Posts Tagged ‘english hepplewhite dressing table’

Art Deco English Furniture

Thursday, May 14th, 2009

Many major British designers used elements of the Art Deco style in their furniture, while remaining true to their Arts and Crafts roots and making little use of lavish ornament or exotic woods. Art Deco furniture was more typically produced by minor makers, whose work included copies of popular pieces shown at the 1928 Exhibition of Modern Art in Decoration and Furnishing. Held in London, the exhibition introduced decorative, continental Art Deco furniture into Britain. The Modernist influence of the 1930s is seen in the mass-produced furniture by Isokon (1932-9).
TRADITIONALISTS
The designers of the Cotswold School concentrated on the Arts and Crafts tenets of truth to materials, form derived from function, and traditional construction techniques. Native woods such as oak and walnut were favoured, and decoration was minimal. Luxury furniture was made by, among others, Sidney Barnsley (1865-1926), Peter Waals, and Robert Thompson (d.1955), the Houseman”, who used a carved mouse as his signature. Gordon Russell (1892-1980) made the most successful transition to both traditionalist and Modernist styles of Art Deco. While using traditional construction techniques, he incorporated such exotic materials as Macassar ebony and ivory into some pieces, together with Art Deco motifs like sunbursts and chevrons. His belief in the need for good-quality, mass-produced furniture led him to develop a range of furniture that used tubular steel and other synthetic materials, with machine-made parts.
Heal & Son (est. 1800), in London, maintained its role as a major manufacturer and retailer. Oak, especially limed oak, was most commonly used for a range of traditional Arts and Crafts designs with some Art Deco features. Again, decoration was minimal, and although contemporary construction techniques such as screw-fixing were used, pieces were hand-finished.

MODERNISTS
In 1934-5 Finmar Ltd was
set up in Britain to distribute Alvar
Aalto’s moulded plywood furniture. The plain, simple pieces had clean contours, decorated with blocks of colour; solid wood was often combined with laminates. The firm of Isokon (Isometric Unit Construction), founded in London by the architect Jack Pritchard (b.1899), produced a range of simple furniture, generally more adventurous than that distributed by Finmar. Designers associated with the company include Marcel Breuer (1902-81). Typical of the period are its lightweight stacking “cutout” tables and chairs made from a single sheet of cut and moulded plywood.
More exclusive Modernist Art Deco furniture was designed by Betty Joel (1896-1984), who used curving shapes, minimal decoration – wood grain or contrasting veneers – and native woods such as sycamore; from the 1930s she also used chromed steel and plywood laminates. One of the few truly innovative British Art Deco designers was Gerald Summers (1899-1967). In the 1930s he designed side-chairs and open armchairs, cut and shaped with curved backs and seats, in laminated birchwood. The Birmingham firm of PEL (Practical Equipment Ltd, est. 1931) commissioned collectable steel-frame furniture from such designers as Oliver Bernard (1881-1939) and Wells Coates (1895-1958).

•    MATERIALS light woods were popular – sycamore, limed oak, walnut, and burr-walnut
•    CONDITION plywood furniture must be in good condition: check laminated pieces for chips or flaking
•    COLLECTING one-off, commissioned pieces by well-known makers are very expensive; minor furniture is collectable if well designed and in good condition; pieces by members of Cotswold School most desirable; forms associated with Jazz Age most sought after
Marks
Heal & Son: work is stamped with this mark, inset in a circular ivory plaque on the insides of doors or inside drawers

Antique Japanese Imari Porcelain

Friday, May 8th, 2009

Imari Porcelain
Imari is a port on the eastern coast of the island of Kyushu. The name has become associated with a certain type of porcelain, but it has two different Interpretations, one used in Japan and the other in the West. The Japanese terms Shoki and Ko Imari describe blue-and-white wares made in Arita. However, what is generally known in the West as “Imari” is export porcelain decorated in a palette that usually includes underglaze blue, iron-red, and gilding.
There are also other categories beyond the conventional colour scheme; for or example, “green family” Imari is dominated by green, with red or other colours being used in a minor role. Kenjo Imari (presentation ware) is
- sub-group,
another -group, which uses a similar palette but with a more formal arrangement of panelled zones of colour.
Initially developed in the second half of the 17th century, the Imari style matured c.1800.
The finest examples of the style feature a complex symphony of overlapping geometric or leaf-shaped panels often decorated with conflicting themes, as seen in the vase and cover below. Unfortunately the variety of these anti-rational patterns makes it difficult to categorize and present a chronology for this group of wares. Much decoration appears to be based on brocade a rich silk textile run through with gold or silver thread. The majority of Imari wares are decorative, with pieces intended for display en masse. In the late-17th and 18th centuries the most common objects made were high-shouldered, dome-covered jars, trumpet-shaped beaker vases, and saucer dishes. Tea and coffee wares were alsc produced, but these are scarce.
WEAR AND TEAR
Arita porcelain, particularly blue-and-white and Imari, is generally extremely robust and not easily cracked, unlike its more fragile Chinese counterpart. However, although Arita ware is strong, its softish, pale, greyish-blue glaze may be more easily scratched than that of Chinese wares. Some of the Arita export porcelains have crackled glazes, and an intended purchase must be carefully examined to make sure that the body itself is not cracked.
• PALLETTE the basic Imari palette comprises underglaze blue, which can be an intense, almost black, colour or a pale grey, iron red, and gold; other colours include yellow, manganese brown, green, and turquoise
• P0TTING Japanese porcelain is thickly potted and has a tendency to warp during firing, kiln supports were therefore used under the bases of even relatively small wares to prevent them from saggingCOPIES
• made in porcelain at Meissen and in tin-glazed earthenware particularly at Delft during the first third of the 18th centuryBEWARE
• some late-17th- and 18th-century Imari porcelain wares are inscribed with spurious Chinese reign marks

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Friday, May 1st, 2009