Posts Tagged ‘Art Deco’

LONG AND LIGHT EARRINGS
Right: A pair of gold repousse and turquoise pendent earrings, circa 1840. Turquoise and carbuncles in association with gold repousse work were particularly favoured at the time.
Below: A portrait miniature of a lady, by Leopold Grosz (or Gross), circa 183o. Note the fashionable coiffure with hair arranged in three clusters of curls expanding sideways, counterbalanced by cannetille earrings en girandole.
Bottom: Two pairs of repousse gold earrings, circa 1840, one with carbuncle the other with polychrome enamel.
Left and below: Four pairs of pendent earrings, set with citrines and pink topazes, circa 1835, characterized by the combination of cannetille and repousse work which marks the transition between the two goldsmith techniques used in this type of earring.
Typically all the earrings illustrated on these pages are long, light, set with semiprecious gemstones or decorated with polychrome enamels and of moderate intrinsic value.
Left: Three pairs of pendent earrings circa
I 870-8o, English, set with diamonds or pearl and diamonds. The designs, though more rigid and stiff, are close to the contemporary French examples illustrated above, but their fluttering ribbons and garland motifs are replaced by plain lines of diamonds.
THE 1860s AND 1870s: BIZARRE VARIETY
In the i86os and 187os earrings became extremely popular, and the fashionable lady would suspend virtually anything from her ears providing it was decorative. Objects of common use such as baskets of flowers or hammers, animals and archaeologically
A parure of emerald, pearl and diamond earrings and matching necklace, with the relevant design, commissioned by Napoleon III and Eugenie from the Parisian jeweller Mellerio in 1863 as a wedding gift to Mar6chal Canrobert. The impact of these earrings relies on the use of important gemstones such as the large cabochon emerald drops rather than the explicit archaeological motifs, though the Greek key pattern and the extensive use of yellow gold even for the setting of the diamonds betrays an archaeological interest. Emeralds were the favourite coloured gemstones of the Empress Eugenie and because of this became one of the most popular gemstones of the time.
WAFER-THIN: EARRINGS OF THE EARLY 19TH CENTURY
Right: A portrait of Maria de la Conception Rodriguez of Granada, painted by Jose Gil in 1816. Her earrings, typical of the early i 9th century, are two circular gold plaques set with corals connected by fine chains. Their linearity and two-dimensional quality is well suited to the low d6collet6 and contemporary hairstyle of Classical inspiration.
Above left: A diamond pendent earring, early
i 9th century, showing how the structure of the contemporary gold earrings made of articulated plaques was rendered, almost unaltered, in lavish gemstones such as diamonds.
Above right: Pair of gold earrings, early i 9th century, made of several paper-thin gold plaques of different shapes connected by lateral chains.
Above left: Pair of gold earrings, early i 9th century. Although quite long, these earrings are comfortable to wear because they are cut out of very thin and light gold sheet and not set with gemstones.
Above right: A pair of gold and enamel pendent earrings, probably French, early T 9th century, decorated with portrait miniatures of a man and his wife. Though the design is typical of the
time, this pair presents unusual sentimental imagery: a dove, a pair of flaming hearts, the inscription ‘Fidel’ and forget-me-nots.
TORPEDO-SHAPED DROPS OF THE
1830s AND 1840s
Opposite and below: Three pairs of gold, chalcedony and gem-set pendent earrings, each accompanied by a typical Maltese cross pendant en suite, circa 1830. Contemporary fashion encouraged the use of such elongated drops decorated with applied gold floral motifs, often set with turquoises or other coloured gemstones. They were carved in white or stained chalcedony, usually blue or green.
Right and far right: Two examples of repouss~ gold earrings of elongated drop design, circa 1840, the first applied with turquoise florets, the second decorated with quatrefoil motifs suspended from a shell-shaped surmount. Earrings of this type were usually made of thin foils of metal decorated en repousse and extremely long (i0-12 ems). Their size and lightness were dictated by fashion and economic factors. The exaggerated horizontal lines of dress and hairstyle needed to be offset by long pendants, while at the same time the scarcity of precious metal encouraged the use of wafer-thin foil of embossed gold.
Below centre: A gold and gem-set torpedo-shaped earring, circa 1835, combining embossed and cannetille decoration.
FROM CANNETILLE TO REPOUSSE
Left: Two gold cannetille, diamond and gem-set parures, English, circa T 830. In both cases the parures include a pair of earrings set with rubies and emeralds respectively. Though the design is that of the traditional girandole, the setting in cannetille is typical of the time, the design of the earrings matching those of the necklace
pendants. On the Continent canetille earrings were mainly set with semiprecious stones such as foiled topazes, amethysts and citrines. In England more expensive gemstones such as emeralds, diamonds and rubies were often used.
Right: An exceptional pair of pendent earrings set with aquamarines within repouss~ gold borders, circa 1835. These earrings are typical of the time for their length (12 CMS approximately), for their lightness (15 grams) and for the choice of the stones, two large kite-shaped aquamarines. The lightness of the mount makes them comfortable to wear in spite of their size. Gold repouss~ work replaced cannetille because it was cheaper to manufacture and used small quantities of precious metal.
EGYPTIAN AND CLASSICAL STYLE
Above: An impressive pair of gold earrings and matching necklace, circa I 870. The dominating element of these jewels is the pharaoh mask, so the Egyptian inspiration is sufficiently obvious. Nonetheless the surmount is Classical Greek, a rosette; I 9th-century revivalism was often the result of such combination of elements deriving from different cultures and periods.
Opposite:
A group of Classical revival earrings, circa 1865. Top left: laurel leaf suspended from an Athenian owl surmount. Top right: A pair of gold rams’ head earrings, deriving its design from Greek examples of the late Classical period, the antique counterparts usually consist of a tapered hoop to be inserted into the earlobe terminating with a rams’ head motif, in this case the rams’ head is suspended from a rosette surmount. Below left: A pair of gold and cornelian intaglio earrings, by Castellani, incorporating original Roman intaglios that depict a trophy of arms and a hunting scene. Below right: A pair of gold pendent earrings, by Ernesto Pierret, each designed as a triangular panel decorated with beaded work and corded wire typical of Greek and Etruscan goldsmithwork, flanked by baton motifs with spherical drop terminals.
Opposite: Two pairs of Roman earrings, circa 1870- The first by Civilotti of Rome, combines elements from various sources. The amphora motifs in matt gold find precise counterparts in Greek and Etruscan examples, the gold mosaic plaque with its Christian symbolism is reminiscent of Byzantine mosaics, while the lilies of the circular surmounts belong unmistakably to the i 9th century. The second pair, of gold and Roman mosaic, carry lozenge-shaped plaques with portraits of Sabina and Maximus Caesar. Note in this case the contrast between the sober, classical lines of the pendant and the frivolous design of the floral surmount.
Above: A pair of gold and enamel pendent earrings, circa 1870, in the shape of stylized amphorae. The design has no specific counterpart in Antiquity but is a pastiche of various elements. The amphora motif derives from a popular type of Hellenistic earring; the granulation and corded wire decoration from Greek and Etruscan tradition; and the stylized papyri and palmettos in bright contrasting colours are Egyptian.
Left: A pair of gold and Roman mosaic earrings, circa 1870, in the shape of ewers. The gold chains with pearl terminals are meant to simulate water being poured out — an amusing i 9th-century touch not to be found in Antiquity.
A RANGE OF REVIVALS: THE 1870s
Many Classical designs took the amphora as their model, in, for instance,
tortoiseshell (right) or lapis lazuli (below right). Rams’ heads feature as a pair of gold earrings (below).
Above: Gold and enamel a baule earrings in the Etruscan tradition, seen in front, back and side views. Right top left to bottom right: Hardstonc maenad heads set in elaborate gold and enamel mounts; gold rosette; Wedgwood jasper-ware drops decorated with a white figurative frieze on a blue ground; two earrings based on amphorae in matt gold; and finally a pair of Japanese-influenced gold and polychrome enamel earrings designed as fans on screens.
LIGHTHEARTED EARRINGS OF THE 1860s AND 1870s
Common features of these earrings are a playful naturalistic inspiration, the use of relatively inexpensive material such as gold, enamel, ivory and turquoises, and the combination of bright colours. They are in line with the concept of novelty jewellery, more a fashion accessory —hence the low value of the materials — than precious heirlooms to be treasured.
Left-hand column
Above: A pair of gold and turquoise pendent earrings in the shape of bulrush sprays, the heads pave-set with turquoises. English, circa i 86o.
Below: A pair of gold and enamel earrings, French, circa 18 70, designed as birds nesting in bulrushes.
Centre column
Above: A pair of gold and tinted intaglio earrings, English, circa 1870, depicting goldfish in round bowls.
Middle: A pair of three-coloured gold and enamel earrings, probably French, circa 1860, designed as coiled snakes supporting bunches of grapes.
Below: A pair of gold and enamel earrings, English, circa 1870, in the form of frogs amongst bulrushes in a triangular frame of twigs.
Right-hand column
Above: A pair of gold and tinted ivory earrings, English, circa 1860, designed as cascades of fuchsia blossom carved in tinted pink ivory.
Below: A pair of silver-gilt and turquoise earrings in the form of nesting birds pave-set with turquoises, the wire-work nests containing pearl eggs, French, 18.50-60.
FASHIONS OF THE 1870s
Above: Five designs for earrings from the archives of Mellerio, Paris. Their variety is a reflection of the eclecticism of contemporary jewellery design.
Noticeable, however, is the persistence of motifs of archaeological inspiration such
as the amphora-shaped drops, the cameo supporting a trophy of love and stylized papyri.
Opposite: Among the earrings of naturalistic inspiration fashionable in the I 870s, those designed as acorns found great favour throughout Europe. In Mellerio’s archive are two variations of the same design (below), while similar earrings with a matching pendant are advertised in a contemporary issue of the magazine La Femme et la Famille.
Right: Stylized papyri also form the surmount of this English gold and turquoise earring.
RETURN TO NATURE
During the i 86os women suspended all sorts of ornaments from their ears, from delicate and appealing bouquets of flowers to rather repulsive Brazilian beetles.
Far left: Two pairs of Italian gold earrings, i 86os. The upper pair, set with pearls, has rather disturbing hands supporting a basket of fruits. The lower pair consists of acorns on a two-oak-leaves surmount.
Left: A pair of gold and stained ivory earrings designed as cascading fuchsia blossoms, English, 18 6os.
Above: A pair of Brazilian beetle earrings, English, i 86os. The improved communication with South America prompted the introduction of unusual materials such as Brazilian beetles, whose hard, brilliant and iridescent green shell could be mounted as a gemstone.
EROS, AMPHORAE AND OIL LAMPS
Variations of amphora- and lamp-shaped earrings, circa 1870. Left: A mask of a Maenad supports an amphora carved in lava from Vesuvius, and a pair of gold, enamel and pearl earrings in the shape of oil lamps, by Carlo Giuliano, circa ‘865, modelled on lamps used for votive offerings. Below: a pair of gold earrings designed as amphorae suspended from fine chains; a gold ewer-shaped earring decorated with corded wire and granulation; and a seed pearl, gold and banded agate earring designed as an amphora on a disc surmount, by Carlo Giuliano, bearing the maker’s mark C.G. and the retailer’s mark HR for Hunt and Roskell of London
Eros, or Cupid, a recurrent figure in Hellenistic earrings, appeared frequently, involved in various activities, in earrings of the 18 6os and 18 70s. In two examples (above right) he is riding a gold dove decorated with corded wire and granulation simulating the plumage; the lower pair retains the original fitting, very close in design to the Antique prototype, while the upper is a later alteration.
In a pair of gold and enamel pendent earrings by Eugene Fontenay, circa 1870 (above), Eros is depicted carrying wine jugs on painted enamel plaques imitating Roman wall paintings, while in a pair of gold, seed pearl and enamel earrings by Carlo Giuliano, last quarter of the i 9th century (bottom right) he is playing the lyre and holding a mirror, on circular enamelled plaques.
Left andfar left: Two pairs of earrings set with cameos carved respectively in lava and banded agate, circa 1870.
RENAISSANCE REVIVAL
A pair of gold and polychrome earrings, by Carlo Giuliano, circa 1865, designed as a stork devouring a snake. The subject derives from a Renaissance emblem — the soul overcoming carnal pleasures — and the interest in the sculptural effect from Renaissance jewellery.
Above: A pair of gold and Roman mosaic earrings and matching brooch/pendant, the surmounts of the earrings depicting red, green and white scarabs supporting three elongated drops.
Left: A gold and Roman mosaic pendent earring, the circular surmount decorated with a dolphin and supporting an elaborate drop decorated with the figure of Cupid.
ROMAN AND FLORENTINE MOSAICS OF THE 1870s
Roman and Florentine mosaics, widely exploited in jewellery at the beginning of the i 9th century, came back in great favour in the late i 86os. Roman micromosaic technique was especially favoured, not only because it was suited to render motifs of archaeological
inspiration but also because its technique derived from Antiquity. This consisted in arranging minute coloured glass paste tessarae within hardstone, glass or gold borders.
Left: Gold earrings of archaeological design decorated with Roman mosaic plaques of winged putti, and a brooch/pendant showing a Raphael tondo.
Below left: A pair of Florentine mosaic earrings set with onyx and coloured stones. Florentine mosaic consisted of an inlay of differently coloured hard and semiprecious stones arranged in naturalistic patterns.
Below centre: A pair of gold and Roman mosaic half-hoop earrings in Egyptian revival style. Note the scarab, similar to the example illustrated on the opposite page.
Below right: A Roman mosaic earring of floral design.
SOUVENIR EARRINGS
Since the beginning of the century earrings and other jewels set with Roman mosaic plaques depicting architectural views of Rome or scenes from the Campagna had been popular souvenirs to take back home. Early i 9th-century earrings are characterized by a very simple and linear design. They usually consist of an oval surmount supporting a pear-shaped drop or an oval plaque connected by fine chains. The mosaics are of a high quality, consisting of very small tessarae where the colours are graduated in a very subtle manner giving the illusion of a miniature painting. A good example of this is the pair of earrings (left) set with four mosaic plaques of famous views of Rome including the Pyramid of Cestius and the Columns of Trajan and Antoninus.
Later examples of the 18 6os and 18 70S tend to be more elaborate in design, adapting shapes and decorations to contemporary trends. The quality of the mosaics though, is coarser, a consequence of the increased demand. The earrings and matching pendant (right) with mosaic plaques depicting peasant women of the Campagna in the typical ciociara costume are good examples of the time; their Roman origin is confirmed by the city’s gold hallmark. Note the ubiquitous Egyptian scarab motif on the surmount and the coarse tessarae.
Star motifs first appeared in the late i 86os as an inlaid central decorative motif of earrings set with large cabochon gemstones such as amethysts and carbuncles or enamel bosses as the example illustrated here in black enamel and half pearls (far left). Later six-, eight-, twelve-pointed stars, or more, became extremely popular, often accompanied by a matching pendant and set for instance, with pearls (left).
The popularity of knife-wire setting and the fashion for light and less symmetrical shapes prompted, in the late 18 8os and i 89os, the development of shooting stars and comets.
Opposite centre and far left below:
Numerous points alternate with weightless knife-wires set with diamonds. Left: A pear-shaped drop terminating with a graduated fringe. Above: Set of twelve-pointed star earrings and matching pendant set with pale opals.
Top right: Designs by Mellerio for two variations of star-shaped pendent earrings, part of a parure commissioned by Queen Isabella II of Spain.
INNOVATION AND TRADITION:
FRENCH EARRINGS OF THE 1870s AND 1880s
Two pages of earring designs in pencil and gouache of the late 1870s and early i 88os from the archives of Mellerio, Paris. They range from naturalistic floral creations to pendeloques and girandoles in the i Sth-century tradition, mainly set with pearls and diamonds, together with amusing arrows which appear to pierce the ear, in the style of novelty jewellery. The eclecticism of the sources of inspiration is especially evident on the right-hand page, where Classical archaeology with a typical Greek key pattern, naturalism with floral motifs, Persian and Northern African art with botch and crescent hoops co-exist.
Above: A collection of gold and gem-set earrings spanning the years from 1850 to the 1870s. Noticeable are the small compact earrings of the I 850s designed as clusters of foliate motifs or coiled ribbons; the long pointed drops of the 18 6os in archaeological revival style; the oval panels star-set with half pearls of the early I 87os, and the tiger’s claw earrings fringed by gold drops of the I 870s, brought back from India as souvenirs to commemorate hunting expeditions.
Left: A page of earring drawings from Cartier’s archive in Paris, dated from March 1874 to May 1874, illustrating some of the great number of shapes, both long and short, fashionable at the time.
FRINGED EARRINGS OF THE 1870s
One of the most distinctive forms of earring in the
18 70s consisted of a circular, oval or otherwise shaped panel variously decorated with enamel, gemstones or chased gold, supporting a graduated fringe of articulated pointed drops. The type was particularly fashionable in England where the favourite surmounts for the tagged drops were oval carbuncles (below), or enamel plaques star-set at the centre with various gemstones (opposite). Fringe or tassel earrings with matching pendants were popular throughout Europe as testified by the archival records of the German jeweller Kreuter dating from 1868 to 1872 (right). More unusual surmounts were occasionally exploited, such as the trapeze-shaped Wedgwood jasper-ware plaque (opposite lower right).
CASCADES OF FLOWERS
Among the plethora of 1870s earrings those designed as cascades of flowers, flowerhead clusters with pampille decorations or sprays of leaves and flowers were particularly favoured by a more conservative public.
Far left, top: A pencil and gouache drawing by Mellerio depicting a flower spray earring. It is interesting to note how the design includes the ear to show precisely how the earring should be positioned on it. Beneath it are two ink designs by Mellerio in the form of flowers with
cascading stamens.
Left: Two ink drawings by the German jeweller Kreuter of 1873, depicting earrings in the shape of cascades of flowerheads and leaves.
Lower left: A gold and turquoise demi-parure comprising a pair of fuchsia earrings and a matching pendant. Note the naturalistic rendering of the blossoms and the use of calibr~- cut turquoises. Though turquoise had been a popular stone for many decades it is only in the
i 870s that it began to be cut en calibre in order to fit the shape of the mount.
Opposite: English diamond-set examples belonging to the same type as those by Kreuter.
BEETLES AND BACCHUS
A gold and Brazilian beetle demi-parure comprising a necklace and a pair of pendent earrings of modified girandole design, probably English, circa 18 70. In this case a ‘novelty’ material — the Brazilian beetles — is combined with an overall archaeological design in a bizarre and unconventional way. The iridescent green beetles are turned into miniature tortoises by the addition of feet, head and tail in gold; on the earrings they are clustered in groups of four.
ARTISTRY OF LALIQUE
Right: A pair of opal, enamel and gold pendent earrings, by Rene Lalique, French, circa I goo, in their original case. The fluid line, the thistle motif, the choice of the opal as a gemstone and the opalescent enamel epitomizes Art Nouveau jewellery. Though earrings continued to be worn at this time, they were not a particularly prominent ornament so the large proportions of this pair of Lalique earrings are an exception rather than the rule. Even within Lalique’s unconventional and daring production of jewellery, they may be regarded as a rarity. The back view (bottom) shows the unusual clip fitting which anticipates the fashionable clips of the thirties.
Upper left: A collection of very simple and relatively small earrings typical of late i gth century and of the very beginning of the loth century. From left to right: A peridot and diamond cluster earring, the large peridot claw-set at the centre; a diamond earring simply claw set with a brilliant-cut stone; a carbuncle (cabochon almandine garnet) and rose diamond cluster earring, probably by Boucheron; a diamond earring designed as a circular cluster of table-cut stones.

