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English Furniture | by Frederick S. Robinson



The aim of this book is to be of some assistance to those who collect, or propose to collect, English furniture. The subjects of the plates, therefore, have been chosen mainly for the purpose of affording a good general view of the usual types with which a collector may meet. A false idea of English furniture would be formed if the majority of the objects reproduced were such as are seldom or never found for sale. At the same time, there are included many rare and beautiful pieces to demonstrate the artistic and technical skill of English designers and cabinetmakers...

TitleEnglish Furniture
AuthorFrederick S. Robinson
PublisherMethuen And Co.
Year1905
Copyright1905, Methuen And Co.
AmazonEnglish Furniture
English Furniture 3
-Preface
The aim of this book is to be of some assistance to those who collect, or propose to collect, English furniture. The subjects of the plates, therefore, have been chosen mainly for the purpose of affor...
-A Short List Of Books Useful For The Study Of English Furniture
For the Periods before 1700 * Henry Shaw, Specimens of Ancient Furniture, 1836. Has fine steel-engraved plates and an admirable introduction by Sir S. Meyrick, but contains nothing later than 1700. P...
-Chapter I. From Saxon To Late Gothic
THE writer of a treatise upon English Furniture, who wishes to trace his subject from the very commencement of its history, is attended at once by a serious difficulty. Lack of actual material, owing ...
-Casket In British Museum
A Saxon or Anglo-Norman state bed, illustrated from a manuscript in Willemin's Monumens Francais inedits, has thick carved legs of a very similar type to the baluster legs of the sixteenth and sevente...
-Norman Furniture
Tables now were placed upon trestles, and cupboards or armoires (armaria) came into use with decorative iron hinges worked into scrolls and leafage. No such thing as a piece of Norman furniture exists...
-Meyrick And Shaw
In 1236 the king's treasurer is commanded 'to have the great chamber of the king at Westminster painted with good green colour in imitation of a curtain, and in the great gable of the same chamber, ne...
-Tapestry
Sir S. Meyrick informs us that the great hall of Borthwick Castle, in Scotland, dating from Henry III., 1216-1272, has (1836) on its vaulted ceiling the remains of painting such as occur in old illumi...
-Gothic Chairs
Chairs did not come into common use until the sixteenth century, and the early ones existing are purely ecclesiastical. Comparatively plain is that well-known relic the coronation chair in Westminster...
-Perpendicular Gothic
Of Gothic tables, for want of examples, it is difficult to speak. Shaw represents one from a manuscript, No. 264 in the Bodleian at Oxford. This is a light and extremely elegant little piece of furnit...
-Armoires
For a complete discussion of the cupboards or 'armoires' (armaria, presumably from being meant to hold armour and weapons) of the Gothic period still existing, the reader is referred to Mr. F. Roe's A...
-Rebuses
In the same collection is a cupboard of similar date carved with two very protuberant heads, and an example of the rebus which was popular in those days. The founder of a building, or the owner of a p...
-Chapter II. Early Oak Chests
NO piece of oak furniture which has descended to us from our forefathers is so universally owned and used as the chest or coffer. In almost every sale of farm or cottage furniture in the less sophisti...
-Early Oak Chests
The earliest chests we have remaining were made for ecclesiastical purposes, and are still to be found in the parish churches for which they were originally constructed. They are comparatively few in ...
-Early Oak Chests. Part 2
Instead of this there is an arrangement which is thus concisely described in Parker's Glossary of Architecture'. 'Across each end of the lid, on the underside of it, a strong piece of wood is fixed, w...
-Early Oak Chests. Part 3
Very similar carvings are to be found on a beautifully elaborate chest at Brancepeth, Durham, and also on one at St. Mary Magdalen's Church, Oxford. Illustrated here is a very interesting specimen fr...
-Early Oak Chests. Part 4
1 See note in List of Plates. Plate XIV. Panelling From A House At Waltham Abbey Early 16th Century XIV. Panelling from a house at Waltham Abbey. Early sixteenth century. V. & A. M. Plate XXV. ...
-Chapter III. The Renaissance House And The Pattern Of Old Oak Furniture
IN the Elizabethan period there is no longer so great a rarity of existing objects of furniture and woodwork. It is true that we are still, and shall always be, hampered, as must generally be the case...
-Humphrey Peckham
There is, indeed, the less ground for complaining of the anonymity of the furniture-makers of the oak period when we remember that the magnificent houses which contained their handiwork were the maste...
-The Renaissance House
It is more important for our subject to know what are the usual decorative shapes to be found upon old oak furniture, than to lose ourselves in the effort to trace them to their original source. The G...
