.
[Illustration: English Satinwood Dressing Table. With Painted Decoration. End of XVIII. Century.]
[Illustration: Chimneypiece and Overmantel. Designed by W. Thomas, Architect. 1783. Very similar to Robert Adam’s work.]
Chippendale published “The Gentleman and Cabinet Maker’s Director,” not, as stated in the introduction to the catalogue to the South Kensington Museum, in 1769, but some years previously, as is testified by a copy of the “third edition” of the work which is in the writer’s possession and bears date 1762, the first edition having appeared in 1754. The title page of this edition is reproduced in _fac simile_ on page 178.
[Illustration: Chairs, With ornament in the Chinese style, by Thomas Chippendale.]
This valuable work of reference contains over two hundred copperplate engravings of chairs, sofas, bedsteads, mirror frames, girandoles, torcheres or lamp stands, dressing tables, cabinets, chimney pieces, organs, jardinieres, console tables, brackets, and other useful and decorative articles, of which some examples are given. It will be observed from these, that the designs of Chippendale are very different from those popularly ascribed to him. Indeed, it would appear that this maker has become better known than any other, from the fact of the designs in his book being recently republished in various forms; his popularity has thus been revived, while the names of his contemporaries are forgotten. For the last fifteen or twenty years, therefore, during which time the fashion has obtained of collecting the furniture of a bygone century, almost every cabinet, table, or mirror-frame, presumably of English manufacture, which is slightly removed from the ordinary type of domestic furniture, has been, for want of a better title, called “Chippendale.” As a matter of fact, he appears to have adopted from Chambers the fanciful Chinese ornament, and the rococo style of that time, which was superseded some five-and-twenty years later by the quieter and more classic designs of Adam and his contemporaries.
[Illustration: _Fac-Simile of the Title Page of Chippendale’s “Director.” (Reduced by Photography.) The Original is in Folio Size_.
THE
GENTLEMAN and CABINET-MAKER’S
DIRECTOR:
Being a large COLLECTION of the
Most ELEGANT and USEFUL DESIGNS
OF
HOUSEHOLD FURNITURE,
In the Most FASHIONABLE TASTE.
Including a great VARIETY of
CHAIRS, SOFAS, BEDS, and COUCHES; CHINA-TABLES, DRESSING-TABLES, SHAVING-TABLES,
BASON-STANDS, and TEAKETTLE-STANDS; FRAMES for MARBLE-SLABS, BUREAU-DRESSING-TABLES, and COMMODES;
WRITING-TABLES, and LIBRARY-TABLES; LIBRARY-BOOK-CASES, ORGAN-CASES for
private Rooms, or Churches, DESKS, and BOOK-CASES; DRESSING and WRITING-TABLES with BOOK-CASES, TOILETS, CABINETS,
and CLOATHS-PRESSES; CHINA-CASES, CHINA-SHELVES, and BOOK-SHELVES;
CANDLE-STANDS, TERMS for BUSTS, STANDS for CHINA JARS, and PEDESTALS; CISTERNS for WATER, LANTHORNS, and CHANDELIERS; FIRE-SCREENS, BRACKETS, and CLOCK-CASES; PIER-GLASSES, and TABLE-FRAMES; GIRANDOLES, CHIMNEY-PIECES, and PICTURE-FRAMES;
STOVE-GRATES, BOARDERS, FRETS,
CHINESE-RAILING, and BRASS-WORK, for Furniture,
AND OTHER
ORNAMENTS,
TO WHICH IS PREFIXED,
A Short EXPLANATION of the Five ORDERS of ARCHITECTURE; WITH
Proper DIRECTIONS for executing the most difficult Pieces, the Mouldings being exhibited at large, and the Dimensions of each DESIGN specified.
The Whole comprehended in Two HUNDRED COPPER-PLATES, neatly engraved.
Calculated to improve and refine the present TASTE, and suited to the Fancy and Circumstances of Persons in all Degrees of Life.
By THOMAS CHIPPENDALE,
CABINET-MAKER and UPHOLSTERER, in St. Martin’s Lane, London.
THE THIRD EDITION.
LONDON:
Printed for the AUTHOR, and sold at his House, in St. Martin’s Lane; Also by T. BECKET and P.A. DeHONDT, in the Strand.
MDCCLXII.
]
[Illustration: Fac-simile of a Page in Chippendale’s “Director.” (The original is folio size.)]
[Illustration: Tea Caddy, Carved in the French style. (From Chippendale’s “Director.”)]
