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THONET’S BENTWOOD
THONET’S DEVELOPMENT OF THE BENTWOOD CHAIR- ONE OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL PRODUCTS EVER CONCEIVED - HAD AN ENORMOUS INFLUENCE ON THE COURSE OF FURNITURE DESIGN.

MICHAEL THONET (1796-1871) WAS BORN in Boppard-
am-Rhein, a picturesque town that was then part of Prussia, now part of Germany. He trained as a cabinet-maker and set up a workshop in his home town as soon as he finished his apprenticeship. However, it was not until he was in his thirties that he began to experiment with steaming laminated wood veneers in order to create bentwood furniture. At first, lie was only able to use this process to produce component parts, such as chair backs, which he incorporated into pieces constructed from
more orthodox, straight, wooden elements. Still, his
work was innovative, and Thonet’s exhibit at an 1841 Koblenz trade show attracted the attention of Chancellor Metternich, who invited him to Austria to make some furniture for the Palais Liechtenstein.

ROCKING CHAIR
The frame of this beech
Thonet rocking chair exemplifies the Thonet technique of using single pieces of wood to create elaborate, elegant, curved structures. The seat and back of the chair arc each made from a simple green fabric sling. c.1880.
TORTUOUS CURVES
To prevent the beech from splitting when it was bent violently into shape, a metal strip was attached to each end of the piece of wood before it was steamed.
BENTWOOD CHAISE LONGUE
Inspired by Arts and Crafts styling, the sinuous lines of the frame and co ms of Thonet’s chaise longue are created from long pieces of bent, solid, laminated beech. The seat is made of woven canc. Suitablefor the conservatory or the garden, this recliner appealed to the taste for more rustic styles of furniture in the late 19th century, although it was, in fact, industrially produced. It is the precursor of Le Corbusiers chaise longue, designed in 1928, which used tubular steel instead of bent wood for the frame. 1883-84.
VERSATILITY AND SIMPLICITY
By 1842, Thonet had perfected his steam-bending process, and in July of that year he was granted an international patent that protected his “chemical mechanical methods” from imitation. The extravagant curlicues of the Kentwood furniture he produced for the interiors of the grand Rococo staterooms at the Palais Liechtenstein are testament to the versatility of his invention.
Once softened through immersion in steam or boiling water, the wood (beech was particularly suitable) could be moulded into almost any shape with the aid of a press. A single piece of timber could be manipulated to form the back legs, uprights, and top rail of a chair. Thonct’s process meant that furniture could be constructed from far fewer members and did away with the need for dovetails, tenons, or any kind of joint; simple screws and nuts would suffice to hold the parts together.
In 1853, Thonet set up his own furniture company — Gebruder Thonet — with his five sons (Franz, Michael, August, Josef, and Jacob) , and designed a factory in Vienna to produce furniture that could be packed flat for shipping and assembled at its destination. Before long, Thonet’s bentwood furniture was being exported all over the world.
WORLD-BEATING DESIGN
Mid-19th-century Vienna was famous for the lively political and cultural debate that found its focus in the city’s cafes, and these establishments proved the ideal testing ground for Thonet’s new bentwood
chairs. Light yet durable, their distinctive but understated style and modest cost made them a hit with the hospitality industry. Thonet’s first large-scale commission was to supply chairs to Vienna’s Daum coffeehouse in the late 1850s, and the world-beating “No.14″ chair was developed for this purpose. It was so successful that before the turn of the century more than 15 million No.14 chairs had been made and sold throughout Europe. This was functional furniture for the masses rather than furniture as a signifier of wealth, and the industrial production lines in Thonet’s factories across central Europe were turning it out in huge quantities.
THE CONTRIBUTION LIVES ON
When compared to the convoluted decoration of so much mid-19th-century furniture, the bentwood designs of Thonet and his sons are positively Spartan. Le Corbusier commemorated this refreshing aspect of Thonet’s oeuvre in 1925 when he used the No.14 chair as part of his hugely influential I’Espirit Nouveau exhibit, espousing his rejection of decoration in favour of function. It is unlikely that John Henry Belter (1804-63) would have had so much success with his carved laminate furniture in New York had Thonet not laid the foundations before him. Thonet’s legacy has endured well into the modern age — he precipitated Charles and Ray Eames’s mass-produced office chairs (see pp.456-57), and, of course, the modern Hat-pack domestic furniture industry.