-The Guilloche
It has to be admitted that many of the easily copied common patterns, which from their presence on simply carved furniture appearing to be typically English, we might fancy to be indigenous, come stra...
-Foreign Influences
Whilst we are considering the paramount influence of the Renaissance, we must not ignore that other ruder influence which came from Scandinavia. This is observable in the northern parts of England, an...
-The Fan Shape
'The Feathers' inn at Ludlow, originally a private house, has a front with overhanging stories, upon the timbering of which is carved the interlaced or connected circle pattern so common on beds and c...
-The Planted Arch
So much for the resemblances widely observable between the exterior styles of stonework and the interior styles of wood. The connection between the room and its furniture is in many cases more obvious...
-Chapter IV. Panelled Rooms, Bedsteads, And Cradles
ROOM panelling was introduced into England, says Mr. J. H. Pollen (Ancient Furniture and Woodwork, p. 49), during the reign of Henry in., that king having ordered a room at Windsor Castle to be panell...
-Tudor And Renaissance Work
There is considerable variety in the mouldings of the circular medallions of the Waltham panels, and the round-headed arch so characteristic of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods appears in at least...
-Panelled Rooms
In this particular instance, however, the work is purely Renaissance, a style which came not naturally to English fingers in the first instance, if the 'bad Italian' of the Gardiner chantry at Winches...
-Bedsteads
Describing a bed belonging to Dr. Robertson at Buxton, a writer in the Building News, January 20, 1882, remarks: 'A second frieze has been added to increase the height, and the bases of the footposts ...
-Defective Designs
What with grotesque masks and figures and S-brackets, the effect given by this bed, which is a large one, 8 feet 7½ inches high, is one of too great elaboration. The huge heads at the top are no impro...
-Transitional Bedstead
Reference must here be made to that celebrated monstrosity - size alone being considered - the 'Great Bed of Ware.' It is rendered famous by Shakespeare's allusion to it in Twelfth Night. Formerly in ...
-The Bed Of Ware
'Go, write it in a martial hand; be curst and brief; it is no matter how witty, so it be eloquent and full of invention: taunt him with the license of ink: if thou thoust him some thrice, it shall not...
-Disappearance Of Bedsteads
The habit of putting almost everything in mourning on the occasion of a death seems to have been very prevalent during the seventeenth century. In the Verney Memoirs (vol. i. p. 293), we find mention,...
-Later Bedsteads
In the 'Queen Anne's State Bedchamber' is her very tall, straight - canopied four-poster, completely covered with silk velvet, worked with an elaborate pattern of architectural designs, and convention...
-Chapter V. Seventeenth Century Chests
VERY few chests are to be found to bridge the interval between those with the genuine early linen-fold and the typical chest of the seventeenth century, with the round arch planted on its panels. A mo...
-Cottingham Chest
A very good example of the unpanelled chest exists at Cottingham Church, Northants. This, as will be observed in Plate XXIV., is unlike any other of our types. It is large and massive, top and front b...
-Profile Heads
A somewhat problematical chest in the Victoria and Albert Museum (No. 833), said to be of the first half of the sixteenth century, offers an example of the fashion of carving heads in profile upon pan...
-Nonesuch Chests
Not of a much later period is another chest with handsomely inlaid panels, the centre one containing a swan in light wood, which also belongs to Mr. Seymour Lucas, R.A. The carving of the framing of t...
-Esther Hobsonne's Chest
Leaving now the arched panelled chests, we come to a very florid one (No. 527), which has the additional interest of bearing its owner's name and a date. On the upper rail is inscribed, 'This is Esthe...
-Decorated Ends
The chest to which I refer is at Newton Manor, Swanage, Dorset. As was to be expected, if the above conclusions are right, its lid is smooth. On the upper rail an S-curved ornament is carved, and the ...
-Broken Lines
The ordinary type of applied moulding of the early seventeenth century is well seen on the inlaid chest, with the swan in the centre panel, belonging to Mr. Seymour Lucas, R.A.1 As the century ended a...
-Cypress And Cedar
An impanelled chest of elm, and with initials T. G., belongs to Sir Spencer Ponsonby-Fane of Brympton, Yeovil, and has rather handsome incised carving. Another, belonging to the same owner, seems to h...
-Chapter VI. Cabinets Of The Sixteenth And Seventeenth Centuries
WE have to return for a moment to an earlier period. In the chapter upon panelled rooms and beds there is reproduced a series, from the Victoria and Albert Museum, of panels originally at Waltham Abbe...
-Types Of Cabinets
The second type has an upper cupboard with a straight front. The cornice overhangs it boldly for the whole of the length, and in place of the pillars at the corners there are merely pendants of circul...