In the chapter on Louis XV. and Louis XVI. furniture, it has been shewn how France went through a similar change about this same period. In Chippendale’s chairs and console tables, in his state bedsteads and his lamp-stands, one can recognise the broken scrolls and curved lines, so familiar in the bronze mountings of Caffieri. The influence of the change which had occurred in France during the Louis Seize period is equally evident in the Adams’ treatment. It was helped forward by the migration into this country of skilled workmen from France, during the troubles of the revolution at the end of the century. Some of Chippendale’s designs bear such titles as “French chairs” or a “Bombe-fronted Commode.” These might have appeared as illustrations in a contemporary book on French furniture, so identical are they in every detail with the carved woodwork of Picau, of Cauner, or of Nilson, who designed the flamboyant frames of the time of Louis XV. Others have more individuality. In his mirror frames he introduced a peculiar bird with a long snipe-like beak, and rather impossible wings, an imitation of rockwork and dripping water, Chinese figures with pagodas and umbrellas; and sometimes the illustration of Aesop’s fables interspersed with scrolls and flowers. By dividing the glass unequally, by the introduction into his design of bevelled pillars with carved capitals and bases, he produced a quaint and pleasing effect, very suitable to the rather effeminate fashion of his time, and in harmony with three-cornered hats, wigs and patches, embroidered waistcoats, knee breeches, silk stockings, and enamelled snuff-boxes. In some of the designs there is a fanciful Gothic, to which he makes special allusion in his preface, as likely to be considered by his critics as impracticable, but which he undertakes to produce, if desired–
“Though some of the profession have been diligent enough to represent them (espescially those after the Gothick and Chinese manner) as so many specious drawings impossible to be worked off by any mechanick whatsoever. I will not scruple to attribute this to Malice, Ignorance, and Inability; and I am confident I can convince all Noblemen, Gentlemen, or others who will honour me with their Commands, that every design in the book can be improved, both as to Beauty and Enrichment, in the execution of it, by
“Their most obedient servant,
“THOMAS CHIPPENDALE.”
[Illustration: A Bureau, From Chippendale’s “Director.”]
The reader will notice that in the examples selected from Chippendale’s book there are none of those fretwork tables and cabinets which are generally termed “Chippendale.” We know, however, that besides the designs which have just been described, and which were intended for gilding, he also made mahogany furniture, and in the “Director” there are drawings of chairs, washstands, writing-tables and cabinets of this description. Fretwork is very rarely seen, but the carved ornament is generally a foliated or curled endive scroll; sometimes the top of a cabinet is finished in the form of a Chinese pagoda. Upon examining a piece of furniture that may reasonably be ascribed to him, it will be found of excellent workmanship, and the wood, always mahogany without any inlay, is richly marked, shewing a careful selection of material.
[Illustration: Fac-simile of a Page In Chippendale’s “Director.” (The original is folio size.)]
[Illustration: “French” Commode and Lamp Stands. Designed by T. Chippendale, and Published in His “Director.”]
[Illustration: Fac-simile of a Page in Chippendale’s “Director.” (The original is folio size.)]
[Illustration: Chimneypiece and Mirror. Designed By T. Chippendale, and Published in His “Director.”]
[Illustration: PARLOUR CHAIRS BY CHIPPENDALE.]
The chairs of Chippendale and his school are very characteristic. If the outline of the back of some of them be compared with the stuffed back of the chair from Hardwick Hall (illustrated in Chap. IV.) it will be seen that the same lines occur, but instead of the frame of the back being covered with silk, tapestry, or other material–as in William III.’s time–Chippendale’s are cut open into fanciful patterns; and in his more highly ornate work, the twisted ribands of his design are scarcely to be reconciled with the use for which a dining room chair is intended. The well-moulded sweep of his lines, however, counterbalances this defect to some extent, and a good Chippendale mahogany chair will ever be an elegant and graceful article of furniture.
One of the most graceful chairs of about the middle of the century, in the style of Chippendale’s best productions, is the Master’s Chair in the Hall of the Barbers’ Company. Carved in rich Spanish mahogany, and upholstered in morocco leather, the ornament consists of scrolls and cornucopiae, with flowers charmingly disposed, the arms and motto of the Company being introduced. Unfortunately, there is no certain record as to the designer and maker of this beautiful chair, and it is to be regretted that the date (1865), the year when the Hall was redecorated, should have been placed in prominent gold letters on this interesting relic of a past century.
[Illustration: Clock Case, by Chippendale.]
Apart from the several books of design noticed in this chapter, there were published two editions of a work, undated, containing many of the drawings found in Chippendale’s book. This book was entitled, “Upwards of One Hundred New and Genteel Designs, being all the most approved patterns of household furniture in the French taste. By a Society of Upholders and Cabinet makers.” It is probable that Chippendale was a member of this Society, and that some of the designs were his, but that he severed himself from it and published his own book, preferring to advance his individual reputation. The “sideboard” which one so generally hears called “Chippendale” scarcely existed in his time. If it did, it must have been quite at the end of his career. There were side tables, sometimes called “Side-Boards,” but they contained neither cellaret nor cupboard: only a drawer for table linen.
The names of two designers and makers of mahogany ornamental furniture, which deserve to be remembered equally with Chippendale, are those of W. Ince and J. Mayhew, who were partners in business in Broad Street, Golden Square, and contemporary with him. They also published a book of designs which is alluded to by Thomas Sheraton in the preface to his “Cabinet Maker and Upholsterer’s Drawing Book,” published in 1793. A few examples from Ince and Mayhew’s “Cabinet Maker’s Real Friend and Companion” are given, from which it is evident that, without any distinguishing brand, or without the identification of the furniture with the designs, it is