Middle East Pottery

The countries and regions that embraced early Islam were ideally located to absorb the cultural, commercial, and technical cross-currents of the early medieval world. Chinese commodities were one of the major influences in Islamic lands – an area that stretched from India to the Atlantic Ocean. Trade with China was well established by the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-906), since many Arabs were resident in Guangzhou (Canton), and in addition to spices, perfumes, and silks the Chinese sent ceramics to the Middle East.
EARLY WARES
From the 9th century, potters in Mesopotamia (now Iraq) were so inspired by Chinese wares that they strove to imitate them. The first types of ware made were buff or red earthenwares covered with a tin glaze. In an effort to simulate metals potters also developed the lustre technique, and during the next 300 years this method of decoration spread through Islamic countries, reaching Spain in the 13th or 14th century. Tin-glazed earthen-wares and lustre wares were two of the most important types of pottery bequeathed to Europe by the brilliant Islamic ceramic tradition. In eastern Persia (now Iran) the crisply contoured 10th- and 11th-century slipwares of Nishapur and Samarkand were subtly decorated with abstract leaf or geometric motifs and Kufic script.
PERSIAN WARES
Unique to the Islamic world is fritware, a glassy composition perhaps developed to copy imported Chinese porcelains produced during the Song Dynasty (960-1279). This grainy, white-bodied ware is often covered in a viscous, deep turquoise-blue glaze. Between c.1215 and 1334 plain and lustred wares were made in the town of Kashan, south of Tehran; the technique was probably introduced to Persia in the 12th century by Egyptian potters.
The sophisticated polychrome Mina’i (enamel)
wares of late-12th- or 13th-century Persia may often
seem crowded and confused, but they are nonetheless
outstanding examples of the Islamic decorator’s art.
Mina’i pottery was made in Rayy (now Rhages) near
Tehran, and is decorated with figures and painted in a wide range of colours. Many examples of early Mina’i ware are painted with large-scale figures in the manner of contemporary lustreware, but later the emphasis was
on small-scale, narrative subjects.
Later Persian wares, made during the
Safavid (1501-1732) and subsequent periods, include those from Meshed (eastern Persia), Kirman (western Persia), and Kubachi (northern Persia), most of which were painted in the style of late Ming and Transitional Chinese porcelains. The bodies, glazes, and decorations of these Persian wares Lire very similar and it is difficult to tell them apart.
IZNIK AND KOTAHYA
In the 16th century, extremely fine copies of blue-andwhite Chinese wares were made by the potters in Iznik (east of  Istanbul) and Kutahya in central Anatolia. The potters in these towns created superb, crisply painted
wares with swirling and scrolling foliage, painted either in blue or in a combination of turquoise, green, and, later, a thick red (Armenian bole). In addition to conventional decorative pottery vessels and dishes, Iznik and Damascus potters produced some of the finest tileworks for mosques and secular buildings. These latter wares were highly influential in late 19th-century Europe, as seen in, for example, the work of the English designer William De Morgan (1839-1917).