-Yorkshire Cabinets
The second of these cabinets (Plate xli), belonging to Miss Stirke, is smaller, and not so long for its height. On the cornice at the top there is a pattern of small semicircles, and below it a waved ...
-Court-Cupboard
The hinges are not original. Carved instances are to be found. Not an uncommon detail in Wales is an S-curve, fashioned into a dragon shape, with barbed tongue. Etymologists are not very satisfactory...
-Livery Cupboards
This speciality of use for food-stuffs brings us to the other moot point of 'livery cupboards.' We have seen that Singer says that the term was used indiscriminately with 'court cupboard' and 'cupboar...
-Applied Ornament
After all, it does not greatly matter whether the term livery cupboard was or was not at one time applied both to an object with open shelves like a dresser and to a cupboard with a front composed of ...
-Ivory And Mother-Of-Pearl
Very similar in general style, and of the same period, perhaps later, is the coin cabinet (Plate xlvi.) belonging to Mrs. Edmund McClure. This is a much more elaborately finished specimen. It is of oa...
-Sideboards
It is convenient in this place to mention the 'sideboard' of the old oak period. The eighteenth, nineteenth, and present century embodiments must not obtrude themselves on our minds. The sideboard of ...
-Chapter VII. Tables Of The Sixteenth And Seventeenth Centuries
ONCE past the period of the Trestle (a word which is of doubtful derivation, not from 'three-stule,' as some like to fancy, but probably of French and Latin outcome), we find at least half a dozen dif...
-Hardwick Table
A table of walnut wood, inlaid, exists at Hardwick Hall, which affords some idea of later sixteenth century magnificence. It is approximately ten feet long by four and a quarter feet wide. The top con...
-H-Shaped Bases
Of the subjects illustrated the origin need scarcely be disputed, whatever the decoration of the more elaborate ones may be. The earliest of these types and the most ornamental is best represented (Pl...
-Carpenters' Hall Table
The arch remains in certain less assuming octagonal tables, of which an admirable example is to be seen in the Hall of the Carpenters' Company. This is about three and a quarter feet only in diameter,...
-Drawing Tables
This particular example was known as a 'drawing' table, that is, one which could be extended by means of its double slabs on the top. 'Two ends are made to be drawn out by main force, which then becom...
-Bible Box And Shovel-Boards
The box upon the Montacute table is what is often called a 'Bible-box' - though, like the 'coffin stool,' it was probably often enough used for other purposes. It belongs to Sir Thomas Wardle of Leek,...
-Gate Tables And Table Chairs
Holding a middle place between chair and table, is a piece of furniture made to serve the purpose of both. These objects seem to have been in comparatively early use. There is an inventory of the Arch...
-Chapter VIII. Oak Chairs Of The Sixteenth And Seventeenth Centuries
ENGLISH chairs of an earlier date than the seventeenth century, or perhaps the end of the sixteenth, are extremely rare. Before that, in all probability, very few were made. The head of the house was ...
-Arms Of Oak Chairs
Every one of the five chairs mentioned has the same type of arm. It slopes downwards from the back, and has a concave curve in the middle, with a more or less emphasised curve on the lower side of the...
-Incongruities
A somewhat exceptional chair (Plate lv.i) is in St. Michael's Church, St. Albans. This has a heavy semi-circular top-piece carved with a cherub's head and wings. The central panel is rather ingeniousl...
-Settles
A settle and table combined is reproduced here (Plate lvii.2, 3) from the collection of the Rev. F. Meyrick-Jones, 292 Lancaster Road, Notting Hill. This is uncarved, and has a boxed-in seat. The flan...
-Rail-Backed Chairs
We need not, however, accuse the succeeding rail-backed chair of an excessive fragility. It was still strong, though it had largely lost the look of strength which broad surfaces of oak afforded. The ...
-Yorkshire Chairs
With both of these features we meet in the Yorkshire chair, which is the least English-looking of all the chairs of the old oak period. This is due to the curious horseshoe-shaped cut in the centre of...
-Transitional Chairs
It is necessary to remember here, that the old oak style did not come to a sudden end when cane chairs were introduced. The solid-backed chair in the Victoria and Albert Museum which is reproduced (Pl...
-Upholstery
If a vast mass of old oak furniture could be gathered together, the repetition of ornamental details and general shapes, which helps to bind the productions of any age with the link of an all-pervadin...
-Chapter IX. Chests Of Drawers In The Seventeenth Century
THE chest of drawers marks a distinct advance in the conveniences of household arrangements and in the constructive skill of English joiners which was required to meet a new demand. It is remarkable t...