FIRST HALF OF NINETEENTH CENTURY
1800-1850
THE year i800 is a convenient date in the history of furniture only in the sense that it marked the begin-
ning of a new century antique hexagon ladles . Apart from that it showed no sudden change in style any more than the start of any other century countries that art deco was very popular . The same king was on the throne and was to live for another twenty years, although for the last ten the Prince of Wales was to act as regent lion feet table . Furthermore, Sheraton, who published his first furniture book in the last decade of the eighteenth century (see p jennens and bettridge . 181), brought out his Cabinet Dictionary in 1803, and lived until 18o6 elephant mahogany antq . Change was taking place, but no more quickly than at any previous period j s henry furniture .
At the same time, the period 1800-1850 is momentous in that it saw the beginning of the industrial age in which the machine began to replace hand labour hinges leaves antique table . At first its effect was scarcely felt, for the machines themselves were crude and unreliable and had not stood the test of time “holland & sons” cabinet . Furthermore, no one had had sufficient experience in their use to use them to the best advantage hammered flatware crest urn . In any case, their early use was largely confined to Government departments such as shipyards 18th century rococo copper candlesticks . Being individually built, they were necessarily expensive 4 foot walnut drop leaf table .
The use of machines speeds up work and reduces costs, and that was largely the reason for their introduction scottish art nouveau inlay furniture . There was, however, another and, in the long run, a deeper-reaching effect 18th century soup urn . This was the influence on design itself circular extending dining table . When you install a machine its first use is invariably to quicken and ease the more back-breaking jobs, such as converting logs, ripping out parts, rough planing them, and so on wileman ironstone coffee pot . Very soon, however, other possibilities are realised, and you see that it can be used for other work which would be difficult or at least expensive by hand craftsman for wooden vitrine . Then comes the idea of adapting the machine for other operations, so that more and more handwork is avoided sheffield plate candelabra . At last hand work becomes a thing to be avoided, and then is born that insidious idea of making the design to suit the machine silver candlestick dated 1750 . In a broad sense this is inevitable because any change in technique of
FIG french drop front desk . 156 antique table porcelain top . MAHOGANY CHAIR WITH BRASS INLAY pre war veneer antique bureau . 18io-i815-
This is of special Interest in that the back legs are not set square with
the front but line up with the slope of the side rails (see plan) brass frame girandole images . This is a
feature not found in chairs of earlier date anglo-chinese furniture . See also F in Fig first antique table de chevet . 157 decorating with a pie crust antique table . Owing
to the pronounced side curvature this results in the bottoms of the legs
converging value of mahogany marble side table .
manufacture is bound to have its repercussions on design, but the evil comes when sound construction and form are sacrificed to suit the limitations of a machine poole pottery streamline coffee sets .
However, up to 1850 there had not been any serious sacrifice in this sense, and during the fifty years we are speaking about there was a great deal of sound and delightful furniture made, especially in the first twenty years of the century brass sideboard gallery .
For those interested in the subject the following few notes
FIG identifying furniture makers bookcase oak . 158 cassone with pastiglia . BLACK JAPANNED CHAIR WITH INLAY two tier rectangular victorian table . Mid antique square to round drop leaf table . i9th century mahogany tea caddy tripod leg .
The entire back is in papier mficU screwed to the
lower framing early tables . The back, legs, and seat rail are
inlaid with mother of pearl dresser with kneehole .
on early machines may be of value antique wood trestle table with leaves . It should be realised, however, that machines were not of necessity power driven black bone inlay dressing tables . Many of them required human labour to turn them aimone mfg co furniture . Even in 1914 some circular saws and bandsaws were still being made which were fitted with handles, and sometimes pedals, which either the operator or an assistant had to work antique maple desks . Some-times larger saws were propelled by horse labour, the animal being yoked to bar which revolved a centre pillar, which in its turn was geared to the saw rh vase austria . Water and wind power too were used antique sideboard with desk .
As early as the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries machine saws had been devised, these generally being reciprocating saws worked by cranks antique gate leg tables . They were exceptional, however, most cutting being done by pairs of sawyers over a saw pit italian 18th century cabinet makers .
FIG satin birch bow chest . 160 jacobean antique furniture . FULLY UPHOLSTERED COUCH sheraton period cutlery urn . About i85o marquetry tray brass handles .
This sketch was taken from a small model made about the middle
of the 19th century, and is typical of the period 18th century amboyna card table .
No doubt the reason for the development of woodworking machines in the nineteenth century was largely due to the tremendous importance of wood as a basic material for all purposes was there a change in arts in italy between 1920 and 1940 . It was needed for ships, vehicles, houses, some bridges, engineering, agricultural appliances, furniture, and so on antique continental porcelain . It was in fact in Government shipyards that the first serious and really practical machines were made american 19th century side boards .
Samuel Bentham developed the rotary system of cutting as distinct from the reciprocating, and designed saws, planers, boring machines, tenoners, and veneer-cutting machines antique swedish armchairs . These were mostly patented between 1791 and 1793, but it would have been many years after that such machines became generally available to the woodworking industry generally art deco harlequin fine china . Marc Isambard Brunel had also much to do with early machines, and had in fact patents on circular saws in 1805 and i8o8 czechoslovakia vases . A bandsaw was patented by Newberry in 1808, but its success was hampered by poor quality saws, and it did not become really practicable until 1850 when reliable saws were made round oak table dragon legs . Many planing machines were invented in the first fifty years of the nineteenth century, some in U antique gateleg table small .S antique divans .A pictures of expensive antiques . Most early machines had wood frames chinese qing porcelains . It was, in fact, not until the turn of the mid-century that all-metal frames were made 18th century marquetry bow front commode .
The refined and somewhat delicate style as exemplified in Sheraton’s works continued during the opening years of the century craftsman for wooden vitrine . The deterioration in his last designs, as shown in his Encyclopedia, 1804-1807, mentioned in Chapter X, was little more than a pandering to a passing fashion, and it is fortunate that the more grotesque items were not made in greater numbers antique william and mary oak dining room sets .
Other influences were at work, however, and to trace these we have to turn to France, where the Consulate and Empire periods in which Napoleon was the dominant figure was producing a marked style known as Empire russian chair lion . This is dealt with more fully in Chapter XV, but it had its counterpart here in a style sometimes known as English Empire wedgewook stonewear white . Its chief exponent was Thomas Hope, who published his Household Furniture and Interior Decoration in 1807 19th century lion claw pedestal table . This, like the French Empire, went back to Greek and Roman forms for its inspiration, and produced some rather severe designs, mostly in mahogany with brass mounts in the form of vases, laurel wreaths, helmets, honeysuckle, lyres, and so on antique oak draw leaf table . The style owed little to tradition, however, and, although much of it was well made and of good proportions, it seems to strike a foreign and somewhat jarring note antique writing box . Many of the shapes, especially chair and settee legs, seem curiously unsuitable for making in wood antique refectory tables .
An attractive chair of about 1810 is that in Fig french word for chasing . 155, and shows a high degree of skill in its manufacture pedestal dumb waiter . The shaping of the members at the back, which necessarily have compound curvature owing to the plan curving combined with the elevation shaping, is beautifully worked out gate leg vintage drop leaf tables . The back-ward curve of the front legs is characteristic of the period and suggests Hope influence biedermeier antique de .
Another chair of about ten years later in date and of somewhat similar style is that in Fig aristide colotte . 156 and is given because it embodies a feature not found in chairs of earlier date drop leaf table rectangle vintage . If any of the earlier chairs are examined, it will be seen that if a section is taken through the back legs at seat level the wood from which they are cut is invariably square with the front king george iv side board .

