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Art Nouveau Furniture: FRENCH CABINET, ENGLISH HALLROBE, SCOTTISH BOOKCASE, VIENNESE SIDEBOARD, VENEERED CUPBOARD, STAINED-GLASS CABINET, MAHOGANY CABINET, OAK BOOKCASE

ART NOUVEAU
CASE PIECES
THE CABINET CONTINUED to be one
of the most expensive and impressive pieces of useful furniture in European houses. Both decorative and functional, cabinets were used as writing chests, for locking away precious jewels, for storing important papers, and for the display of small, treasured collectables.
Art Nouveau cabinets were made in a variety of styles. The Anglo-Japanese cabinets, such as those designed by E.W Godwin, were embellished with brass mounts and painted decorations.
Charles Rennie Mackintosh, C.EA. Voysey, and E.W Gimson combined simple designs and an attention to the details of fine craftsmanship with
the use of rich timbers, such as oak, walnut, satinwood, and mahogany.
These designers influenced the design of cabinets in the Art Nouveau style in Europe, especially the austere, geometric style favoured in Germany and Austria.
In contrast, French cabinets
were more sensuous in their
design, with Rococo and Oriental elements combined to produce asymmetrically shaped pieces, decorated with curvilinear plant, flower, and vegetable motifs. Louis Majorelle created superbly crafted cabinets of extraordinary luxury, in fine-quality woods. These pieces were often embellished with finely wrought gilt-bronze or wrought-iron mounts, or included decorative inlays of mother-of-pearl or metal.
This elegant cabinet is made of walnut. It is decorated with a marquetry design depicting a clematis and a bird, executed in exotic hardwoods. The top section provides open storage, which is accessed via a rounded
opening, surrounded by relief carving. The piece was made by Louis Majorelle. His sinuous and fluid style, evident here, was inspired by 18th-century Rococo furniture. c.1900.
Carved circular supports
are decorated with
a twisting tendril and root-like design.
The cabinet body is made from walnut
with marquetry in exotic hardwoods.
The marquetry incorporates floral motifs.
FRENCH CABINET

ENGLISH HALLROBE
top of this hallrobe supports Classical carved panels. The panelled front is adorned
stylized copper hinges and handles and
interior is fitted. This piece was made by
the prominent commercial furniture manufacturer, Shapland and Pettey.
SCOTTISH BOOKCASE
This oak bookcase by leading furniture-maker, Wylie and Lochhead of Glasgow, is in the style of the Scottish school. The intricate floral panels are in stained glass and flanked by angular, stylized, copper, repousse panels, all above a long drawer and a bottom cabinet. c.1900.
VIENNESE SIDEBOARD
This impressive walnut veneer sideboard is by the school of Josef Hoffmann. The piece is decorated with intarsia. The symmetrical, clean design is typical of Hoffman and the linear style reveals the influence of Charles Rennie
Mackintosh. The upper section is enclosed behind glazed doors that form a geometric pattern. The mirrored central section is supported by rounded columns. The base has a marble top and contains cupboards and a drawer. The plinth and the handles are made of brass. c.1902.

The straight lines and gentle curves of this cabinet are typical of the Glasgow School, as is the stained-glass window depicting a pastel-coloured flower design. The piece has a broad, projecting cornice, which was a feature of many Glasgow School cabinets.
This walnut veneer and brass dining room cabinet is part of a set by Otto Wytrlik. The matching table, stool, pair of commodes, four armchairs, and two further chairs are solid, dark pieces with strongly geometric lines, and would have given the room a masculine look. c. 1901.
This small, mahogany-veneered cupboard from Austria is raised on four slender legs. The two cupboards, two drawers, and shelves all have nickel fittings. The distinctive top cupboard has three sides of panelled glass with ornamental silver decoration. c.1900.
Anglo-Japanese influences are evident in this mahogany music cabinet decorated with stylized, floral, stained-glass panels. The fine, string ebony and boxwood inlay is enriched with delicate floral carvings. The arched apron is reflected in the curved pediment. c.1895.
STAINED-GLASS CABINET
DINING ROOM
VENEERED CUPBOARD
MUSIC CABINET