-Question Of Dates
If so, they were in pretty general use in Corfe Castle in 1640, and were still more frequent, apparently, than chests of drawers. Mrs. Frances Clary Morse, in Fur-niture of the Olden Time, says that c...
-Secret Drawers
At the present time, when banks are at hand and innumerable forms of investment are continually being offered to every one who has saved a little money, it is difficult to realise the trouble there wa...
-Leather-Covered Furniture
This chapter concludes with an exceptional and very picturesque chest with drawers (Plate lxv., No. 497 in the Victoria and Albert Museum). For once we have a change from the wooden surface. This is c...
-Chapter X. The Restoration: Chairs And Silver Furniture
WITH the Restoration we arrive at a turning point in the history of English furniture. The amateur of English oak chests and cabinets and tables cannot but have felt that until now the objects of his ...
-Insular Prejudice
A leather-backed and seated oak chair (No. 94, Victoria and Albert Museum) is reproduced in Plate lxvi. 1, and answers to the description, except in one particular. It has a carved front stretcher rud...
-Boyle's Air-Pump
One reason for thischange of fashion is not far to seek. The restored king, Charles 11., had lived much abroad. He married a Portuguese wife, and the influence of France and Portugal between them is a...
-Solid Oak And Charles II. Styles
The most obvious difference between the new style and that of the old oak, in principles of design, is the greater unity and homogeneity of the newer. I have dwelt on the fact that in the old oak chai...
-Cane
I cannot find any evidence as to the date at which cane was imported into England. Of the calamus, or genus of palms used to make the cane of commerce, there are about two hundred species. They come c...
-Royal Emblems
There are various interesting specimens in the Victoria and Albert Museum. To No. 94 (Plate lxvi.i) I have already referred as an apparent transition from the Cromwellian chair to the later style, by ...
-Exactness In Dating
The first and most elaborate chairs, of the end of the seventeenth century, are those numbered 337 and 338, and four (Nos. 3302-5), lent by Mr. Massy-Mainwar-ing. These come from old Richmond Palace, ...
-Varieties Of Foot
Another chair has no carving on the centrepiece of the back, but the wood which edges the cane oblong is lightly incised with a lattice pattern, which appears also on the wood of the seat. A typical ...
-Cross-Legged Chairs
Queen Anne's State-bedchamber at Hampton Court Palace is another excellent place for the study of stools and settees carved with the varieties of detail mentioned in this chapter. There are eight stoo...
-Silver Furniture
The Windsor table of silver has spiral legs, but its stretcher is of that elongated X-shape with circular central part which is found in various examples of French furniture of the period after that o...
-Stuart Extravagance
It is probable that Louis XIV. possessed a large quantity of this silver furniture, which was melted down to meet the exigencies of a treasury depleted by his wars. The inlaid furniture of Boulle was ...
-Chapter XI. Inigo Jones, Wren, And Grinling Gibbons
IN the period at which we have arrived the resemblances between the exterior and interior details of a house and those of its furniture are no longer striking. We shall find that to the last - that is...
-Inigo Jones
Inigo Jones, perhaps the first and greatest of British architects. The time had not arrived for filling private houses with expensive furniture designed to fit particular niches of rooms, with which i...
-St. Mary's Porch, Oxford
He uses cartouche shapes in the centre of broken pediments or under the mantelshelf. The large upper panel of the chimneypiece is sometimes diversified by jutting or ' returning' angles at the top, an...
-Grinling Gibbons
The same treatment, with mouldings perhaps even heavier still, is found in the interiors of Sir Christopher Wren. That great man must be mentioned here as the employer of the incomparable carver, Grin...
-Gibbons And Wren
Allowance must be made for the partiality of a man who had so much to do with the career of Gibbons, but the reference to his inventiveness must afford no doubt that Sir Christopher Wren left him a ve...
-Late 17th Century House
The Duke of Buckingham's glass factory, established in 1673 at Lambeth, must have led to a great demand for mirror glass, which had not before been made in England. In an inventory of Corfe Castle tak...
-Kensington And Hampton Court
Kensington Palace and Hampton Court Palace are two of the most convenient instances of the combined efforts of Sir Christopher Wren and Grinling Gibbons. The same moulding is to be found in the orange...
-Country House Of 18th Century
The description given above of the Duke of Monmouth's house in Soho Square may be paralleled by the following account of a country seat, Woodcote, near Epsom, belonging to Lord Baltimore, which was ad...