FIG bambocci antique . 161 drapery designs for dressing table . CIRCULAR DINING TABLE OF ROSEWOOD, BRASS
MOUNTED antique oval dutch table .
1810-1820 antique dealer furniture iron louis xvi .
The lyre motif of the centre pedestal was a common feature of the period egyptian figurine manufacturer in spain .
The ” strings ” are brass rods drop leaf table gate leg . A brass line is inlaid around the top
an inch or so from the edge antiquevenercoffeettableclawfeet . The latter is cross-veneered; also the
framework edging arabesque vertical plate racks - 2 tier .
Thus the chairs in Fig william france furniture maker . 4o are as shown at A, Fig what antique furniture maker marks under drawer front with number . 157 bureau bookcase writing desk display cabinet 1930s . Even when curved as in Figs 18th century plate racks . 77 or 107 they are still set square as at B and C, Fig fiddleback walnut louis xiv reproduction desk . 157, any convergence at the feet being arranged by reducing the length of the seat rail and cutting the shoulders at an angle sauce boats . Much the same applies to the chairs in Fig antique carved trestle table . 142 and to that in Fig neo-rococco cabinet . 155 tulip porcelain chamber pots . The only exception is in some Adam and Hepplewhite chairs, which have either round, oval, or hooped-shaped seats (see Fig antique half round side table mermaid . 132) chiffonier 19th century . In such chairs, owing to the shape, the rails are tenoned into opposite sides of the leg instead of into adjacent sides as in all other examples sheffield plate candelabra . As a consequence the back legs, owing to their backward curvature, are further apart at the bottom than at seat level forks and spoons in the 18th century . This is made clear at E, Fig french dining draw leaf table stretcher . 157 plain serving table .
Turning now to the chair under discussion, Fig colbolt blue plates and antique . 156, note from the plan that the legs are not square with the front, but are parallel with the sloping sides as at F, Fig marquetry roll top desk . 157 antique refrectory trestle table . As a result the legs are closer together at the feet than at the seat,
FIG chamberpot flap . 162 american oak drop leaf table antique . VICTORIAN DINING TABLE IN WALNUT queen anne antique dressing table . Mid johnstone and jupe table . 19th century 18th century metal chamber pot .
The top is veneered with figured walnut arranged in a quartered pattern cage leg antique table .
A huge bolt passes through the centre, Joining the tripod stand to the
pillar and sub-top framework art deco and exotic leather .
this being produced without any side curvature in the leg antique gothic table grotesque . The shape looks more elaborate than it actually is, the shaping being confined to the side elevation of the back iron and wood refectory tables .
The chair in Fig wedgwood keith murray slip two tone . 158 dates from about I85o and is more interesting than beautiful photo antiquities furniture in france . The entire back is in papier mftche, this being compressed to shape and fixed to the back of the seat, probably with screws antique sheffield piece marked “royal sheffield” . There is in fact considerable dishing and shaping in the back and, when it is realised that it is no more than I in scandinavian art deco furniture . to $9 in antique wrought iron candle sticks . thick in parts, it becomes obvious that such a back would be impracticable in wood “art deco” “dining table” french walnut extension . It is, in fact, an early example of a mass-produced chair and bears the marks of deterioration in design four pillar trestle table . As a matter of passing interest, note how the rails are tenoned into opposite sides of the back legs owing to the hooped shape, hence the divergence at the feet (see also E, Fig age of jazz shelley vases . 157) walnut gaming table with pillar legs .
A couch showing the classical influence of Greece is that in Fig antique replica, french victorian mahogany empire desk writing table . 159 napoleon leather and steel campaign chair . It belongs to the Hope period of the early
FIG heal and russell art deco antique furniture . 163 16th century small tables . SOFA TABLE VENEERED WITH AMBOYNA AND
MARQUETRY hongwu copper red .
About 1815 delatte nancy .
The flaps were invariably supported by brackets pivoted on knuckle or
finger joints cut in wood drop leaf table with pembroke leg value . The legs were usually dovetailed to the base,
and it was common practice to strengthen the joints with metal plates
screwed to the underside 19th century regency dwarf parlor cabinet value .
nineteenth century 19th century leather chest . Fig george speight porcelain . 16o shows the rather heavy and stuffy appearance of a fully-upholstered couch in the middle of the century antique serpentine swedish chest of drawers .
An interesting contrast in dining tables made within about thirty to forty years of each other is shown in Figs drop leaf sofa table . 161 and x62 lyre based sheffield candlesticks . The former, of the Regency period, has a certain grace and charm about it empire sideboard antique value . Here again we see the old classical Tables of the Mid-Nineteenth Century
influence in the lyre motif wooton chest . Light though it looks, the table is strongly built since the lyre-shaped pillar is not pierced right through, but is recessed at the surface only antique red stoneware spittoon . The legs are dovetailed to the base john widdicomb desk . The whole top pivots, so that the table takes up little space when not in use longcaseclocks chinoiserie 18.century .
In Fig vintage wooden handled three tined dinner forks . 162 we pass to a typical Victorian table of about 185o which, whatever one may think of the design, is beautifully made ashtray daum nancy france antique . To us it may lack the refinement and grace of the earlier table, but it is an interesting speculation as to what folk of A daniel quare 1674 tortoiseshell case pocket watches .D pilaster bookstand price . 2oo0 may think of it 17 century english stoneware . For years it has been the practice of people to speak of Victorian furniture with something like contempt (though no one really familiar with it would ever deny its soundness of craftsmanship) furniture canape antiques italian . Already, however, it is appearing in antique shops, especially early Victorian pieces, and it is quite on the cards that folk of the future will see beauty in what we now call heaviness and vulgarity 1925 antique floding desk . Fashions change, and nearly all generations are contemptuous of the works of their immediate forbears “myott son & co”+oriental . Presumably the Victorian designers did not intentionally design things they knew to be ugly—and for a matter of that who are we to talk in these middle years of the twentieth century r
A type of table popular during the period under discussion was the sofa table, an example of which is given in Fig antique pier tables . 163 name a piece of furniture that begins with v . It was a type made popular by Sheraton and had hinged flaps at the ends supported by pivoted brackets furniture + finmar ltd . There were invariably drawers beneath the top standing silver mirror candlestick styles . As the table was intended for use away from the wall the ” back ” frequently had dummy drawer fronts small dressing table with cupboard and drawers . Its form during the Regency period is shown in Fig queen mary mother ship tea dish antiques . 163, which shows the Greek influence of the period in the ornament antique 17th century gentleman’s dresser .
The Regency version of the sideboard generally had cellaret pedestals reaching down to the floor and joined by a centre table portion quite open beneath torror in france . There was generally a drawer beneath the top as in Fig small antique french writing cabinet . 164 yabu furniture . Tapered pedestals too were becoming popular, and the scrolled back shows the beginning of a feature which was often to assume quite gigantic proportions in the late Victorian period, and was often surmounted by an elaborate piece of carving, frequently of extremely fine craftsmanship antique wash stands .
Bedsteads in the late eighteenth century were generally of the four-poster type, but by the turn of the century two SIDEBOARD IN ROSEWOOD WITH BRASS INLAY
1810-X820 staffordshire figure home .
The tapered form of pedestal was popular in the Regency period how much is an oak butler’s tray table worth . The relatively large size of room in which
it would have been used is shown by the great depth, which is 29 in greek neoclassical porcelain . over the centre portion, and 251 in richard ginori doccia 1924 platter .
over the pedestals art deco console table black .
Bedsteads of the Nineteenth Century
kinds developed rectangular drop leaf sofa table . In the one the head-posts with abbreviated tester were retained and the foot-posts eliminated early ming porcelain . Frequently head curtains were used, and these could either be drawn right back or pulled a foot or so down the bed antique tilt top dinner table photos 1800 century . The other type owed its origin to the Empire style of France english refectory table . In this the bed was intended to stand with its side to the wall vintage wooden handled three tined dinner forks . There was a head and foot often sloped and having rather the appearance of a couch—the couch in Fig chinese porcelain shards . 159 is in fact suggestive of the general form, though this is necessarily on a smaller scale 19 century inventions . In some cases curtains were carried on to a shaped tester art nouveau origins .
CABINET WITH BOULLE MARQUETRY empire furniture.com .
Louis XIV antique tea table glass serving tray .
The work is carried out in brass and tortoiseshell, and is
decorated with some particularly fine mounts of brass 19th-century swedish table . The
top is of marble antique chippendale breakfast table . The accommodation consists of a centre
cupboard with door and four drawers at each side 19th century, federal mirror .

SHERATON PERIOD
THE last of the eighteenth century designers, Thomas Sheraton, came to London from his native town of
Stockton-on-Tees about 1790 rare antique marble . Although he had undoubtedly been a practical cabinet maker, there is no evidence that he ever made any furniture in London myott son & co from the 1920s . Certainly he never had a prosperous business such as Chippendale and Hepplewhite had had antique gilt wood mirror frame . His fame in the furniture world rests upon his book, The Cabinet Maker and Upholsterer’s Drawing Book, published in 1791-1794, and appearing in further editions in later years antique mahogany tea table with glass tray .
It was essentially different from Chippendale’s book, the purpose of which was mainly that of a catalogue to appeal to wealthy patrons 1700’s trestle table . Sheraton’s drawing book was primarily a trade book intended to help the practical man, not only in providing designs but also in supplying a treatise in geometry, perspective, and drawing eighteenth century tripod table . In the long run it brought him posthumous fame, but as a commercial proposition it was a failure 17th/18th century style, open-rack oak dresser . Probably few practical men were interested in learning to draw in perspective or to know of the problems in geometry (except in the limited way it affected the setting out of their work), and in looking back the whole thing certainly seems an ambitious undertaking wellinton chest of drawers .
So far as the designs were concerned, Sheraton certainly showed originality in many of the mechanical movements he introduced, and in the design of his chairs, but it must be confessed that the general run of furniture was little more than a representation of the general style prevailing at the time antique oak drawleaf trestle table . It was noted in Chapter VIII that Hepplewhite and Sheraton furniture (excepting chairs) had a great deal in common ; so much so that it is often impossible to say to which it belongs for sale louis 16th walnut sideboard cabinet . It will be realised then that in speaking of Sheraton furniture it represents for the most part the work of a school of craftsmen working in a certain style sheraton 18th century dresser .
antiquegames writing table . BEECHWOOD
ARMCHAIR antique tripod tilt table .
About 180 mahogany bow fronted chest of drawers scottish .
The chair is painted In
black and gilt, and the
rails of the back have
small decorative panels
painted with floral and
musical Instrument sub-
jects masons patent ironstone chinese peony .
FIG english antique reproduction dining table round with add on leaves . 142a carved seating . MAHOGANY
ARMCHAIR where can i buy a rennie mackintosh table with brass lion paws .
Late 18th century thonet bentwood rocker .
The backs of Sheraton chairs were usually lower than those of other contemporary work cutlery boxes . The sweep of the arms into the back is a characteristic Sheraton touch central part of the library has a display cabinet .
Details found in Sheraton Chairs
In his chairs, however, he undoubtedly did strike an original note georgian kneehole cabinet . They are lighter than the majority of other late eighteenth century examples, the backs are lower, and instead of the top rail forming a more or less continuous sweep with the uprights (see Fig french console table 1830 . 131) it was frankly a separate item tenoned between the uprights dining tables art deco . The legs were either turned or square tapered (see Fig antique 2-tier pedestal table . 151), and the arms, instead of bowing out sideways, were usually shaped in
FIG antique maple desks . 143 arts and crafts +jupe table . MAHOGANY CHAIR art deco kneeling dancer lamp .
Late 18th century georgian peat bucket .
Sheraton used both square tapered and turned legs horses as allegorical figures in art . The cabriole
type was never used old english pattern forks with four tines .
side elevation only, generally springing from the back in a continuous sweep fine porcelain arc .
A good example is given in Fig smith furniture gateleg drop leaf table . 142 empire hall bench . Note the obvious way in which the back rails fit between the uprights (compare with Fig fake brass antiques . 131), and the sweep of the arms into the uprights spanish lacquered cabinet inlaid . The whole thing is different from anything else being made at the period art deco console and germany . The curve of the arms into the turned uprights, the curved turned legs, and the graceful design of the pierced back are typically Sheraton 19th century american rosewood rococo console table . It is painted all over (something else that no other designers SIDEBOARD DECORATED WITH SATINWOOD INLAY BANDINGS catherine the great of russia plates . Late i8th century charles neo classism boulle .
The bow front sideboard became extremely popular at this time antique trestle refectory table . Sometimes the space between the centre
legs was title in with a cupboard having a tambour front made to slide sideways pottery german weimar art deco .
Tapered Legs in Sheraton Chairs
attempted), and some extremely fine art work is put into the small panels of the back florence lamps giuseppe antique .
Another Sheraton chair, this time with tapered legs, is given in Fig who sells maggiolini furniture . 142a decoration metal bureau table desing . In this case the arms meet the turned uprights more or less at right angles, but they sweep into the back as in the previous example extending glass table with wrought iron legs . The back is practically square, and the uprights which continue down to form
II how drop leaf table evolved .C; antique serving cabinet . 1 a & s smee finsbury .15 round “dining table” “six legs” . WHEEL BACK CHAIR irish cabinet makers antique wine coolers .
About i800 antique porclean handled sheffeld flatware .
The finest chairs of this kind came from Norfolk and Suffolk value of primitive antique work bench . They became popular towards the end of the 18th century, and into the 19th century lowenfink . Earlier models had curved arm supports at the front instead of turnings antique drum shaped table .
the legs are shaped only in side elevation wood furniture legs clawfoot . They are straight when looked at from from the front art glass vases antique . This is another feature invariably found in Sheraton chairs, and never in contemporary work of other designers scriptoire . All these features also appear in the chair in Fig oak table 5 legs built in leaves rectangular antique . 143•
Sheraton died in i8o6, and it is unfortunate that towards the end his designs suffered severely decorative spindle legs from antique card table . Probably no man, no matter how individual, is quite free from extraneous circumstances bread/cake baskets 17th century . Prevailing fashions exert their sway, and designers
146 varguenos . TWO WRITING DESKS IN MAHOGANY WITH SATINWOOD BANDINGS antique pedestal mahogany table .
Late i8th century bauhaus style furniture +scale .
The Importation of Ykirious foreir4n fancy woods, satinwood, am boyna, rosewood, ebony, and so on led to the free use of
these for use in inlay bandint!s art nouveau antique drinking cabinet . Satinwood, too, was freely used in the solid, entire pieces being made up in it antique 17th century dresser .
Deterioration of Late Sheraton Work
are often faced with the choice of either following them or retiring from the scene antique mahogany card table, imperial . Many things were happening in Europe at the close of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century which were to affect design gilt metal mounted pier table . The French revolution, culminating in the establishment of the First Empire, produced a style in France which rapidly found its counterpart this side of the Channel, and the naval victories of this country had an extraordinary effect on furniture 1800 hundred french mantel and candle clock .
FIG antique art deco furniture black lacquer . 147 maurice adams art deco . MAHOGANY SIDE TABLE WITH BANDED DRAWERS anglo indian cabinets .
Late i8th century vintage buttterfly dropleaf tables .
A prominent feature of the Sheraton school was the very limited use of
carving antique 17th century dresser . Probably it was a reaction from its free use in the Chippendale
period dutch cabinet marquetry 18 .
Just as topical events of thirty or forty years ago were commemorated in fretwork designs, so the furniture of the early nineteenth century showed its reaction to the events then happening gillows bow front mahogany chest drawers .
Sheraton fell into the general line and published his E’?IcYc10P,Tdia of 1804-1807, in which was one of the most extraordinary collections of furniture designs ever put together regency occasional table . Naval emblems of all kinds—anchors, lifebelts, pulley blocks, ropes, and so on—abound, and it is a mercy that more of them were not made up,
To revert to his earlier and happier period, Sheraton’s chief form of decoration was inlay 19th century parian busts . Cross-bandings of fine
MAHOGANY WARDROBE WITH BUILT-UP VENEERED
DOORS
Late i8ti century antique chinese circular revolving bookcase .
The fine mahogany imported at this time led to the revival of the built-up
patterns in veneer as the grain had splendid decorative value 17 century elm gateleg table .
foreign woods, such as satinwood, rosewood, tulip wood, ebony, amboyna, and so on, were inlaid around the edges of drawer fronts and panels, and various built-up patterns in veneer were made use of with great effect period style display cabinets . The bow front sideboard in Fig antique ceramic tambour german mantle clocks . 144 shows the use of this cross-banding italy spoons that might be antiques . Painting also he used considerably, naturalesque floral subjects and panels in the style of Angelica Kauffman being the chief forms it took nicholas sprimont solid silver . Carving he used
E; <
FIG value of an antique pembroke table . 152 antique mahogany french bedside commode . MOULDINGS OF THE SHERATON PERIOD dutch 18th century walnut chest on chest .
Mouldings were invariably small and delicate islamic influence furniture . Occasionally carving and inlay
were introduced, though they were usually plain dining tables with wood inlay work .
sparingly and never in the full scrolling form favoured by Chippendale french console table 1830 .
A small Sheraton side table is given in Fig arts and crafts furniture, antique collectors . 147 flemish refectory table . Here again the drawers have an inlaid cross-banding around the edges antique german breakfast table . The turned legs are reeded down their length dresser accessories . Two other Sheraton pieces are given in Fig russian chippendale trays . 146 silver candleabras made in england . Note the inlay again decorative writing styles . Desks of this kind were often fitted with elaborate secret contrivances in which stationery boxes, drawers, and cupboards rose up at the touch of a spring how common is walnut drop leaf table .
The Sheraton Wardrobe
Fig antique chinese chamber pot . 148 shows a fine inlaid wardrobe in which built-up patterns in veneer are used effectively myott son&co hanley 1880 . The dentils in the cornice and the flutes in the frieze are carried out entirely in inlay american crafts armchair upholstered . The curved bracket feet are a typical feature of the late 18th century 17th century oak side table .
CHAIR WITH SABRE LEGS AND
CANED SEAT rococo style flower arranging .
About i8io pembroke style end tables .
This is an extremely fine example of the chairmaker’s craft 18th century marquetry . Despite the somewhat complicated curvature of the back the construction follows conventional methods, the tops of the back legs being tenoned into the cresting rail and the moulded shaping worked across the joints mark vezzi porcelain . The curved rails fit together with a form of halved joint cylindrical crock eared handles cobalt blue .