INLAID CABINET
This ornate mahogany display cabinet is elaborately inlaid in copper, pewter, and specimen woods with decoration of stylized flower-heads and leafy tendrils. The central panel is mirrored and flanked by two glass doors opening onto glass shelves.
MAHOGANY CABINET
The shaped, raised back, and moulded finials of this highly decorative display cabinet have whiplash-style foliate and floral marquetry inlays. The leaded and stained-glass panel doors are decorated with a floral design, and are enclosed by marquetry panels.
FLORAL CABINET
This mahogany display cabinet, attributed to the Scottish designer Ernest Archibald Taylor, has silver plated repousse decoration on the glass. The architectural form is decorated with a butterfly centrepiece and floral designs in sycamore and tulipwood inlay. c.1903.
OAK BOOKCASE
This bookcase cabinet has a projecting dentil cornice above three open compartments, flanked by pierced decorative brackets. The twin doors, enclosing adjustable shelves, have leaded clear glass panels with stained-glass decoration on the top.

Antiques: Baroco and Empire Furniture, Porcelain, Silver, Candlesticks and candelabra, Clocks and Watches Recently Featured at Antcollectors (4)

Windsor Chairs
THE WINDSOR CHAIR is often associated with country timbers and provincial manufacture (particularly around High Wycombe in England). However, its origins were far from provincial. The Duke of Chandos had japanned Windsor chairs in his library at his Middlesex home, Canons, and there were mahogany examples in the library of St. James’ Palace in the early 18th century. However, by the early 19th century, they were restricted to humbler homes or taverns.
Windsor chairs were only ever produced in Britain and North America, but British and American Windsor chairs often display different characteristics. While the seat (generally a saddle type) is central to the construction of both, with the
elements of the back, legs, and arms all mortised into it, they were made in different timbers. In Britain, ash, yew, and fruitwoods were used, with elm for the seat and, occasionally, beech for the turnings. In North America, hickory, chestnut, oak, ash, and
sometimes maple were favoured, with tulip, poplar, and pine for the seats.
There are also some stylistic differences between the two types. For instance, the use of a splat was more typically British, while the low-back Windsor chair was entirely American until the 1840s. Similarly, the Neoclassical Windsor chair, sometimes called an “arrow-back” on account of the spear or arrow shape that constitutes the back sticks, was never produced in Britain.

The top rail is shaped and scroll-carved.
The spindle rails are turned.
Scroll-carved arms continue from a carved tub-shaped back rail.
The legs are
slightly crooked.
The splat is solid and vase-shaped.
CROOKED LEG WINDSOR
This is an early English Windsor chair made of fruitwood, ash, and elm. It has a ram’s horn- and shell-carved top rail that terminates in scrolled ears. The central back rail curves forward to provide the scroll-carved arms, while
the solid, vase-shaped, central splat is flanked by elegant, turned spindle rails. There are three main spindles that continue from the top rail to the seat, and extra spindles in the lower section. The shaped seat is supported on four crooked legs. c.1750.

AMERICAN WRITING-ARM CHAIR
This high-back Windsor chair from Connecticut has an arched top rail, a mid rail with an arm and a writing paddle with drawer, a saddle seat with a drawer beneath, reel-turned legs, and an H-stretcher. 1797.
AMERICAN COMB-BACK CHAIR
This chair, from Philadelphia, has a serpentine top rail with scrolled ear terminals, a yoked mid rail with scrolled knuckle-arm terminals, a saddle seat, outsplayed legs, and an H-
stretcher.
GEORGIAN WINDSORS
Each of these yew armchairs has a hoop back and arms with a Gothic pierced splat and spars. The elm saddle seats are supported on cabriole legs terminating in pad feet and joined by hoop stretchers. 1750-70.
FAN-BACK WINDSORS
Each of this pair of English elm, walnut, and fruitwood fan-back Windsor armchairs has a shaped seat supported on turned legs joined by an H-stretcher. The chairs bear traces of their original paint finish. c.1770.