-Chapter XII. Smooth-Surfaced Furniture Of The Late Seven-Teenth And Early Eighteenth Centuries
AS we have arrived at a period when the importa-tion of foreign woods gave a great impetus to the practice of gluing them over common oak or deal, it is perhaps advisable to notice the difference of m...
-Inlay, Marquetry, Veneer
In many cases, although but one wood is used to cover the surface, the sheets cut from one log are so placed in relation to each other as to make patterns out of the grain. It is obvious that the grai...
-Reserve Ornamentation
Most typical objects of furniture to which inlay or marquetry was often applied are chests of drawers and tall clocks. On both, the custom of confining the decoration to 'reserves' may be noticed. In ...
-Variety Of Woods
Three fine specimens of smooth-surfaced furniture, all dating from the very end of the seventeenth century, remain to be noticed. Earliest, perhaps, if its spiral-turned stand is to be a guide, is the...
-Growth Of The Chest Of Drawers
In the cabinet upon heavy spiral legs belonging to Mr. R. W. Partridge, of St. James's Street (Plate lxxvii.2), we are not so much impressed by a contrast between small curved inlay and straight gener...
-Types Of Mouldings
There is not much doubt that the two parts of these early high chests of drawers have come to be separated and regarded as two pieces of furniture. The lower part is found to form an admirable dressin...
-Illogical Construction
An early example of the fourth style in which the drawers are moulded without any projection is afforded by a tall chest of drawers on short cabriole legs. This is of solid oak, and the drawers have h...
-Chapter XIII. Chairs Of The Late Seventeenth And Early Eighteenth Centuries
THE reign of William III. marks an important change in the design and construction of the chair. Turned work gives way to flatter forms, especially in the uprights of the back. Footrails still continu...
-The Cabriole Leg
Another is that with the introduction of mahogany it , was possible to make finer and stronger joints, the former comparative looseness of which necessitated in the Stuart chairs those numerous cross-...
-Dutch Shape
The seat is extra broad and rounded at the side, or if the sides are flat the front is considerably wider than the back. It is a playful habit to ascribe this to the peculiarities of the Dutchman's bu...
-Cane And Wood Splat-Backed Chairs
The motive for this angle so near the junction of the back with the seat is not that of gaining extra thickness where the chief strain is felt to be. Greater variety of outline is obtained by it, but ...
-Early Georgian Chairs
Finally, there is the Windsor chair of commerce, which deserves mention as a type occasionally - as in Mr. W. H. Bliss's yew example (Plate clx.i) of Gothic style - exalted into something approaching ...
-Round-Backed Chairs
At the sale of the Marquis of Anglesey's furniture from Beaudesert at Christie's, on 12th January 1905, there was an exceptional chair which fetched the high price of three hundred guineas. It was des...
-Chapter XIV. The Mahogany Period And The Pattern-Books
WE have now arrived at a period which it has become the fashion to designate as that of Chippendale. Thereby, as is usually the result of exalting one name at the expense of others, some injustice has...
-The Mahogany Period
Mrs. Clouston (p. 70) supposes that Chippendale at first belonged to the Society, but left it to publish on his own account; and that the Society's designs are imitated from the furniture of Chippenda...
-Sir William Chambers
Sir William Chambers is a greater name to reckon with for his influence on furniture. He was born in 1726, and was of Scotch descent, though his father lived, and he himself was born, in Sweden. The s...
-Chinese Inventions
Chambers took to architecture, went to Italy, and returned in 1755, bringing, as had been done before, Italian carvers to execute the marble mantelpieces which he designed. In these he discarded the g...
-Rooms And Furniture
Some of the books deal almost entirely with the decoration of a room, but they are worth referring to as showing how the same types of ornament would be employed upon a plaster ceiling, and upon a sid...
-Designs Good And Bad
The work brought out by Ince and May hew, The Universal System of Household Furniture, undated, but circa 1770, carries extravagance in the more florid style of Chippendale to an extreme. Nevertheless...
-Literary Forgeries
Having disposed of these, we come to a great name, that of Heppelwhite, though the spelling varies. Him and his connection with Thomas Shearer and others, responsible for the Cabinetmakers' London Boo...
-Chapter XV. Chippendale: I
CONSIDERING how comparatively recent is the period which Chippendale adorned, it is somewhat surprising that we should not know more about the man who, as pointed out by Mrs. K. W. Clouston, has usurp...
-J. T. Smith On Chippendale
While he calls Chippendale the 'most famous cabinetmaker of his day,' Smith does him less than justice in attributing to him the mere imitation of French furniture, in a style, too, which we associate...
-Taste And Trade
This, however, is less than justice. It is not for nothing that Chippendale's name is remembered before those of his contemporaries. His book was the best of its class, even if it was not the fountain...