ART DECO CHAIRS: BRITISH WALNUT CHAIR, FRENCH DESK CHAIR, ENGLISH C-SHAPE ARMCHAIR, FRENCH DINING CHAIR, FRENCH MAHOGANY SIDE CHAIR, BRITISH CURVED CHAIR, FRENCH ROSEWOOD CHAIR.

ART DECO CHAIRS tended to delight in
the taste for comfort and luxury. They boast generous proportions and were made from luxurious and inviting materials. Many chairs were designed as part of a salon suite that included a sofa and several chairs. Whether shaped in clean lines based on traditional forms or in more avant-garde, abstract forms, chairs were created to be both comfortable and pleasing to the eye.
LUXURY AND EXOTICISM
The French designers Emile Jacques Ruhlmann, Sue et Mare, and Paul Follot often based their chair designs on 18th-century forms, such as the bergere and the fauteuil d la reine. With shaped backs, slender tapering legs terminating in delicate sabots of ivory or bronze, and graceful, scrolling arm supports, these chairs were made from
sumptuous timbers, such as mahogany rosewood, and macassar ebony, and were often decorated with carving or inlays of exotic materials, including lacquer, tortoiseshell, sharkskin, and mother-of-pearl.
Upholstery played an important part in Art Deco chair design. Luxurious materials, such as the finest leather, exotic animal skins, and velour were used, and vivid colours and geometric or exotic patterns prevailed. The set designs and costumes of Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russel, Cubist and Fauve paintings, and African, Oriental, and folk art were all key decorative influences.
By the 1930s, many Art Deco chairs were designed along more geometric, abstract lines, with simple contours, and were made from new materials, such as laminated wood, tubular steel, chromed metal, aluminium, and vinyl.

The box-like shape and generous proportions of the chair recall the form of the bergere.
The frame is made of walnut - a richly I coloured frurtwood
favoured in the
18th century.
The cream-coloured leather upholstery coupled with the walnut frame creates a sense of opulence.
The black-leather trim contrasts dramatically with the broad, cream-coloured surfaces.
BRITISH WALNUT CHAIR
Part of a three-piece suite, this comfortable and luxurious armchair was produced by Hille & Co., who were manufacturers of reproduction furniture. The chair has a U-shaped walnut frame that forms armrests with gently rounded
corners, and is supported on a square, moulded, block base. The seat and the matching cushion are upholstered in fine cream leather and have a contrasting narrow black-leather trim. The U-shaped frame was a popular feature of many Art Deco pieces of furniture. c.1928.

FRENCH DESK CHAIR
This mahogany desk chair, by Maurice Dufrene, has an arched tub back and padded seat. The armrests end in bold scrolls and the seat is raised on scrolling, tapering legs. c.1920.
ENGLISH C-SHAPE ARMCHAIR
One of a pair of open armchairs, this has prominent, reverse C-shape armrests on squat, sabre legs. The avant-garde Cubist and Futurist movements influenced the pattern of the upholstery. c.1930.
This Swedish club chair is box-like in shape and has rounded, wooden armrests. The back, seat, and sides of the chair are upholstered in matt black leather with brass rivet details on the arms.
One of a pair of chairs designed by Paul Frankl, the armrests are curved and finished in black lacquer. The seat is upholstered in black vinyl with red piping. c.1927.
FRENCH DINING CHAIR
This elegant tall-backed dining chair is one of a set of six designed by Maurice Jallot. The chair is padded and upholstered in red, with elliptical detailing, and has tapering, slightly splayed legs. 1940s.
FRENCH NIAGARA CHAIR
One of a set of four, this chair was designed by Maurice Dufrene. The “Niagara” patterned upholstery sits within a plain moulded frame, on distinctive, stepped, “falling water” legs.
SWEDISH CLUB CHAIR
AMERICAN D-SHAPE CHAIR

FRENCH ARMCHAIR
FRENCH MAHOGANY SIDE CHAIR
This armchair is one of pair designed by Pol Buthion. It has a chrome and red-lacquered wooden frame and flat paddle arms. The seat and back are upholstered in dark brown fabric.
This armchair is one of a pair by Francisque Chaleyssin and is made from black-lacquered wood. The seat, back, and tubular arms are upholstered in brown and beige velvet.
This armchair is one of a pair designed by Soubrier. It has an arched back and is upholstered in a diamond-patterned fabric. The armchair stands on block feet.
One of a pair, this Jules Leleu chair has an arched back, inverted heart base, and stepped, scroll arm terminals. The tapering legs terminate in gilt-bronze sabots. c.1930.
FRENCH ARMCHAIR
FRENCH LACQUERED ARMCHAIR

AMERICAN V-SHAPED CHAIR
One of six mahogany dining chairs designed by Paul Frankl and produced by Johnson Furniture Co., this armchair has a distinctive V-shaped upholstered back and curved mahogany arm rests.
BRITISH CURVED CHAIR
Tapering splayed legs support this sycamore chair, attributed to Hille and Co. The padded seat and arched tub back are upholstered in a geometrically patterned fabric, with one curving side. c.1930.
FRENCH DINING CHAIR
This Leon and Maurice Jallot dining chair has an ebonized frame and legs. The seat and back are upholstered in green leather, above sides mounted with three chrome rails. c.1930.
FRENCH CHAIR
This black-polished and upholstered chair is one of a pair by Alfred Porteneuve. It has slender, flattened arms and tapering legs, which end in bronze sabots. 1940s.
This Sue et Mare rosewood side chair has an upholstered arched back above a padded seat. The carved frame has feather detailing and the cabriole legs terminate in scroll feet. c.1925.
This mahogany dining chair is part of a dining suite comprising eight chairs. It has a solid, rectangular back and a padded seat upholstered in striped fabric. The chair is supported on tapering, splayed legs.
Designed by De Coene Freres, this Belgian black-lacquered armchair has a framed, square, padded back and seat upholstered in green leather. The armrests are flattened and the tapering legs terminate in nickel feet.
One of a pair, this Dominique cherry armchair is late for the period but its square form, Aubusson upholstery, and tapering legs are all Art Deco in style. 1945.
FRENCH ROSEWOOD CHAIR
AMERICAN CHAIR
BLACK-LACQUERED CHAIR
FRENCH GAMES CHAIR

ALTHOUGH THE Art Deco style had its origins and greatest success in the West, it also found voice in the East.
INDIAN GLAMOUR
Despite a strain of social conservatism and an economy that remained sluggish and underdeveloped, Indian designers welcomed the aesthetic ideals and stylish visual viewpoint promoted by the fashionable modern taste for Art Deco favoured by the colonialists. Appreciation for, and support of, the Art Deco style was also fostered by designers who had emigrated to India from Central and Eastern Europe, taking with them a
keen knowledge of the style, along with a calculated eye to receiving patronage from wealthy, cultivated, and influential benefactors.
At the heart of the Art Deco style in India was Mumbai (then called Bombay), the centre of international communication and a thriving port. Here, the mercantile classes and the Westernized ruling communities came together with the development of the Back Bay area between 1929 and 1940. The Development Trust insisted that all the buildings conform to the same architectural style to ensure “uniformity and harmony of design”. The style was an elegant, streamlined, yet decorated
form of Art Deco. By the end of the 1930s, Bombay contained nearly 300 cinemas, all of which were glamorous Art Deco palaces, both inside and
out. The sophisticated and luxurious residences commissioned by wealthy Indian princes also reflected the Art Deco style. The furniture often combined the “high-style” French Art Deco with native decorative traditions.
EAST ASIAN AFFINITY
During the 1920s and 1930s, a lot of the Japanese and Chinese architecture, interiors, and furnishings were inspired by the Art Deco style. Much of Art Deco’s inspiration — simple design,
spare, nature-inspired decoration, and the use of sumptuous, exotic materials such as lacquer, ivory, and mother-of-pearl — came from the traditions of East Asia in the first place, so there was
already an affinity between the two.
Throughout Japan, and especially in Tokyo, economic and industrial development after World War I was accompanied by democratization and cultural change. Western ideas were promoted through exhibitions and’
The abstract curving lines are executed in different
The curved, geometric handle enuilales tho linc, of the top of tl)(, ctrl and lock, the
The outer frame is created from one continuous piece of bent Wood publications, and by Western designers themselves. The Tokyo earthquake of 1923 left a devastated city ripe for renewal, and many of the new buildings reflected the Art Deco style. Numerous cinemas, cafes, and dance halls were built, their interiors filled with modern materials such as aluminium, glass, and stainless steel.
In China’s thriving metropolis of Shanghai the spirited Art Deco style was appropriated and assimilated by
The Umaid Bhawan palace, Jodhpur, India
Known as the “Paris of the East”, Shanghai was a prosperous and cosmopolitan city of business and pleasure. The American Art Deco style dominated in the new high-rise hotels, apartment blocks, offices, department stores, cafes, and restaurants.
The 12-storey Cathy Hotel, built by Palmer & Turner in 1932, set the tone, with its green pyramidal roof and Art Deco features. The Grand Theatre, designed by Czech-Hungarian emigre Laszio Hudec, was a monument to Hollywood glamour with its sparkling Art Deco interior, complete with a  lohby and neon lighting.

This large Chinese screen has a striking central panel made of jade, which is carved to depict a pavilion and figures under pine trees. The panel is set within a fretwork frame. c-1930.
JAPANESE CHEST
CHINESE HARDWOOD CABINET
of the two outer drawers. The upper shelf above each drawer is formed from a piece of wood cut out of the side of the chest and bent horizontally. Black lacquer is used to define the outer rim of each of the doors and to set off the abstract design that decorates them. The curving, asymmetrical patterning in shades of red, orange, and gold blend with the overall streamlined form of the chest as well as contrast with its symmetry. 1937.
This boldly curving, geometric chest features a trailing smoke design in gold and coloured lacquer. It was designed by the leading Kyoto lacquer artist Suzuki Hyosaku 11, who was a member of Ryukeiha Kogefkai (the Streamline School Craft Association). Continuous pieces of bent wood create the outer frame, the frames of the two central doors, and those
The case of this cabinet is rectangular in outline with rounded corners. Two panelled doors open onto two sections, one with two shelves. The case stands on moulded bracket feet. c.1930.
CHINESE JADE TABLE SCREEN
The drawer handle is shaped like the individual elements of the patterns.

Nowhere was the desire for the fashionable and the modern better demonstrated than in the luxurious palaces designed by Western architects for the wealthy and sophisticated Indian princes.
One such palace, built with an eye for practical considerations as well as for the latest style, was built by the German architect Eckart Muthesius. Commissioned in 1930 by the Oxford-educated Maharajah of Indore, Yeshwant Rao Holkar, Muthesius designed an air-conditioned, “U”-shaped palace known as Manik Bagh. Containing private apartments, as well as a large ballroom, a banqueting hall, and guest rooms, it had a steel frame, concrete walls, and a wooden roof.
Muthesius was personally responsible for designing all the interiors and created a stylish and modern palace to Art Deco, resplendent with sparkling golden-yellow walls. Nearly all of the fittings that he designed, from
Manik Bagh side table This table was designed by Muthesius. The ultra-modern geometric form of the table echoes the “U” shape of the palace.1930-33.
floors and window frames to light fittings, switches, and door handles, were ordered from companies in Germany and shipped out to India. The furniture was bought from some of the best French designers, mainly from the Union des Artistes Modernes.
Muthesius furnished the palace with lavish pieces made from sumptuous materials. The Maharajah’s study contained fine Macassar ebony furniture by Emile-Jacques Ruldruann, while his bedroom featured an armchair by Eileen Gray and a chaise longue by Le Corbusier, covered in leopardskin. The beds in the palace were made of aluminium and chrome, and the deep leather armchairs had Frames of chrome-plated band iron and built-in reading lamps. There were also plush carpets by Ivan da Silva Bruhns, and silverware by Jean Puiforcat.
Tubular steel side chair This chrome-plated chair is covered in brilliant red vinyl and was commissioned by Muthesius for Manik Bagh. 1930-33.
JAPANESE SCREEN
This wooden screen was designed by Ban-ura Shogo. The spare, asymmetric pattern of flowers and foliage was created with different-coloured lacquers and is typical of Japanese design. It provides a decorous foil for the geometric shape of the screen. 1936.
JAPANESE RADIO
This wooden hyperbolic radio was designed by Inoue Hikonosuke. Lacquer was a favourite material for Japanese designers working in the Art Deco style. The powerful stylized flower shapes of luminous gold highlighted with silver foil stand proud against the glossy black-lacquer background. 1934.