KEY FACTS
Early wares
•    BODY buff or red earthenware
•    GLAZE tin oxide
•    LUSTRE ruby, brown, yellow, black, red
•    TYPES tin-glazed wares; lustre wares
•    DECORATION fusion of Chinese and Islamic designs, usually abstract
Persian wares
•    BODY Mina’i: coarse; Meshed, Kirman, and Kubachi: white frit paste
•    GLAZE Mina’i: creamy; Meshed, Kirman, and Kubachi: thick and soft
•    DECORATION Mina’i: underglaze colours and overglaze enamels; Meshed, Kirman, and Kubachi: resemble each other; black design outline may suggest a Meshed piece
Turkish wares
•    BODY Iznik: greyish buff, grainy, and absorbent; Kutahya: buff and thinly potted
•    GLAZE Iznik: translucent, but slightly bluish tone; Kutahya: irregular, gathers in bluish or greenish pools
•    STYLES Iznik: “Golden Horn” (c.1530) decorated with knotted pencilled scrolls; “Damascus” (c.1550-70) very sumptuous, with large-scale floral subjects and saw-edged leaf (saz); “Rhodian” (c.1555-1700) mainly floral; Chinese-style blue-and-white wares
•    PALETTE Iznik: wide range of colours dominated by turquoise and a scaling-wax red (Armenian bole)
•    DECORATION Kutahya: crude, floral, and figural
Marks
Islamic pottery is rarely marked, although individual potters’ marks do occasionally appear; corruptions of late Ming seal marks are used on Persian pottery

Antique Mirrors
Although German glassmakers produced convex mirrors from the 15th century, it was not until c.1500 that flat mirror plates were made using the broad-glass technique. This was invented in Venice, and revolutionized mirror production during the 16th and 17th centuries. The technique was later replaced by the plate-glass process first used at the Saint Gobain Glasshouse (est. 1693), in Paris, which allowed the production of larger and more even mirror plates. The Parisian makers enjoyed unchallenged prosperity until the late 18th century when the British Plate Glass Manufactory in London succeeded in manufacturing the large plates, which were so admired.
BAROQUE MIRRORS
Late 17th-century southern European mirrors are usually of rectangular form, with the central plates invariably “bevelled” or chamfered at the edges and contained within mirrored borders; the plates are often engraved or etched with mythological or pastoral scenes. The carved frames, either giltwood or silvered, usually display a Baroque exuberance, with acanthus, putti, masks, and cornucopias. Late 17th-century northern European mirrors were often conceived of as dressing mirrors, designed en suite with matching dressing tables and torcheres (candle stands). Of rectangular form, frequently with convex or cushion-moulded frames and usually crowned by shaped crestings, which was often similarly carved, these late 17th-century mirrors display remarkable inventiveness in their use of materials. The production of larger plates led to the introduction of pier glasses, placed between the window piers, the culmination of which are the mirrors in the Galerie des Glaces at the palace of Versailles. Although Paris’s lead was followed throughout Europe, particularly in Italy, Britain, and Germany, with mirrored borders often enriched with coloured or engraved glass, the plates were almost always divided.
EARLY 18TH-CENTURY MIRRORS
Although French mirror-frames during the Louis XIV (1643-1715) and Regence (1715-23) periods are usually of carved and gilded lime, pine, or oak, enriched with masks, dragons, and serpents, Charles Crescent (1685-1768), the cabinet-maker to the Duc d’Orleans, supplied his patron with vast pier glasses with gilt-bronze frames. These important mirrors, so widely copied in the 19th century, were also produced in Germany and Sweden. However, in the main, German, Swedish, and Danish mirrors made in the first half of the 18th century tended to follow the lead of Paris, although in execution the carving is often slightly flatter.
During the Queen Anne and early Georgian periods a distinctive national style emerged in Britain. Thus, although tall pier glasses with bevelled, divided plates, and mirrored borders, enriched the window-piers of the great aristocratic houses, their frames began to be decorated in gilt-gesso, with finely etched and pounced decoration. This gave way between
c.1725 and 1750 to the fashion for more architectural mirrors in the Palladian style advocated by Lord Burlington (1694-1753) and William Kent (c.1685-1748). These mirrors often display triangular or scrolled, swan-neck pediments, centred by the mask of a Roman god, an acanthus spray, or an armorial cartouche. Although often gilded or painted cream, these mirrors are most frequently of walnut, with gilding usually reserved for the carved architectural mouldings and cresting. In North America mirrors with simple frames topped with arched crests were popular from the 1730s. Carved and gilded openwork shells were often inserted in the crests.
CHIPPENDALE AND ROCOCO MIRRORS
In the 1740s Palladianism gave way to the Rococo style. Inspired by the designs of Nicolas Pineau (1684-1754) in France, Johann Christian Hoppenhaupt (b.1719), in Germany, and Matthias Lock (c.1710-65) in England, the new vocabulary incorporated flowers, acanthus, C-scrolls, and even chinoiserie figures from the 1750s. Even the mirror-plate was decorated, and rare examples survive where the surface was painted in oils with putti and floral garlands. But it was the Chinese who perfected this art with their reverse-painted mirror pictures, which were exported to England from the mid-18thcentury.