-Riband-Back Chairs
Chippendale has one unvarying method of treatment for splatted open-backed chairs wherein he differs from his great successor Sheraton. The splat is always joined to the seat, never to a cross-rail. T...
-The C-Curve
For the decoration of his splats he is fond of trefoil or kidney-shaped openings. These last are formed by the juxtaposition of two C-curves thus, CD, and are found in the upper and lower parts of spl...
-Hogarth's Furniture
It is natural to look for evidence of his work in the pictures of Hogarth, that acute observer, whose interiors were being painted in the debateable period, 1720-1760. The series in which we should mo...
-Chapter XVI. Chippendale: II - The French, Gothic, And Chinese Styles
IN Chippendale's first edition the French style may fairly be said to predominate, and it is probable that his earliest affections were centred upon the styles of Louis XIV. and Louis xv. The later ma...
-The Chinese Chair
Greater interest attaches for most English students of furniture to the more English of Chippendale's inventions, and especially to the less grand open-backed mahogany chairs. Much time need not be sp...
-Thin Lattice
It must be confessed that of the Chinese chairs, those which are most reminiscent of window latticework are the least acceptable. That is perhaps because we associate these rectangular interlacing for...
-Gothic Style
The Gothic taste - it never, perhaps, in the eighteenth century attained quite the dimensions of a craze - did not arrive so early as the Chinese. Evelyn had very little to say for it, but he was able...
-Chapter XVII. Chippendale: III
IT may be objected at this stage that in our treatment of earlier English furniture, criticisms and objections have been made only to a moderate extent, but that now Chippendale suffers from the lack ...
-Chairs And Settees
As to Chippendale's book being 'a real original,' we may agree to that also, if the phrase does not attribute to him an absolutely fresh invention. That may be taken as an impossibility for any one fu...
-Screens
It is said that Chippendale has left many of his screens behind him. These are either rectangular in outline or, especially if of French inspiration, irregularly shaped in the manner of Meissonier. Th...
-Tables
In his first edition Chippendale makes a great display of 'French commode tables.' These are mostly chests of drawers upon low cabriole legs. They have bombe and other shaped fronts, and vary consider...
-Bureaus
A mahogany 'tall-boy' chest of drawers from Chippendale's design is a most desirable possession. In his first edition they appear both extremely plain and also with ornamental legs and frets. These la...
-Mirror-Frames
In his clocks Chippendale is, on the whole, not so fantastic. The limitations of the long-clock shape partly account for this, and also, perhaps, the fact that he borrowed somewhat from Daniel Marot, ...
-Mahogany
The demand for lighter, more elegant furniture, which, as we have seen, has been, and will remain to the end of this narrative, the rule of evolution, was admirably met by the introduction of mahogany...
-Gilding And Upholstery
Of Chippendale's furniture in French style, and of many of his great beds, it is necessary to say that much was intended to be gilt. His chimneypieces were, if gilt, executed in pine, as were also the...
-Chapter XVIII. Manwaring, Ince And Mayhew, The Adams
IT is more than probable that furniture attributed to Chippendale should in many cases be laid to the credit of lesser men, such as Ince and Mayhew or Robert Manwaring. The latter's books, as well as ...
-Manwaring's Bombast
In the preface Manwaring mentions the Five Orders of Architecture, which he lugs in because Chippendale, whom he describes as 'a late very ingenious Author,' had done it before him. 'I have made it my...
-Monstrosities
Not till we come to Plate 21 do we find designs of which we can tolerably well judge, in the shape of a pair of very reasonably formed Chinese-French chairs with arms. There is to be noticed a certain...
-Preface Of Ince And Mayhew
The grammar and diction are decidedly unworthy of the style in which the book has been produced. The Preface opens : 'Prefaces, like Titles, are only meant as an Argument to the Reader, but when too l...
-Forgotten Cabinet-Makers
The names of these men, Manwaring and Ince and Mayhew, have survived largely because they wrote books; but there were others equally prosperous in their day whose merits, though in their own estimatio...
-Robert Adam
The original designs of the firm of Robert and James Adam are preserved in the Soane Museum. There are thirty volumes, three of which have to do with furniture. One, entitled Furniture, Grates, Carpet...
-The Lyre Motive
In 1772 we come across the lyre shape in a 'girandole' for George Keats, Esq., and there is another design for a lyre-back chair, with the top of the back decidedly Chippendalean in shape, for Mr. Rob...
-Cost Of Furniture
The enterprising patron of engravers, Mr. Alderman Boydell, has two designs made for picture-frames before he is satisfied, the second of which, contrary to the usual practice, is signed by Robert Ada...