WINDSOR SETTEES
DESIGNED VIRTUALLY AS AN ELONGATED CHAIR, THIS TYPE OF SETTEE
WAS ONLY PRODUCED IN BRITAIN AND NORTH AMERICA.
There is little agreement on the differences between a settee and a sofa and indeed the preferred term seems to be largely dictated by current fashion. However, “settee” generally designates a particular type of furniture made in the late 18th and early 19th century that was much more closely related to chair, rather than sofa, design.
Often conceived as a chair extended to seat two or more people, its origins lie in the chair-back settee of the mid 18th century and the settle. Consequently, it might have a caned seat and back, or a
pierced back with splats, just like a chair, rather than the complete upholstery of a sofa. The Cape rusbank was a simplified variation of this type of furniture.
Windsor settees are peculiar to Britain and North America. They are constructed in the same way as Windsor chairs, with a wooden seat into which the back, arms, and legs are mortised. The backs are either of a continuous form, running into the arms with vertical splats, or take the form of a series of chair backs.
An English Regency settee This beech piece was overpainted in verdigris and gilt. The back of the settee has four lattice backs with musical trophy panels below an outscrolled top rail and down-scrolled arms. The caned seat is supported on turned front legs with brass caps and casters. Early 19th century.
A Philadelphia bow-back Windsor settee This black- and gold-painted settee has bamboo turnings. There are 29 spindles below the curved top rail and the downswept arms are on modified
S-curved supports. The seat is supported on bamboo turned legs joined by swelling H-stretchers.
An American arrowback, painted Windsor settee This has a flat top rail and scrolling arms set above a planked seat. It has turned legs and turned panel stretchers. Early 19th century.

PHILADELPHIA WINDSOR
This Windsor armchair has a top rail with a butterfly and seven spindles with bamboo turnings above a shaped seat.
AMERICAN BOW-BACK WINDSOR
This mahogany and painted armchair has an arched, moulded top rail, nine flaring spindles, down-curved arms over raked bamboo supports, a squared, shield-form seat, and raked bamboo
AMERICAN WINDSOR SIDE CHAIR
This side chair has a bow-shaped back with nine spindles above a saddle seat. The seat is supported on splayed legs with bamboo turnings and is joined by an H-stretcher.
GOTHIC WINDSOR CHAIR
Made from ash and elm, this chair has a lancet-shaped back with pierced splats. The chair seat is shaped and supported on cabriole legs with a hooped stretcher. One of a set of four.