The name of Thomas Chippendale (1718-79) is synonymous with the carved giltwood mirrors of the 1750s and 1760s. His designs were influential throughout Europe, particularly in Portugal, and North America, and indeed served as the inspiration for several 19th-century revivals, most importantly those of the 1830s, 1840s, and c.1900.
Rococo “Chippendale” mirrors of the 1750s, as well as those in the early Neo-classical style of the 1760s, are usually of carved and gilded lime or pine, with filigree applied decoration, often of gesso or plaster applied onto wire;
papier-mache examples also survive. This technique, which enables great depth and quality in the detailing but is much more vulnerable, was superseded by gilt-composition, a plaster that is heavier, solid, and cold to the touch, but which could be cast in moulds. Early North American Neo-classical mirrors had narrow mouldings enclosing rectilinear or oval glass, while later examples became heavier. Often the frame was round, with a convex mirror based on patterns by Thomas Sheraton 1851-1806) and George Smith (active c.1786-1828).
DRESSING AND CHEVAL MIRRORS
It was not until the 17th century that dressing mirrors became free-standing. Initially they were made of silver or silver-gilt with trestle supports to the reverse, and designed en suite with lady’s dressing-sets. During the latter half of he 17th century Venetian and Parisian craftsmen supplied exquisitely decorated toilet mirrors of this design to the ladies of the court. By the early 18th century toilet mirrors had become sturdier, often standing on plinth bases, which contained drawers, the most sophisticated being serpentine wonted; numerous examples, particularly from Britain, survive – either of walnut and parcel-gilt or of plain or carved mahogany, and even with painted or japanned decoration. The mirrors were, however, principally rectangular, and it was not until the 1770s that oval dressing mirrors, later popularized by Sheraton, appeared. Regency and American Federal examples tend to be more rectangular, the plates often positioned horizontally, the decoration restrained in the extreme and often found only in the baluster-turning of the upright supports.
Cheval or standing dressing mirrors were first recorded in Paris at the court of Louis WE and the design was quickly adopted in Britain. Under Napoleon I cheval mirrors reached a new height of extravagance and luxury, being mounted in gilt-bronze with mythological deities, stars, and Classical reliefs, the plates often arched and supported by Classical columns. This style was copied throughout Europe, particularly in Britain, Austria, Germany, and in North America, and it was also revived in the later 19th century under Napoleon III (1852-70).
19TH-CENTURY MIRRORS
In North America mirrors with arched crests in the 18th-century style continued to be made in the early 19th century and had simple ornament, were narrower, and had less top-heavy proportions. The Empire style, which was associated with Napoleon then spread throughout Europe and then to North America. The pier mirrors of the early 19th century are characterized by the use of ebonized and giltwood decoration, often enriched with Classical reliefs and architectural motifs in gilt-composition (gilt-lead in Sweden), or perhaps framing a verre eglomise panel. The mirrors of the later 19th century were almost all inspired by precedents of earlier centuries. However, they usually betray their age by a slight misinterpretation or embellishment of earlier ornament. The Rococo Revival was superseded by the “Jacobethan” or 16th- and 17th-century Mannerist designs in the mid-19th 9th century; toward the end of the century both Neo-classical and Rococo styles prevailed and the revival mirrors of this period are frequently directly copied from published designs.
• MIRROR GLASS 18th-century glass tends to be fairly thin, with the bevelling soft and shallow, and the cutting uneven; 19th-century glass is thicker, the bevelling cut at an acute angle, and the cutting even; original glass is desirable, and if the glass is cloudy it may be possible to have it re-silvered; replacing glass should generally be avoided.
• FRAMES composition frames are vulnerable to damage and are less expensive than giltwood or silvered frames.
• COLLECTING “Chippendale” mirrors are notoriously difficult to date, particularly if they have been re-gilded and a discolouring wash has been painted on the reverse of the frame; 19th-century copies do, however, often betray themselves through a misunderstanding of motifs and ornament; Rococo Revival mirrors tend to have over-fussy decoration and heavier carving.