-Chapter XIX. Shearer And Heppelwhite: I
IF Chippendale has been unduly exalted with posthumous honours at the cost of several others, Heppelwhite has obtained bare justice at one other's expense. His name is remembered, and his furniture se...
-Painted Furniture
But they made mistakes, and the mistake of Heppel-white lay in his calling in the aid of the coach-painter to produce naturalistic flowers and birds upon the beautiful surface of his wood. So much is ...
-Prices In Detail
The prices for each particular piece of furniture are given in too great detail for quotation. Speaking generally, we are struck at first by the extreme apparent low-ness of cost. It must, however, be...
-Shearer's Simple Forms
More successful, because less teased about with alternatives, appears to be his 'Wing Clothes-Press,' a wardrobe upper part, with drawers and small cupboard in one wing beneath. Here the swan neck giv...
-Waved Forms
Coming to a bureau bookcase, we find that suavely curved and hollowed lower rail, in which the feet seem mere prolongations of the curves, so absolutely characteristic of Heppelwhite; and the same is ...
-Writing Fire-Screens
The second example is a little work-table for a lady, upon the thinnest of thin legs, joined by X-stretchers, simply pierced, and rising in curves to support a central urn finial. There is one drawer ...
-Chapter XX. Heppelwhite: II
THE book published by Heppelwhite is worthy to be compared in its style of printing with the fine folio of Chippendale. The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Guide, or Repository of Designs for every Ar...
-Turned Legs And Wired-Work
We may complete our notice of Heppelwhite's letterpress with the observation that 'stuffed headboards' to beds are recommended, and that what Heppelwhite calls cabriole chairs have stuffed backs, some...
-Splats And Legs
In the backs of his shield chairs there is often a reminiscence of Chippendale's jar-shaped splat, and a very frequent detail is the festooned drapery or ' dish-clout 'ornament. This often spreads acr...
-Heppelwhite's Hall Chairs
Generally speaking, the chair designs given by Heppelwhite in his book are good, and the low relief carving of his wheat-ears and long waved and serrated leaves set close together very attractive. Occ...
-The Scroll Foot
Tambour writing-tables have sliding shutter tops working on a curve. At the back the top is straight, flat, and filled with drawers and pigeon-holes, a draw-out writing-slab lurking beneath. There is...
-Heppelwhite An Unknown
'Horse fire-screens' are upon a pair of trestle legs, and remind one of Shearers screen writing-table. The screen part slides up and down in grooves on the uprights. Candle-stands rest on a single pol...
-Chapter XXI. Sheraton: I
WITH the last and one of the two greatest English furniture designers it is possible to give some biographical particulars. Thomas Sheraton was born in 1751 at Stockton-on-Tees. He had no regular educ...
-Patriotism And Art
In 1803 came out The Cabinet Dictionary: an Explanation of all Terms used in the Cabinet, Chair, and Upholstery Branches, one volume in fifteen parts. In 1804 Sheraton began The Cabinet-Maker and Gene...
-Sheraton's Ill-Success
The versatility of Sheraton in designing is far greater than that of Heppelwhite, and may be compared with Chippendale's. He far exceeds any of the furniture-book authors in literary skill, and the co...
-The Drawing-Room
'The drawing-room,' Sheraton ordains, 'is to concentrate the elegance of the whole house, and is the highest display of richness of furniture. It being appropriated to the formal visits of the highest...
-Specialists In Cabinet-Making
Not till we arrive at page 350 are we rid of the perspective treatise, and then comes Part in., 'Furniture in General.' One paragraph of his introduction is worth quoting, as proving that Sheraton was...
-Maxims Of Art
In 'An Accompaniment' to the Drawing-Book Sheraton spends some time in the consideration of figure-drawing, taking, curiously enough, not the proportions of any great master, but those of Cipriani as ...
-Chapter XXII. Sheraton : II
IT is impossible to look through the books of Sheraton and Heppelwhite without noticing the extreme similarity of their simpler designs. The difference between the two men lies in the disposition of S...
-Lyre-Backed Chairs
Sheraton's chairs of his early best period are constructed in exactly the same way as those of Heppelwhite. The splat does not reach the seat even when a solid urn reminds one of the jar-shaped splats...
-Draperies
In his sofas Sheraton uses the same style of leg and arm as in his chairs. Consequently these details need not detain us. He has a variety of general shapes. One is of the usual settee type, with an a...
-Brass-Work
Perfectly charming is he in those bijou pieces with which he shows his genius for catching feminine taste (Plate cxlvii.). Not Chippendale or Heppelwhite can rival him in this field, though the one in...