American Art Deco Furniture: MAPLE DESK, CHINA CABINET, PAINTED SCREEN, COMMODE, ILLUMINATED BAR.

ALTHOUGH THE UNITED STATES did not
participate in the 1925 Paris Exhibition, the Exhibition was still hugely influential there. Many American designers, including Eugene Schoen, visited it, and it was covered by American newspapers and magazines. Also, the following year, a tour of more than 400 objects that had been displayed in Paris was organized by Charles Richards, director of the American Association of Museums. He had been impressed by the Exhibition and hoped to initiate
“a parallel movement” in the United States by mounting the tour.
New York department stores, such as Lord & Taylor and R.H. Macy Company, also helped to publicize the Art Deco style by putting on exhibitions in the late 1920s of Art Deco furniture by leading Parisian designers. Eugene Schoen emulated his French contemporaries by creating pieces in rare and exotic woods, incorporating marquetry and inlays, coloured lacquers, and subtle carvings. His forms were architectural, with
their clean lines and restrained, stylized decoration, and his cabinetmaking was of the highest quality.
A NEW DIRECTION
A parallel Art Deco movement did blossom in the United States, but it developed along different lines to those of Europe. A handful of innovative designers, such as Paul Frankl, K.E.M. Weber, and Josef Urban, who had been born in Europe, combined the French Art Deco style with those of the Bauhaus (see p.386) and the Wiener
Werkstatte in their designs. Instead of producing expensive luxury pieces, they created well-crafted, functional pieces that could be mass produced.
Donald Deskey, the principal interior designer for New York City’s Radio City Music Hall, created dramatic, highly charged furniture. It combined the luxurious elements of French Art Deco with the more functional and rectilinear features of the Bauhaus style, which made full use of the latest technology. Deskey used the rare woods, lacquer, and glass loved by French designers but combined them with modern materials, such as aluminium and Bakelite, to embellish his opulent furniture designs.
American designers welcomed the machine age with open arms. They decorated their furniture with machine motifs, such as interlocking cogs and wheels. They celebrated speed and dynamism with the increasingly streamlined look of their furniture inspired by automobiles, ocean liners, and locomotives, and motifs based on dramatic bolts of lightning. They made bold use of Cubist-inspired geometric shapes and jazzy abstract patterns, arid iucludcd iconic American molds based
on the modern city and way of life, such as the skyscraper.
The industrial designer K.E.M. Weber established a Californian version of Art Deco. His distinctive furniture was mostly made from metal and glass and often had skyscraper-like features. Weber created sleek, functional furniture for private commissions as well as designs intended for mass production, using new materials such as chromed metal, sprung steel, and laminated wood. He also designed lavish Art Deco furniture for dazzling Hollywood film sets, which were largely responsible for transmitting the American Art Deco style to the world.

Eugene Schoen designed this maple desk for Schieg Hungate and Kotzian. The heavy rectangular desktop, with moulded sides, sits on block feet. The supporting table underneath, which has a semi-circular cut-out, carries the desktop section. c.1935
Signed and dated Robert W Charter
1928.
CHINA CABINET
This simple, rectilinear cabinet was designed by Paul Frankl. The limed, slate grey base and case of the lower section provide a striking contrast to the three ivory doors with semi-circular brass pulls. On top of this is is an unadorned china cabinet with a limed ivory finish. The three shelves of the cabinet are enclosed by two sliding glass doors.
MAPLE DESK
PAINTED SCREEN
This dramatic, three-panelled wooden screen by Robert Winthrop Chanter features two zebras locked in combat, painted in black and tan on an ivory background. The back of the screen is decorated with diagonal stripes in black with silver foil, in imitation of a zebra’s stripes.
The screen is signed and dated in the lower right corner. Chanter’s screens were greatly admired, and this example was commissioned by the Broadway composer Kay Swift and her husband. Screens were popular during the Art Deco period and this particular piece is of the utmost luxury, as emphasized by the use of silver foil. 1928.

PAINTED CHAIR
This William L. Price painted chair has moulded legs and an intricately carved backrest. It was designed for the dining room at Traymore Hotel, New Jersey, which was demolished in 1972.
STEEL STOOL
One of a set of four patinated steel stools, this stool has an upholstered, padded seat and a pierced apron cast with scrolling foliage. The stool has turned supports, linked by stretchers, with a maker’s label.
COMMODE
Designed by John Widdicomb for a department store, this commode has a geometrically inlaid top above a single long drawer, with stylized inlay. The twin inlaid and figured panel doors enclose three drawers. H 111.75cm (44in). FRE
ILLUMINATED BAR
Made from black lacquer with an exotic wood veneer, this illuminated bar has a central cabinet with fluted doors and a mirrored interior.
It was in 1925 that Frankl really came into his own as a furniture designer with his renowned range of custom-made furniture inspired by the New York skyline and the skyscrapers that soared above his New York gallery. Typical Frankl “skyscraper” designs, which frequently evoke the pure lines found in the work of the Dutch painter Piet Mondrian, include tall, stepped chests of drawers, cabinets, and bookcases boasting an architectonic, rectilinear form. They were made from oak or California redwood and were sometimes
“Skyscraper” chest This rare Paul Frankl chest is asymmetrical, with long and short drawers, a single cabinet, a pull-out enamelled shelf in red and black, and geometrically shaped brass pulls.

French Art Deco Furniture: SOLID ROSEWOOD OFFICE CHAIR, MACASSAR CHAIR, DEMI-LUNE SIDE TABLE, CENTRE TABLE.

FRANCE, ESPECIALLY PARIS, was the hub
of the lavish, or “high-style”, strain of Art Deco. The sumptuous, graceful furniture that was created in the 1920s by Emile Jacques Ruhlmann (see p.393) set the tone for this version of the style.
DUAL INSPIRATION
Using a host of exotic woods for decorative veneers, and embellishments made of colourful and expensive materials, ranging from ivory to lacquer and from leather to sharkskin, Ruhlmann and his colleagues – who included Paul Follot, Andre Groult, Jules Leleu, Leon-Albert Jallot, and Louis Sue and Andre Mare at the
Compagnic des Arts Francais – sought inspiration from the opulent furniture crafted by the fine cabinet-makers of the 18th century, such as Jean-Henri Riesener and Adam Weisweiler.
Ruhlmann and his associates
were also influenced by Art Nouveau (1880-1910). They took the sinuous lines, organic forms, and naturalistic motifs of that movement and restrained and stylized them, giving their pieces a more geometric form. Their exquisitely crafted Art Deco cabinets, tables, and writing desks were much coveted by an exclusive and wealthy clientele who sought status. Their
work was extensively displayed at the 1925 Paris Exhibition (see pp.392-93), bringing it to the attention of a much wider public.
LUXURIOUS MATERIALS
Jailor – who worked with his son Maurice – and Leleu favoured a rich palette of warm woods, such as walnut, palisander, and amboyna, enhanced With understated marquetry created with ivory, eggshell, shagreen, or mother-of-pearl. This often featured
signature Art Deco motifs, such as stylized garlands or baskets of flowers. Sue and Mare created luxurious, theatrical furniture in the Louis-Philippe style, and the decorating firm of Dominique produced stylish and sophisticated furniture in woods such as ebony and sycamore, upholstered in colourful silks, leather, and velvet.
The most exotic form of French Art Deco was realized in the innovative furniture created by Eileen Gray, Dunand, and Pierre Legrain. Both Gray and Dunand exploited the popularity of Oriental art by creating distinctive lacquered screens, tables, cabinets, and chairs, in which the lacquer was
often combined with other luxurious materials, such as tortoiseshell, eggshell, animal skins, and metal, to create a rather dramatic impression. Legrain was one of several designers inspired by African art.
TOWARDS MODERNISM
After 1925, some of the most committed French traditionalists, such as the
jallots, slowly began to adapt to the changes brought about by both the machine age and the introduction to furniture design of new materials, such as metal and glass. As a result, their later Art Deco designs are distinctly more Modernist in appearance They set the stage for the Modernist furniture created by designers such as Pierre Chareau and Francis Jourdain
Wrought-iron gates designed by Edgar Brandt
The stylized water fountain of these fine gates has swirling stems of leaves and pierced flowers, and vines run along the bottom. c.1924.

CENTRE TABLE
This centre table, designed by Maurice Dufrene, has a veneered table top supported by ornately moulded S-scroll legs. The table top is made from several different pieces of wood, which meet at the centre of the table. The contrasting patterns and textures of the woods used form the main decorative feature of the table
as, seen from above, they create a subtle, radiating geometric pattern. The moulded block feet are carved and support a small circular level with a carved rope design around the outer edge. A centre table was designed to be primarily ornamental rather than functional – to furnish the space in the middle of the room where it would also be the centre of attention. c.1925.
DEMI-LUNE SIDE “TABLE
This Louis Sue and Andre Mare bird’s-eye maple and mahogany demi-lune table has a broad crossbanded top above a thumb-moulded edge and a single frieze drawer. The table is supported on cabriole legs.
AMBOYNA CABINET
This amboyna cabinet has two central doors flanked by five small drawers on each side, each of which is decorated with ivory handles and inlay. The cabinet was designed and stamped by Paul Follot, and its symmetry and restrained style typify the elegant French Art Deco style. c.1925.

TABLE BAR
GILT-METAL TABLE
This table by Rene Prou is rectangular in shape and has elegant cabriole legs reminiscent of the early 18th-century Rococo style. The table is made of gilt metal and has a decorative pierced frieze of linked circles below the table top. c.1937.
MACASSAR CHAIR
This luxurious ebony and rosewood macassar chair, designed by Paul Follot, is one of a set of four. Each chair has a stylized acorn back within a “theatre drape curtain” arched back, carved by Laurent Malcles.
SOLID ROSEWOOD OFFICE CHAIR
This rare Edgar Brandt chair was one of a set designed for Brandt’s own offices. The arched high back extends above boldly scrolling T-shaped arms. The tapering legs terminate in gilt sabots. c.1932.
This Jules Leleu sycamore and mahogany table bar has a rectangular top above a rectangular section column. The fall front encloses a bar compartment with a single drawer below, located in the column. Its interior is veneered in contrasting mahogany.
This low stool is made of rosewood embellished with zebrano banding. The seat cushion is upholstered in a fabric that is typical of an Art Deco printed pattern, with overlapping geometric shapes, inspired by abstract art. c.1928.
LOW ROSEWOOD STOOL
BUTTON-BACKED CHAIR
One of a pair of square button-backed chairs by Marc du Plantier, this chair has square-section legs at the front and sabre legs at the back. The legs are made from painted wood and terminate in parchment sabots. The chair is newly upholstered in calfskin. c.1935.

Antiques: Furniture, Tables, Cabinets, 18th Century Furniture, Art Deco Furniture Recently Featured at Antcollectors (3)

Early 19th Century Chairs

ALL “THE CHARACTERISTICS oF Regency
and Empire furniture, from the Neoclassical motifs – often on pierced backs – to the choice of timbers, are displayed on early 19th-century chairs.
One of the most typical types of chair of the period is the Trafalgar chair, which was made in Britain and used for dining. The chair had two horizontal splats – one usually of bar form, the lower one sometimes a rope-twist, set above a caned or drop-in seat. Caning, with all its exotic overtones, was revived again during this period, particularly on British or Cape furniture. During the first two decades of the century the front and back legs were usually of sabre form, but turned or ring-turned legs, which are Structurally stronger, were used later.
These chairs, and many that they inspired, were often made of solid mahogany or rosewood, with veneered
panels on the bar back. Beech was used, and was often painted; light-coloured woods were favoured outside Britain. Chairs from this period rarely had stretchers.
One type of armchair, inspired by Georges Jacob, had a rectangular, scrolled, upholstered back and open arms with straight supports, often carved with sphinx heads or female masks. It also had turned and tapered front legs. These more comfortable fauteuils might be used in the drawing room, whilst Regency bcrgeres, which had caned backs, sides, and seats, were probably made for the library. These chairs had squab cushions, often covered in leather and buttoned. Other pieces might be upholstered in silk or velvet. Needlework was rare, although a suite of furniture from the Winter Palace in Russia, was covered in tapestry, in a mixture of wool and silk.

ENGLISH TRAFALGAR CHAIR
FRENCH DIRECTOIRE CHAIR
This Regency mahogany dining chair has a plain top rail and a rope-twist back rail. The needlework-covered drop-in seat is supported on a plain seat rail and sabre legs. One of a set of four. Early 19th century.
This is one of a pair of Directoire side chairs, each with a rectilinear back rail and splat inlaid with brass musical instruments. The upholstered stuffover seat is supported on sabre legs. c.1800.
SWEDISH BIEDERMEIER ARMCHAIR
CHINA TRADE ARMCHAIR
This birch open armchair has a stepped yoke backrest with a decorative oval inlay and scrolled armrests. The drop-in seat has a plain seat rail and is raised on sabre legs. c.1825.
This Asian hardwood armchair, has a Greek-key carved top rail and a shaped, carved back rail. The cane seat rests on a reeded seat rail above slender reeded legs joined by an T-stretcher. Early 19th century.
All the surfaces of the chair are carved and decorated in shades ofgreen, blue, and red, highlighted with gold.
INDIAN THRONE CHAIR
This polychrome-painted, ivory-veneered chair is in an exaggerated Regency style. It has an arched, slightly panelled back with a reeded top rail, carved uprights, sabre legs, and paw feet. c.1830.