Storage furniture
The earliest movable storage furniture was the hollowed-out log, and these primitive beginnings are still evoked by the name “trunk” for a travelling container. During the medieval period simple chests and coffers were employed as containers for a wide variety of objects ranging from textiles to musical instruments. However, such chests were not the most convenient form of storage, and as furniture-making techniques became more sophisticated during the 17th century, the chest-of-drawers evolved, as did other forms of furniture designed for storing specific objects such as books, linen, of clothing, or, in the very grandest examples, purely for the ostentatious display of wealth.
Chests and coffers
As the main storage furniture of the medieval period, chests were made in large numbers for all kinds of purposes. Chests are containers with flat, hinged lids; they usually have feet but no handles. They were designed for storage inside buildings, their feet keeping the contents clear of damp floors. Coffers are generally travelling trunks without feet that may have carrying handles and a domed lids. From the 13th century chests were produced by the joiner, and coffers by the cofferer, who was primarily a leather worker; coffin-making was another of his tasks.
A Cassone.
Cassoni were important items of furniture in the Renaissance Italian palace Many, such as this walnut example, reflect Classical inspiration in their sarcophagus form and decoration The base was made in the 16th century, the feet, bottom panel, and part of the lid are of a later date.
EARLY CASSONI
In terms of domestic purposes, the Italian cassone has special significance: often, but not always, a marriage piece. Some cassoni were embellished with intricate inlay (intarsia) in different woods, while others were finely painted with figurative or mythological subjects or covered in designs in pastiglia, a technique where gesso was laid onto the surface, pressed or modelled into relief patterns, and then painted and gilded. Some of the richest 16th-century cassoni were of carved and polished wood, decorated with Mannerist designs. Important marriage cassoni were often made in pairs and decorated with heraldic devices and other symbols of the respective families. Further down the social scale, cassoni were used to hold the linen, clothing, and household textiles that constituted a dowry. Some were carved with the initials of the bride and groom and the date, and were handed down.
The low-relief carving on the frieze and front panels on the oak-panelled chest is typical
of the huge numbers of chests made in various parts of Britain during the 17th and 18th centuries. Many carved patterns have strong regional associations, however, many were added during the 19th century.
WOODS AND CONSTRUCTION
Oak was mainly used for chests in northern Europe, while walnut was used further south. Pine was probably used much more than surviving examples would suggest; being subject to woodworm and rot, pro-19th-century pine chests are rare. Aromatic cypress and cedarwood was
proof against moths and other insects, and was therefore used in chests intended for clothes and textiles, particularly in northern Italy and the southern alpine regions. Ash and lime were used, notably in southern Germany and Switzerland; chestnut and walnut in southern France. Sometimes more than one type of timber was employed in a single piece.
A simple chest consists of six planks nailed or rudimentarily dovetailed together, with the vertical “slab” ends shaped at the bottom to form feet. Another kind of boarded chest was the hutch, from the French huche (chest). In this form the horizontal planks of the front and back are housed at either end in wide vertical members (stiles), which extend downward as the feet. Hutch chests thus have their feet at the front and back,
The top of the German oak coffer indicates this type of furniture’s origins as a travelling trunk, the domed shape could throw off the rain or sea-spray better than a flat top. Wooden coffers were replaced by smaller, lighter leather-bound travelling trunks. The raised cartouche panel is typical of the type made between the 17th and 19th century. It may have been a marriage piece, and the inscription reads “JOHANN … MU … ANNO 1772″, which may have been added at a later date.
Storage furniture
unlike slab-ended chests with feet at the sides. Some chests of such housed or “clamped-front” construction have framing at the sides, and simple chip-carved decoration on the front. This form survived for high-quality chests in parts of Germany until the 18th century, by which time panelled construction was being used in most of Europe.
Chests of framed and panelled construction were developed during the 15th century, and by the 16th were produced in considerable quantities. Oak chests of the 17th and 18th centuries, and the large numbers of 19th-century reproductions of them, are most often of this type. The front and sides of a panelled chest consist of top and bottom horizontal rails united by vertical bars (muntins), with vertical stiles at each end. In most examples the stiles continue downward to form the feet. The panels, which were of thinner wood and slightly chamfered at the edges, were designed to slide into grooves in this framework, which was fastened together with mortises and tenons secured by wooden dowels. Lids were either panelled, like the front but without carved decoration, or composed of planks jointed together, some with cleated ends. Inside, many of these chests were fitted with a small compartment, or “till”, which might be lockable for valuables.
DECORATION
While carving was prevalent, inlays of contrasting woods, bone, or mother-of-pearl were not unusual. The most elaborate inlays were applied to the so-called “Nonsuch” chests made in Germany and the Low Countries, or by German and Flemish craftsmen working in England in the late 16th and the 17th century. They are distinctive for their patterned architectural inlays filled with vistas of turreted buildings in an intricate mosaic of coloured woods. Pine chests were usually painted, particularly in Scandinavia, eastern Europe, Switzerland, and Austria; the mainly floral patterns varied from one region to another. Painted pine became popular in England during the 19th century-, but decorative treatments were restrained, and mainly confined to simulations of timber or marble.
The carved decoration imitating pleated fabric, known as linenfold, was used for the panels of many chests. Formalized plants, geometrical patterns, and strapwork and low-relief arcading were other favourite designs for panels and training. High-relief carving, particularly of figurative subjects, appeared on some northern European chests during the medieval and Renaissance periods.
THE PENNSYLVANIA DUTCH OR GERMAN STYLE
“Dutch” was a general term used in Pennsylvania for all Central European settlers who came to the region in the late 17th century from European villages ravaged by the Thirty Years War (1618-48). Rural settlers continued to use Germanic construction such as wedged dovetails, and also to paint their walnut, pine, or poplar furniture with decoration and the names and dates of their owner. The flat-top blanket chest became the most common piece of furniture in these households, often given to a young girl or boy to store their belongings. Rural communities developed their own styles, and regional differences are based on idiosyncratic construction and painted decoration: in Lancaster County there were three arched panels divided by pilasters; unicorns were painted on chests from Berks County, while stencilled designs were applied to those made around the area of Schwaben Creek in Northumberland County.
• COLLECTING chests were usually made of oak; after generations of wear and polishing, many examples have developed rich dark patinas; plain plank chests were of the slab-ended type; decoration was minimal, with scratch- or chip-carving; pre-16th-century furniture is usually heavy, and unaltered examples are very rare.
• BEWARE decorative panels, sometimes taken from other pieces of furniture (e.g. beds, linen-presses, and wall panelling), were often “recycled” during the 19th century when vast quantities of traditional oak panelled chests were produced using both old and new timbers; many plain old chests were “improved” with chiselled or chip-carved decoration, or were inscribed with spurious dates and initials; such pieces are now antiques in their own right, but should be distinguished from wholly genuine 17th- and 18th-century (or earlier) pieces; feet have been frequently replaced –these were often detached during transportation.