-A Sheraton Masterpiece
The bowed or semi-circular front of the lower portion of the cabinet is divided by stiles and a horizontal ormolu beading into six main panels. The upper ones, to left and right, have urns with handle...
-Disguised Treasures
It is somewhat strange that in none of the pattern-books does a design appear for an upright secretaire, that commodious piece of furniture the shape of which was borrowed direct from France.1 Yet man...
-Chapter XXIII. Sheraton : III; And After
THE happiest combinations of the artistic with the mechanical are found in Sheraton's library and bedroom furniture. Some of the former is designed mainly for usefulness, as in the case of his drawing...
-Beds And Clocks
Of Sheraton's beds it is not necessary to speak at length. They depend so much for their effect upon draping that they are scarcely to be reckoned as within the cabinetmaker's province. Almost any fra...
-Work-Tables And Screens
This type appears far more elegant than that of the work-tables which have oval, or circular, or even kidney-shaped tops, and are based either upon a single column and tripod feet, or else upon horse-...
-Later Designs
A particularly bad feature is to be noticed in the legs of the chairs. These are no longer straight, either tapered or turned, but coarsely curved, the concave on the outside. By comparison with the o...
-Quartetto And Round Tables
I prefer to believe that these inventions must have been amongst the last which the disappointed and struggling artist racked his brain to evolve. That his ingenuity had not flown with his taste is pr...
-Seddon And Shackleton
After 1800 the fashion for furniture in the classic style was fostered by Thomas Hope, whose ideas, however much approved by J. T. Smith, the author of Nollekens and his Times, in the passage referrin...
-Chapter XXIV. Notes On The Materials, Manufacture, And Care Of Furniture
THE periods of English furniture might roughly be named after the woods of which at different epochs it was mainly constructed. It would naturally De found that just as the style of one period overlap...
-Assumptions
We may assume, then, (1) that cane does not belong to the Elizabethan-Jacobean old oak period, but does belong to the Stuarts and later; (2) that the old oak style of incised carving and panelling is ...
-Recipes
When, therefore, an old piece of furniture has a surface which requires attention, it is advisable to eschew all very dark stains or thick varnishes. The latter may be necessary to protect very wide e...
-State Of Preservation
The state of preservation of old oak depends very largely upon the position which it has occupied. The weather-worn, sun- and rain-split timbers and barge boards of old. houses differ widely in surfac...
-The Worm
The 'worm' is a beetle about one-eighth of an inch or more long. The grub or larva, which probably does most of the mischief, is a little longer. There are several kinds, but Anobium domesticum is the...
-Maimings And Reconstructions
There are certain things which it is worth while to remember. We not unfrequently come across chairs or chests of old oak which are short in the leg. In the case of the chair the lower cross rails, in...
-A Made-Up Piece
Churches and cathedrals, which, in spite of the ravages of ignorant and tasteless innovators, still contain a considerable number of chests, chairs, and occasionally - as at St. Albans - other furnitu...
-Chapter XXV. Materials Of The Eighteenth Century
THE appearance of walnut wood as used in a cane-backed chair of the Charles II. period is very different from its aspect when employed as a veneer for the flat fronts of cabinets of that king's and su...
-Walnut And Lime
When much elaborate carving was to be done, walnut was not the wood to use. Something softer and more easily cut was required. This Grinling Gibbons found in lime, which he used largely for mirror fra...
-Pear, Laburnum, Mahogany
Pearwood should be mentioned as one much used, but not generally familiar in appearance. English pear is a decidedly rich reddish brown, almost approaching mahogany in colour. It has not, however, so ...
-Satin And Tulip Woods
Tulip wood is occasionally found as a cross-banding upon mahogany, but as it is decidedly reddish in its tone it approaches mahogany too much to make a good contrasting veneer. It is more naturally us...
-Harewood
On the more delicately inlaid eighteenth century furniture there may be found a very favourite edging for the angles, which consists of minute alternate rhomboidal or triangular shapes of dark and lig...
-Misplaced Ornaments
All these common shapes of inlay, however rough, are vastly to be preferred to the unfortunate practice of disfiguring smaller woodwork, such as tea-caddies, work-boxes, and writing-desks, with colour...
-Handles
More endurable than the picture, though not very inspiring, because found upon furniture in the late Sheraton style of inferior design and heavy shape, was the method of replacing wood inlay by brass ...
-Appendix
Note i. p. 9. The Bedroom of a Rich Man in the Fifteenth Century Sir John Fastolfs contained in 1459 selour. Item j. coveryng. In primis j. fedderbedde. Item j. donge of fyne blewe. Item j. bolster....






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