AMERICAN FEDERAL SIDE CHAIR
This walnut and fruitwood side chair has a gently reclining back with a rectangular top and back rail. The padded seat is supported on a plain seat rail above stylized cabriole legs. Early 1901 century.
These Biedermeier mahogany-veneered dining chairs were made in Berlin. Each chair has a bar top rail, a solid, shaped back rail with a central oval, and elegant, slightly sweeping uprights. The shaped caned seats are set
within a curved frame with a rounded seat rail and are supported on tour outswept sabre legs. 1820-30.
This mahogany side chair has a moulded and rope-carved shield back around an urn, Princeof-Wales feathers, draped swags, and leaves. The serpentine seat rests on reeded, tapering legs. Early 19th century.
FRENCH RESTAURATION CHAIR
GERMAN BIEDERMEIER CHAIRS

AMERICAN GONDOLA CHAIR
ITALIAN GONDOLA CHAIRS
GEORGE III SHIELD-BACK CHAIR
This is one of a pair of Neoclassical figured mahogany gondola chairs, each with a curved back and vasiform, solid splat, a padded slip seat, and downswept stiles continuing into shaped sabre front legs. c.1830.
These six dining chairs are made of walnut and are designed in the Neoclassical style. Each chair has an unusual fluted, rectangular backrest positioned above a pierced, stylized leaf border. The cane seats have an applied
roundel at each side and are supported on plain seat rails. The chairs are raised on sabre legs. The elegant sweeping uprights give the chairs their characteristic shape, which is reminiscent of the style of the gondola boats found in Venice.
Early 191h century.
This mahogany armchair has a shield-shaped, curved back, outlined with guilloche moulding, with five reeded splats, curved downswept arms, a bowed seat rail, and reeded, tapering front legs.
RUSSIAN OPEN ARMCHAIR
AMERICAN DINING CHAIRS
SWEDISH GUSTAVIAN SIDE CHAIR
This birch open armchair has a stepped yoke backrest, with carved fan detail, and slender, scrolled armrests. The upholstered seat is raised on sabre legs. It is one of a pair. Early 19th century.
These eight Neoclassical-style dining chairs are made of mahogany. Each chair has a flat curved top rail carved with a foliate pattern and a slender horizontal splat, also decorated with leaf carving, plus a rosette. The seats
are upholstered with black Naugahyde and are showing considerable signs of wear. The seats are supported on plain seat rails and raised on sabre legs. The armchairs have gently curving supports. The set comprises two armchairs and six side chairs, and is attributed to Anthony Quervelle. c.1820.
This white-painted side chair has a shield-shaped back with a solid, carved splat. The padded seat is supported on a moulded seat rail and is raised on stop-fluted legs joined by an H-stretcher. Early 19th century.

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Art Deco Glass
After a decline at the end of the Art Nouveau period, art glass became popular once again during the inter-war years. France was the leader in design and innovation, with the prolific Rene Lalique being the foremost glassmaker in the Art Deco style. Functional pieces were very often turned to purely decorative purposes, and Lalique’s moulded, opalescent, or frosted glass,
ranging from vases to architectural panels, spawned a gre many imitators. In the USA the Steuben Glass Works produce fine engraved stemware. Moulded glass was usually max produced and sometimes hand-finished; makers also used such techniques as enamelling and engraving to embellish glass -will the fashionable stylized motifs of the era.
Lalique, Daum, and Marinot Glass
European industrial decorative-glass manufacturers of the Art Deco period, most of which operated in France or Bohemia, were primarily influenced by the work of Rene Lalique ( 1860-1945). Many chose to copy his style and techniques, making clear or opalescent glass vessels and statuary with a frosted finish. The wealth of output provides a wide range of choice for collectors, and many focus on only one category, or even on one colour or motif. The present-day market is similarly led by Lalique prices, and most glass by other manufacturers, found throughout Europe, North America, and beyond, rarely rises above decorative value.
RENE LALIQUE Glass
Lalique began glassmaking in 1910, having already established a successful career as the leading jeweller of the Art Nouveau period, and in 1921 took over a large glassworks at Wingen-sur-Moder in Alsace to produce his designs. He was a prolific designer, and made an enormous variety of items, ranging from , and tablewares to clocks, lighting, and architectural panels. Most of his work was machine-made to a high standard. Lalique relied on metal moulds for casting or mould-blowing glass, and many items, particularly panels and larger vessels, show evidence of “chill marks”, or ripples, on the surface. Mould seams were often left, or only partially polished off. Certain objects, including vases, were made by Lalique himself (rather than by the workshop) using the cire perdue (lost-wax) technique. Since the mould has to be broken in order to retrieve the glass, each cire perdue cast is unique, and such items are highly collectable.
The majority of Lalique wares, and virtually all architectural panels, lighting, and table glass, are clear with a frosted or partially frosted surface. Opalescent glass was also used. Some vases were produced in colours, including amber, electric blue, and black, and these command
premium prices. Lalique created various forms of lighting, often in inventive shapes or containing geometric or figural decoration. Clear or opalescent light bowls are generally more desirable than those of a Yellow colour. Lalique designed several hundred perfume bottles, the rarest and best of which are as valuable as some coloured vases. Other categories of collectable interest include the range of 27 automobile-hood ornaments (car mascots), made from 1925 to 1932, boxes, inkwells, ashtrays, and letter seals.
THE INFLUENCE OF LALIQUE GLASS
Marius-Ernest Sabino (1878-1961) produced a wide range of vases, statuary, and lighting from c.1923 until the closure of his glassworks in 1939. Much of his work clearl displays the influence of Lalique; however, few examples are as finely executed as Lalique wares, nor were Sabino’s designs as imaginative. The best examples are in deep, opalescent glass of milky blue. Most popular are the highly stylized figures of women, while coloured vases, mostly black or smoky topaz, have a limited following. Sabino also
produced car mascots, often copies of designs by Lalique. Reproductions of Sabino’s wares using the Original moulds have been made since the 1960x.
Edmond Etling &- Cie (active 1920x-1930x) commissioned moulded opalescent glass, comparable in standards of design and manufacture to Sabino. Figures of draped female nudes produced during the mid-1920s, often in a pale-bluish tint, are especially collectable, with values rivalling Sabino and lesser Lalique. Other typical subjects were animals and ships, and some vases were also produced.
Other French glassmakers in Lalique style include the firm of Verlys, which operated in France and the USA; Andre Hunebelle, who specialized in lighting and frosted vases of geometric design; and the firm of Genet & Michon, makers of innovative lighting, frosted architectural panels, and vases. A large variety of frosted glass, geometric-patterned
glass geometric-patte lampshades, and hanging lights is reproduced today and can be found at reasonable cost.
DAUM GLASS
The factory operated by the Daum family in Nancy from 1875 to the present day produced some of the best and most distinctive French Art Deco glass of the late 1920s and early 1930s. Daum Specialized in artistic Art Nouveau overlay and etched glass until the
1920s, but introduced new lines in the Art Deco style before 1930, mostly under the direction of Paul Daum. The two most characteristic types of Art Deco Daum glass are the mottled and the acid-etched lines.
Mottled glass was usually of amber colour, often with golden metallic inclusions, and was used for vases and some lamps (which are far more desirable than vessels), blown into heavy metal armatures. The typical wrought-iron metalwork may be signed “Edgar Brandt” or attributable to the firm of Louis Majorelle 1859-1926) in Nancy. Daum glass of this type is relatively low in value as pieces tend to be cumbersome and a little sombre.
Vases, bowls, and table-lamps in heavy, thick-walled, vividly coloured glass with deeply acid-etched decoration are the most collectable Art Deco Daum. Colours include green, amethyst, amber, turquoise, and grey; monumental vases in “electric” colours, particularly bright blue and vibrant yellow, are highly sought after. Matt and polished surfaces were sometimes combined. Value is directly in proportion to the depth and complexity of the etched decoration; vessels with shallow, sparse decoration tend to be of later origin and are relatively inexpensive. Pale colours and a smoky grey arc also indicative of late origin (possibly post-World War II). Table-lamps are usually in thick, clear glass with a frosted or grainy surface texture and vertically etched grooves forming a geometric, abstract pattern. Lampshades are bullet-shaped (the more popular) or mushroom-shaped. Any authentic Daum etched table-lamp is of considerable value, particularly if it is of large scale. A few- shades of similar style were also made, but are generally less popular than lamps.
MAURICE MARINOT GLASS
Maurice Marinot (1882-1960) was a painter and glass artist who worked largely independently from c.1911. This glass was not mass-produced and is rarely found on the market; however, it is easily identifiable and widely collected, particularly in Europe. Marinot created mostly functional pieces such as vases, jugs, and bowls, often of abstract, sculptural form, and experimented with decorative techniques such as trapping bubbles or metal foil within thick, heavy walls of glass. Between c.1915 and 1918 Marinot made enamelled glass, which is somewhat less collectable than his later work and consists mainly of pale-coloured or bubbly vases and decanters painted with Art Deco-style flora, fauna, or figures in bright polychrome enamel. Later, internally decorated pieces are often in the form of stoppered bottles (the stopper may be a glass sphere), free-blown in thick, clear glass decorated with bubbling, inclusions, and streaks of colour, and sometimes deeply etched with geometric or figural patterns.
Rene Lalique
• TYPES before 1930: clear glass with partially frosted finish is most common; after 1930: almost all frosted and clear; some pale opalescent and pale yellow/amber colour; designs remained in production after Lalique’s death, when a new crystal glass N as used
• ALTERATIONS authentic but altered pieces of Lalique include vases with ground necks, perfume bottles with “married” stoppers, and opaque vases with “plugged” bases; all designs are recorded in a catalogue raisonne
• FAKES mostly inferior and of poor quality with signatures added; beware of post-war Lalique with the pre-war signature added
Marius-Ernst Sabino
• TYPES opalescent glass using typical Art Deco motifs
• REPRODUCTIONS since the 1960s old moulds have been used to make certain items; the opalescence is more intense than on the originals and map appear “oily-
• COLLECTING large, stylized female figures are the most popular
Etling & Cie
• TYPES most pieces are in opalescent glass, comparable in standard to Sabino
• COLLECTING figures of draped female nudes produced during the mid-1920s 920s are especially collectable; values rival Sabino and lesser Lalique; reproductions in frosted glass were made in France in the 1970s
Marks
Opalescent glass is marked with the name, usually with “France” or “Paris” added
Daum
• TYPES most characteristic are mottled and acid-etched
• FAKES these exist as similar but ulterior pieces, including table-lamps, that appear to be acid-etched hut can be identified as moulded on close inspection
• COLLECTING monumental vases in “electric” colours
with deeply acid-etched decoration are preferred; metal armatures are often cracked and should be inspected
carefully;depth, quality,and complexity of decoration Lire vital for determining value – vessels with shallow, sparse decoration tend to be of later origin and have little value; pale colours and a smoky grey are indicative of later origin (possibly post-World War II)
Maurice Marinot
• TYPES handmade, small-scale items with heavy, thick-walled glass arc most typical; much of Marinot’s work is internally decorated or enamelled
• COLLECTING work is rare and consequently expensive
Marks
All pieces are engraved with the Marinot signature
Other French makers
ARGY-ROUSSEAU AND DECORCHEMONT
The style of the pate-de-verre (glass paste) specialists Gabriel Argy-Rousseau (1885-1953) and Francois-Emile Decorchemont (1880-1971) evolved from the Art Nouveau to the Art Deco during the 1920s. Argy-Rousseau produced vases decorated with stylized figures or geometric patterns in rich colours, together with table-lamps (the most valuable of all Art Deco pate-de-verre), plaques, and some translucent pate-de-cristal vessels. Popular Argy-Rousseau Vases were produced in large numbers, each one being hand-finished; motifs included Egyptian and mythological subjects. The output of Decorchemont, whose work is less collectable than that of Argy-Rousseau, is mainly in pate-de-cristal, often of bluish tone. Small vessels of Neo-classical form are typical. External decoration is subtle, and may be in the form of geometric engraving.
GOUPY AND HEILIGENSTEIN
Working from his Paris studio between 1918 and c.1936, Marcel Goupy (1886-1954) designed glass and ceramics sold mostly through the gallery of Georges Rouard in Paris. Goupy glass includes thin-walled vases, decanters, and goblets in clear or pale monochrome glass, painted with stylized flora, fauna, or figural decoration in semi-matt polychrome enamels. Auguste-Claude Heiligenstein (1891-1976) was an assistant to Goupy at Rouard from 1919 until 1926; he produced enamelled glass for several firms and independent commissions until the mid-1930s. Heiligenstein specialized in figural decoration, often featuring Neo-classical women in translucent enamels. Colours are naturalistic, often predominantly bluish and sometimes edged in gilt. Forms include vases, decanters, and pendants.
Other French Art Deco glass artists who used enamel decoration include Andre Delatte, who worked near Nancy in the 1920s and made mostly vases in opaque, bright colours. In his best pieces the decoration combines etching overlay with polychrome enamel painting. The firm of Muller Freres (est. 1895) in Luneville made speckled glass comparable to Daum c.1930, which may be fixed with metal armatures. The most valuable glass of this type was used for a series of lamps in the form of animals.
LESSER-KNOWN MAKERS
French Art Deco glass by small or lesser-known makers is widely available and varies greatly in quality. The unique, deeply acid-etched sculptural work of Aristide Colotte (1885-1959) in clear crystal ranks among the highest achievements in Art Deco decorative glass, but not widely collected. Similarly, the strikingly Modernists geometric glass desk items designed by Jean Luce (1895-1964) arc not greatly sought after, despite the practicality. Luce also designed glass for the ocean liners of the Compagnie Generale Transatlantique
(C.G.T.). Other Art Deco glass includes the
popular range of vases, lamps, and other wares
produced by Charles Schneider (1881-1953) from
c.1918 until the early 1930s. Most is of mottled.
bubbly glass mould-blown into heavily walled
vases and bowls. Vessels of this type, which may have applied feet or handles of contrasting colour, are common and of relatively little value. Schneider produced vases and a few table-lamps as “Lc Verre Francais”, typically in overlay glass etched with Art Deco decoration.
Argy-Rousseau and Decorchement
• WARES before c.1920: mostly small, Art Nouveau pieces, including jewellery and ashtrays; after c. 1920: larger items, including vases, in a more symmetrical style
• CONVERSIONS attention should be paid to large vases,
which may have been drilled for lamp attachments
• RESTORATION this may be visible on heavy, opaque pieces through transmitted light, and reduces value
• COLLECTING rich, deep colours and well-defined decoration are most desirable; heavier vases are popular
Goupy and Heiligenstein
• DECORATION polychrome enamelling
• COLLECTING Goupy: large-scale works and figural work are his most collectable pieces
Marks
Goupy: enamel or gilt script in the design or on underside of foot; Heiligenstein: most have an enamel or gilt signature, dates, and title of decoration
Lesser-known makers
• COLLECTING Luce: desk items arc popular with Art Deco collectors; Schneider: mould-blown vessels are common and of relatively little value; large pieces, geometric forms, lamps, and pieces with applied elements are the more valuable Schneider wares

Most American glass made during the inter-war years was in traditional style and of press-moulded manufacture, but inexpensive interpretations of French glass, particularly that of Rene Lalique (1860-1945), were popular during the early 1930x. American glass of this period is rarely found outside the USA, as it was not exported; a thriving network of American-glass collectors exists, but there is virtually no interest in this type of Art Deco glass elsewhere in the world.
STEUBEN GLASS
Steuben Glassworks (est. 1903) was founded in Corning, New York, by the Englishman Frederick Carder (1864-1963). Steuben is the most prestigious and highly regarded American glassmaker, partly owing to its elegant and distinctive work in the Art Deco style.
Before 1933 Carder designed much of Steuben’s ware himself; after that date most Steuben Art Deco glass was designed by John Monteith Gates (6.1905) or
Sidney Waugh (1904-63), who worked almost exclusively in clear crystal. Steuben glass is not Modernist or avant-garde; vase forms are typically restrained, often of Neo-classical or Chinese inspiration. Engraved decoration is impressive, comparable to that of contemporary glass made by the Swedish firm of Orrefors (est. 1898). Much of the engraving is figural, featuring slender forms with subtle, geometric stylization. During the late 1930s and 1940s Steuben also produced a range of heavy, cast, clear crystal animals, some in geometric Art Deco designs, for use as bookends and paperweights; these are highly collectable today. Decanters, often with air-trapped stoppers, are also common.
Stemware, bar items, and a few elegant vases designed for Steuben by the leading industrial designer Walter Dorwin Teague ( 1883-1960) in the early 1930s are considered among the most innovative American Art Deco glass. Teague’s slender, elegant Art Deco cocktail and wineglasses are comparable in value to the best Lalique pieces.
VERLYS AND CACIQUE-STYLE GLASS
The trademark “Verlys” derives from “Venetic d’Andelys”, a French glassworks (est. 1920) in Les Andelys, Lure, founded by the American Holophane Glass Co. However, from c.1933 until 1955 most decorative Verlys wares were made in the USA, and pieces are often found on the market there today. Verlys ware is growing in popularity in the USA and also has some market in Europe. Typical of the factory’s output arc press-moulded vases and bowls, mostly with symmetrical patterns evocative of Lalique, in deep-bluish Opalescent glass. Smoky-grey, blue, and pink are rare and generally less popular; even the best designs have values comparable only to those of the plainest Lalique. From 1926 the Consolidated Lamp & Glass Co. of
Coraopolis, Pennsylvania, produced an inexpensive range of mould-blown vases and some figural plates in the style of Lalique under the direction of Reuben Haley. Production continued on the same site – trading as the Phoenix Glassworks – until the 1940s, under Reuben’s son, Kenneth Haley.
“RUBA RHOMBIC” AND DEPRESSION GLASS Between 1928 and 1933 the Consolidated Lamp & Glass Co. produced a stylish line of vases and table glass called “Ruba Rhombic”. Examples are highly collectable, although the line was relatively inexpensive when first produced. Liqueur sets and small vases in smoky grey are most common. Collectors focus on vibrant or rare colours such as green, yellow, lavender, and black. It is estimated that fewer than 1,500 pieces exist today.
Ruba Rhombic is the finest of the so-called “Depression” glass that was produced by scores of regional firms, and consisted mostly of heavily moulded kitchen- or tableware in pale monochrome, sometimes in the Art Deco style. Depression glass is collectable in the USA but remains very affordable.
Steuben Glassworks
• FORMS Neo-classical or Chinese-style vases, clear crystal animals,decanters with air-trapped stoppers; Art Deco stemware, vases, and barware by Teague
• ORNAMENT engraved, stylized figures or fauna
• COLLECTING elegant Art Deco cocktail and wineglasses are most valuable
Verlys
• FORMS press-moulded vases and bowls, with Lalique style symmetrical patterns
• COLLECTING becoming increasingly popular; opalescent colours are more desirable than smoky grey, blue, or pink
Phoenix Glassworks
• STYLE some copies of, or attempts to emulate, Lalique are found, but they can be distinguished by their light weight, poor definition, poorly finished rims, sugary frosted texture, and use of matt, pastel staining, sometimes in two colours
• COLLECTING as yet of no significant value

Ruba Rhombic glass
• FORMS angular, heavily moulded vases and tableware, mostly= pale monochrome
• COLLECTING angular “Ruba Rhombic” pieces in vibrant or rare colours such as green, yellow, lavender, and black are most desirable

Art DecoCeramics
In the 1920s and 1930s the Art Deco style filtered through into the designs of commercial ceramics manufacturers throughout Europe. Factories such as Sevres in France employed top designers to create fashionable pieces with such typical Art Deco motifs as stylized flowers, plants, female nudes, and exotic animals in bold colours. Commercially produced pieces survive
in larger numbers than those of artist-potters and are becomin with Geometric shapes an increasingly popular with collectors.
clean, functional forms were a legacy of the Bauhaus 1 Germany, being eminently suitable for mass production. British ceramics remained essentially traditional, but bold, bright Art Deco designs were produced by Clarice Cliff.
FRENCH ART POTTERY
Immediately prior to and following World War I, many potters continued to work in the tradition of the reform movements of the 19th century, in which the artisan was responsible for all phases of the production of his or her work. Most of these artist-potters were based in France and explored a wide variety of techniques, including
painting, sgraffito and crackle glazing. Many of them employed the typical Art Deco motifs of stylized female figures and animals, often representing episodes from Classical myths, or geometric forms.
An influential forerunner of the artist-potters was Andre Metthey (1871-1921), who produced richly coloured faience and stoneware vases with decoration designed by such well-known avant-garde artists as Henri Matisse, Andre Derain, and Edouard Vuillard. After World War I Metthey turned to painting his wares with pure geometric motifs of his own design, as well as stylized flowers, plants, and Classical figures in bright colours, usually in friezes or set in medallions.
In the early 20th century many French potters were strongly influenced by Oriental ceramics. Among these was Raoul Lachenal (1855–c.1930), who produced simple, symmetrical stonewares inspired by Oriental forms and painted with stylized floral or geometric patterns in strong, plain colours. Henri Simmen (18801969) was greatly interested in French peasant pottery, and worked with salt and flambe glazes before World War I. After the war he produced handmade stonewares, using natural products to create rich glazes. Simmen’s wares were sometimes incised with symmetrically placed
geometric motifs; ivory, precious wood, or horn lids, finials, and stands were carved by his Japanese wife, O’Kin Simmen. The early designs of Emile Decoeur (18761953) were in the Art Nouveau style, but in the 1920s and 1930s he rejected elaborate surface decoration in favour of pure, symmetrical, Oriental-style forms with a single, brilliantly coloured glaze.
One of the best-known figures in Art Deco French ceramics was Rene Buthaud (1886-1987), whose work is rare and highly collectable. In the mid-1920s he produced simple, bulbous vases and bowls with painted, crackle-glazed, or incised decoration, generally in brown tones. His designs of linear, stylized female figures were influenced by the paintings of Jean Dupas and by African art. Buthaud was among the artists who designed wares for Primavera, the design studio of the Printemps department store in Paris. The Longwy factory also produced wares for Primavera, including pieces with crackle-glazed grounds, which were used as a base for painted decoration.
The painter Jean Mayodon (1893-1967) turned to working in ceramics in 1912 but did not exhibit his pieces until after the war. His vases, bowls, and plates are painted in rich colours and decorated with Classical figures. As well as small decorative pieces, Mayodon produced panels and tiles, some of which were used for the French ocean liners of the 1930s. The French painter Raoul Dufy (1877-1953) collaborated with the Catalan potter Josep Llorens Artigas (1892-1980) on ceramic vases, fountains, and planters decorated with Duty’s trademark motifs of dancers, flowers, and nymphs.
COMMERCIAL WARES
Some of the highest-quality Art Deco ceramics were produced at Sevres from 1920, when the factory came under the direction of George Lechevallier-Chevignard. At the 1925 Paris Exhibition, Sevres displayed vases and tablewares with decorations designed by a number of eminent contemporary artists, including Suzanne Lalique (b.1899), daughter of the jeweller and glassmaker Rene Lalique 1860-1945), Jacques-Emile Ruhlmann
933), and the painter Jean Dupas (1882-1964). These wares were traditional in form but were elaborately embellished with Art Deco motifs. The restrained use of gilding to highlight or outline motifs is also a familiar feature of Sevres wares.
The Limoges firm of Theodore Haviland & Cie (est. 1-9–) also employed Suzanne Lalique and Duty and consequently produced pieces similar to those of Sevres. Lalique designed plates depicting grapes and vines in a palette of black, silver, and green, while Dufy’s wares featured foliage and floral motifs in bright colours. Tableware for Haviland by the glass designer Jean Luce 1895-1964) is characterized by gold-and-platinum stylized clouds, angular sunbursts, and zigzags.
In the 1920s and 1930s the design studios of Parisian department stores produced a wide variety of Art Deco wares for the mass market. La Maitrise, the studio of Galeries es Lafayette, produced a range of household wares manufactured in Belgium. The Compagnie des Arts Francais (est. 1919) produced a variety of utilitarian and decorative wares in an architectonic style, as well as tablewares such as tureens and vegetable dishes with heavy scrolls and floral motifs.
The most important manufacturer of Belgian Art Deco ceramics was the firm of Keramis, owned by Boch Freres, in La Louvriere. Its artistic director from 1907
was Charles Catteau (1880-1966), who designed simple, ovoid-shaped vases, with thickly applied glazes on an often ivory, crackle-glazed background. Like Lachenal, Catteau sometimes used patterns imitating cloisonne enamel, although in the 1920s and 1930s his favoured forms of decoration included Such animals as leaping gazelles and stylized pendant flowers and plants.
In Italy the architect Gio Ponti (18911979) created a range of wares between 1923 and 1930 for the porcelain manufacturers Richard-Ginori (est. 1896) in Doccia. His range included tableware, vases, and urns, which were painted with strongly stylized geometric patterns, architectural forms,
figures, or drapery.
FIGURES
Most French figurative ceramics reflect the general trend for stylized forms. Among the earliest Art Deco examples are the porcelain tea- and coffee-sets (1916-17) designed by the Swiss sculptor Edouard Marcel Sandoz (1881-1971) for Haviland. The teapots, creamers, and other items are modelled as formalized, angular animals and birds. The Parisian firm of Robj produced useful wares in the form of brightly coloured, almost toylike figures in national dress or representing different professions.
From 1928 the Italian firm of Lenci (est. 1919) in Turin produced earthenware and porcelain figures, mainly of women, either nude or in contemporary dress. These figures are more naturalistic than most French examples and are distinguished by elongated limbs, bright-yellow hair, and a combination of matt and glossy glazes. Most Lenci designers are anonymous.
French art pottery
• DECORATION sgraffito, painting, and crackle glazing
• INSPIRATION Classical and Oriental wares
Marks
Buthaud: painted “R. Buthaud”, or painted or incised monogram “RB”
Primavera: Dufy/Artigas: each piece w0.V
should be individually numbered (1-110) C)
Sevres
• STYLE conventional forms based on 18th-century designs are typically decorated with stylized leaves and flowers, and geometric patterns; gilding is common
• COLLECTING pieces are high quality so are relatively expensive even though mass-produced
Keramis/Boch Freres
• FORMS simple, ovoid shapes
• DECORATION patterns imitating cloisonne enamel; stylized flowers, plants, or animals; colours: turquoise, also blue, black, green, and brown
France
• FORMS useful wares such as tea- and coffee-services and decanters, as well as decorative pieces, made in the form of stylized animals, birds, or human figures
Lenci
• FORMS figures of women, nude or in stylish modern dress, often wearing hats; mostly single subjects
• GLAZES matt often combined with shiny finish
• COLLECTING sophisticated pieces most sought after
COMMERCIAL WARES
In Germany, the Bauhaus (est. 1919) opened a ceramics workshop at Dornburg near Weimar, but ceramics were abandoned when the school moved to Dessau in 1925. However, the pure, functional forms used by Bauhaus designers did have some influence on mass-produced ceramics. In 1930, at the State Porcelain Factory in Berlin, Marguerite Friedlander-Wildenhaim (1896-1985), a former Bauhaus student, created the simple, geometric designs of the “Halle” service. Geometric shapes, with soft, rounded contours, were also used by Dr Hermann Gretsch for his designs for the “Arzberg 1382″ service of 1931, which was manufactured by the Carl Schumann factory in Arzberg.
Among the factory’s most collectable products today are its terracotta wall masks. These elongated, highly stylized female faces are hand-painted in bold colours, typically red, yellow, green, and black, and usually have
brightly coloured hair in ringlets. The firm also had a subsidiary in Paris, which at the 1925 exhibition displayed Cubist-inspired, angular statuettes with simplified features. In the late 1930s the British firm of Myott, Son & Co. Ltd produced Goldscheider figures. These pieces, clearly marked with their origin, are less collectable than Goldscheider figures made in Austria.
In Germany, fine-quality, detailed, naturalistic porcelain figures of dancers in colourful costumes, women in modern dress, and animals were produced by the firm of Rosenthal (est. 1879) in Selb. However, some of its most distinctive figures of the late 1920s and 1930s are very different in style; modelled by the artist Gerhard Schliepstein (b.1886) they depict svelte, elongated, and stylized women and greyhounds in pure-white porcelain. The Art Deco taste for the exotic was reflected in the figures of snake-charmers, Spanish dancers, and belly-dancers made by the Dux porcelain factory in Bohemia in the 1920s and 1930s.
Among the most distinctive Art Deco ceramics are those designed by Wilhelm Kage (1889-1950), artistic director of the Gustavsberg porcelain works in Sweden. His “Argenta” range of hand-thrown or moulded green-glazed vases, bowls, plates, and boxes (1929-52) is inset with chased silver in typically Art Deco motifs of mermaids, nude female figures, and flowers. Such wares are becoming more popular with collectors but are still relatively inexpensive.
FIGURES
Along with tableware, figures are among the most widely collected Art Deco ceramics today. While some factories continued to produce figures of traditional subjects, such as characters from the Italian commedia dell’arte, many Art Deco figures represent women, either nude or in contemporary dress. Some are accompanied by elegant greyhounds or borzois. Stylized human, animal, or bird figures and wall masks, influenced by contemporary Cubist abstract sculpture, were also popular during this period.
During the 1920s and 1930s the Vienna firm of Goldscheider (1885-1954) was one of the few Austrian producers of earthenware and porcelain in the Modern style. Figures made by Goldscheider include dancing couples in contemporary dress, ballerinas, and Pierrettes from the commedia dell’arte. Colours are typically rich and contrasting, and costumes are exotic.
German commercial waresSTYLE
• , usually influenced by the Bauhaus designs; simple, geometric shapes are typical, often with soft, round contours
Gustaysberg porcelain works
• STYLE Argenta tablewares, vases, and boxes with green-glazed grounds, inset with chased silver motifs; some with diaper-patterned or floral borders
• COLLECTING Argenta wares are increasingly collectable; hand-thrown pieces are more heavily moulded
Marks
Printed in black or gold ( 1910-40) 19
Goldscheider
• FORMS figures of couples in modern dress, dancers, and stylized wall masks
• COLOURS wall masks are painted in bright tones of red, yellow, green, and black
• CONDITION masks are prone to chipping as they are made of earthenware; paint may also be worn
American Art Deco ceramics were mainly inspired by European design, and today many collectors in the USA actually prefer French Art Deco porcelain or pottery to American-made pieces.
COMMERCIAL CERAMICS
Cleveland, Ohio, was the centre for progressive American ceramics during the inter-war years, owing to the influence of Julius Mihalik, a Viennese professor at the Cleveland Institute of Arts and follower of the Wiener Werkstatte. Several students and independent designers worked for the Cowan Pottery, founded outside Cleveland in 1913 by Reginald Guy Cowan 3. 19 30). Cowan designed most of the pottery’s early pieces himself; these consist mainly of inexpensive, slip-cast earthenware figures and figural “flower frogs” with matt monochrome glazes. The work of independent designers, generally made after 1927 for the Cowan Pottery Studio, was often issued in limited editions, and is most collectable. Some pieces show a distinctly Austrian influence, while others, particularly the work of Paul A “Jazz” punchbowl by Victor Schreckengost for the Cowan Pottery Studio
-,-is well-known design depicts scenes of New York City on New Year’s
and is glazed in “Egyptian Blue”. Each piece in the rare limited edition of 50 is slightly different A commercial, mass-produced edition also exists. (1931; ht 20cm18in; value of limited-edition bowl K)
Manship (1885-1966), are sculptural. The designs of Waylande Gregory (1905-71), who worked at Cowan from 1928 and later at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, near Detroit, Michigan, are often Neo-classical in inspiration.
A famous allegorical image, “Radio”, personifies the medium as a woman depicted in the Classical style, holding a lightning bolt.
The Rookwood Pottery (est. 1880) of Cincinnati, Ohio, produced an extensive range of Art Deco ceramics, mostly figures, bookends, and paperweights, in monochrome glazes. The Art Deco wares of the Roseville Pottery, in Zanesville, Ohio, are generally considered inferior to those of Rookwood, but such lines as “Futura”, introduced in 1928, are lively and attractive, which
makes them of greater interest to collectors. Most common in this line are well-marked vases featuring angular handles or “skyscraper” stepping.
In 1936 Frederick Hurten Rhead (1880-1942) introduced the “Fiesta” line for the Homer Laughlin China Co. (est. 1877) in East Liverpool, Ohio. This was a popular kitchenware in vibrant colours. Collectors are widespread, and Fiesta is sold at special auctions throughout North America. Comparable to Fiesta ware are the monochrome teapots and dinnerware in streamlined style made at the Hall China Co. (est. 1903) in East Liverpool; like the Fiesta range, these have been authentically reproduced.
STUDIO POTTERY
Studio potters active in the inter-war years in the USA include Susi Singer (1895-1949) and Vally Wieseltheir (1895-1945), who were both potters at the Wiener Werks6tte before emigrating in 1932. Typical . pica] of their work are hand-modelled earthenware figures, most of which are clearly signed. Wieseltheir produced designs for General Ceramics in New York. From 1923 to the early 1930s the designer Wilhelm Hunt Diederich (1884-1953) made a limited amount of pottery, rare and now highly sought after, at his studios in Woodstock, New York. Other potters of note include Henry Varnum Poor (1888-1971), Carl Walters, and Maija Grotell.
Cowan Pottery
• COLLECTING Cowan Pottery Studio is the most collectable commercial ware; pieces by independent designers after 1927 (especially limited-edition “Jazz” bowls) are more collectable than early
pieces
Marks
Most pieces are impressed or printed with marks showing artist’s name or monogram
Other commercial ceramics
• ROOKWOOD Art Deco pieces are less collectable and valuable than pre-1914 pieces, although colourful, abstract-patterned vases are popular with collectors
• ROSEVILLE more collectable than Rookwood; “Futura” is most popular; beware of modern forgeries, which arc difficult to distinguish from originals
• FIESTA made until 1972 and reintroduced in 1986; widely collected in USA; early pieces include red (most desirable), blue, yellow, green, and ivory (least popular); most new colours are pastel; modern versions are widely available
Studio pottery
• TYPES various pieces, including polychrome, hand-modelled earthenware figures, and platters hand-painted with stylized figures and animals
• VALUE pieces by independent studio potters are higher in value than mass-produced ceramics
• COLLECTING wares arc generally signed by the artist; work by Hunt Diederich is rare and very collectable
Art Deco had little immediate impact on the forms of commercial British ceramics; most firms simply added the newly fashionable, brightly coloured, geometric, and abstract designs to existing shapes. By the late 1920s the success of such innovative designers as Clarice Cliff (1899-1972) encouraged others to develop original shapes alongside traditional ranges, and by the 1930s the influence of Modernism was evident in the increasingly functional and geometric forms of tableware, minimally decorated in neutral matt glazes. A whimsical trend in ceramics continued in the range of popular ornaments, from Wedgwood’s sculptural animal designs to porcelain figures embellishing such items as dressing-table wares.
CLARICE CLIFF
British Art Deco ceramics are virtually synonymous with Cliff. In 1916 she joined the firm of A.J. Wilkinson Ltd (est. 1896), near Burslem, Staffordshire. In 1920 the firm acquired the nearby Newport Pottery and its range of old-fashioned white wares, and, recognizing Cliff’s talent, set her up in a studio there. Cliff and her team of decorators hand-painted biscuit-fired tablewares with brightly coloured enamels over a distinctive ivory-coloured glaze, known as “honey” glaze. In January 1928 the “Bizarre” range of inexpensive and cheerful pottery for or everyday use was launched; by October of the same year the range had become hugely successful. Cliff went on to design more than 500 shapes, including the “Conical”, “Bonjour”, and “Stamford” ranges, and 2,000 patterns, including “Inspiration” (now rare and desirable), “Applique”, “Tennis”, “Sunray”, “Solitude”, and “Mountain”. As well as traditional shapes, she designed many futuristic or otherwise innovative forms,
such as beehive-shaped honey-pots, cone-shaped sugar-sifters, and highly stylized, geometric versions of conventional items. The majority of her output was tablewares, but she also produced a range of novelty wares, among the most collectable being figures and the newly fashionable wall masks, which usually depicted the subject face-on and featured a floral headdress. Cliff also commissioned designs from other artists, among them Laura Knight ( 1877-1970), who produced the now highly collectable “Circus” series.
SUSIE COOPER
Although somewhat overshadowed by Cliff’s bright, flamboyant designs, Susie Cooper (1902-95) designed an equally distinctive and now sought-after range of shapes (including “Kestrel”,
“Curlew”, “Wren”, “Jay”,
“Falcon”, and “Spiral”) and
patterns (including “Dresden
Spray”, “Tadpoles”, “Scarlet
runner beans”, “Nosegay” “Polka
dots”, and “Cromer”). In 1922 she
undertook a work placement with
A.E. Gray & Co. Ltd (1912-61) in
Hanley, Staffordshire, and her success
in designing surface patterns in lustre
pigments and enamel colours for bought-in
white wares was such that she was given her
own mark. By 1929 she had established a ceramic decoration company at George Street Pottery, Tunstall, and by 1932 was designing her own shapes; these were produced at Wood & Sons, in Burslem, Staffordshire, where Cooper had her own production unit, Crown Works. Most sought after are her tablewares in traditional, rounded shapes such as “Kestrel”, “Curlew”, and “Wren”. Other early and desirable ranges include the more brightly coloured, abstract, geometric designs such as the banded patterns, polka dots, and exclamation marks produced for the large retail outlets of the John Lewis Partnership in the early 1930s. Her hand-painted designs were carefully adapted for transfer-printing, and the two methods of decoration are virtually indistinguishable and equally collectable. After World War II Cooper produced light, translucent, bone-china teawares made in Longton and sent to Burslem for decoration; these are less collectable.
WEDGWOOD AND DOULTON
The commercial giants Wedgwood (est. 1759), in Burslem, Staffordshire, and Doulton & Co. (est. 1815), in London, both produced ranges of functional tablewares and purely decorative Art Deco pieces. For Wedgwood the Modernist architect Keith Murray (1892-1981) designed a range of simple, geometric forms, including vases and bowls, with lathe-turned decoration and semi-matt glazes, often in soft grey, green, and ivory white. In complete contrast to Murray’s plain, functional designs were Wedgwood’s more conventional, intricately decorated lustrewares, the most popular and expensive of which was the “Fairyland” series.
Although the imagery on the “Fairyland” pieces bears no resemblance to that usually associated with Art Deco, the original shapes and bright colours are typical of the period, and the success of Wedgwood’s lustrewares inspired other manufacturers to produce more strictly Art Deco lustre ranges. From 1926 the modeller and sculptor John Skeaping (1901-80) designed a range of 14 stylized Art Deco earthenware animals and birds for Wedgwood in black basalt, cream, celadon, and tan glazes; these pieces proved popular and were produced well into the 1950s.
Doulton produced a range of Art Deco tableware –such as the “Dubarry” dinner service – but it is the company’s decorative bone-china figures of the 1920s and 1930s, many designed by Lesley Harradine (1887-1965), that are particularly collectable
toda.
These figures, most of which are full length, usually depict young, fair-skinned women in informal poses, and as such are celebrations of women’s increasing freedom and independence.
OTHER FACTORIES
The Art Deco wares produced by the Shelley Pottery Ltd (1872-1966; originally Wileman & Co.; trading as Foley 1892-1925, and as Shelley from 1925) owe their continuing popularity at least in part to the talented designers employed by the company in the 1920s and 1930s. These include the illustrator Mabel Lucie Attwell (1879-1964), who in 1926 introduced a range of charming nursery wares. In 1930 Eric Slater (1).1902) introduced two new, Modernist forms – “Vogue” and “Mode” – in clean, streamlined, architectural shapes that were perfectly suited to Shelley’s fine bone china. However, more successful was the “Eve” range of
tablewares, introduced c.1932, combining practicality with stylish, geometric design; it featured cup rims narrowed to prevent heat loss, and
triangular handles pierced, rather than
solid, for easier handling.
The Poole Pottery in Dorset (est. 1873
as Carter & Co.; trading as Carter, Stabler
& Adams from 1921, and from 1963 as
Poole Pottery, the name now also used to
describe early wares) produced collectable
Art Deco tablewares during the 1930s. Designs include “Studland”, which has elaborate angular handles combined with a
plain body of mottled green or blue, or the fashionable leaf and floral pattern; “Picotee” and “Everest” in plain colours with solid diamond-shaped handles, and rounded and ribbed shapes respectively; and “Streamline”, which as the name suggests was influenced by the American streamlined style.
The Carlton Works at Stoke-on-Trent (est. 1890; from 1958 Carltonware Ltd) produced a distinctive range of ceramics during this period. Rare and highly sought after are their geometric-shaped vases, hand-painted in bright contrasting colours. The success of Wedgwood’s lustrewares inspired Carlton to produce a range of richly coloured pieces, featuring enamelled decoration
on a dark glaze and a pearlized effect on the interior. Most of the company’s production took the form of moulded tableware, with leaf-moulded dishes being especially common.
Clarice Cliff
• DESIGNS strong geometric forms in bold, bright colours; some traditional shapes
• BEWARE fakes proliferate: check for washed-out colour,
poor-quality painting, and an uneven or murky glaze
• COLLECING increasingly rare and expensive; pieces are collected by pattern or type; desirability is determined by pattern, shape, and condition; wall masks and “Age of Jazz” figures are highly sought after
Marks
Most pieces marked, with the pattern
name alongside the signature, and a 00″‘ stamped factory mark
Susie Cooper
• DESIGNS traditional, rounded forms; tea-sets usually in autumnal colours
• COLLECTING pre-1939 wares are most collectable; archive catalogues help to distinguish between pre-and post-war issues of the same designs; hand-painted, transfer-printed or lithographed designs
arc all equally collectable
Marks
Printed in brown on carthcnwares from c.1932
Major manufacturers
• DESIGNS Murray for Wedgwood: geometric, often ribbed pieces; Doulton figures: young women, typically bathing or dancing; Shelley: architectural forms with conical bodies and solid, triangular handles; Poole: streamlined shapes produced in combinations of subdued, two-colour glazes
• DECORATION Carlton: flowers, butterflies, chinoiserie, and silver-lustre lightning motifs are typical
• COLLECTING a wide range of tablewares is available; porcelain figures command premium prices;
Wedgwood: designs by Murray and Skeaping are highly sought after, particularly Murray’s lathe-turned wares, “Annular” teawares, and the “Bournvita” drinking set; Shelley: designs by Slater are highly desirable; Carlton: leaf-moulded forms are abundant but not popular with collectors
Marks
Poole Pottery: almost all pieces are impressed with this mark or the entwined initials “CSA” and will include the decorator’s monogram; few pieces are dated