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EARLY 19TH CENTURY REGENCY BRITAIN FURNITURE

THE REGENCY WAS a clearly defined
period in British history From 1811 to 1820, the Prince of Wales, who later became George IV, ruled instead of his father, who was suffering from porphyria – a form of madness. However, as a furniture style, Regency has come to embrace a wider time frame, from the 1790s to the third decade of the 19th century.
Reflecting the exuberant tastes of the Regent himself, the period begins with his commission of the Neoclassical architect Henry Holland for his London home, Carlton House, in the 1780s, and concludes with the exotic, Oriental confection that is John Nash’s
Brighton Pavilion, remodelled for the Prince of Wales between 1815 and 1823. George, the Prince Regent, came to dominate taste in the early 19th century. He and his circle drew on a diverse group of talented architects and artisans, often trained in France, many of whom had worked on Carlton House. These included the architect, Charles Heathcote Tatham, the decorators and cabinet-makers, Morel and Hughes, and the clock-maker, Benjamin Vulliamy.
FURNITURE STYLE
Regency furniture is often symmetrical with clean, rectilinear lines. As such, it was inspired by French Empire furniture and the simple late 18th-century furniture designs of Thomas Sheraton. Large surfaces were often veneered in highly figured rosewood and then decorated with gilt-brass mounts of ancient motifs, such as rosettes, paterae, laurels, and anthemia. The Liverpool cabinet-
maker George Bullock is best known for his use of patterned surfaces; he frequently balanced English timbers, especially oak, with a riot of border patterns featuring stylized flower-heads, lotus leaves, and dot motifs.
The strict Neoclassical taste found its most archaeological expression in the designs of Thomas Hope, which he published in 1807. Not only had he plundered ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome for decorative ideas, but he also attempted to recreate ancient furniture and interiors. Probably the most
typical furniture of this type is the rounded klismos chair – first known to have been produced in ancient Greece
– which has back stiles that rise from outswept sabre legs to support an almost semi-circular back.
During this period, a wide variety of side cabinets of diverse outlines came to dominate the wall space in drawing rooms, replacing the use of commodes. In the dining room, a similar role was performed by the popular sideboard and chiffonier.
ECLECTICISM
It would be a mistake, however, to see the Regency as simply a curvaceous and light Neoclassical style. It was characterized by endless variety, a freedom of forms, and an eclectic
ornamental vocabulary. George Smith, who published a pattern book the year after Hope, reinterpreted his cold, academic designs by applying Neoclassical motifs to French Empire models that also included Gothic-and Chinese-inspired furniture. Indeed, exotic forms and materials became the hallmark of Regency taste. Smith popularized Hope’s designs in his pattern book, introducing them to a wider public.
Smith inspired impressive-looking furniture, with boldly carved leopard’s masks or large lion’s-paw feet, which anticipated the slightly heavier furniture of the 1820s and 30s.

The front rail and highly scrolled ends are inlaid with trailing foliage and flowers, terminating in floral paterae.
The seat rail is inlaid with a trailing brass foliate motif.
The design of the chaise longue is influenced by the contemporary French form, the meridjenne - a type of sofa with scrolled ends, one higher than the other.
Brass inlay detail
CHAISE LONGUE
This elegant Regency chaise longue is made of rosewood and is profusely inlaid throughout with brass inlay in a foliate design. The frame has a sweeping back rail which is centred with a scrolled hand grip, and has highly decorative
scrolled end supports. The generously padded seat and arms are supported on a rectilinear front rail decorated with a foliate motif. The piece stands on outswept sabre legs which terminate in lion’s-paw feet on casters.
Sabre legs terminate in lion’s paw feet and casters.
SMALL CENTRE TABLE
The surface of this tilt-top table has a painted scene within a laburnum veneer border. It is supported on a rosewood-veneered stem, on a base with scrolled, ribbed feet on brass casters. Early 19th century
MAHOGANY STOOL
This Regency mahogany stool has a gently shaped rectangular seat with scrolled ends and light carving on the surface. It is supported on an X-frame base with simple, carved decoration and stretchers. c.1810.
This mahogany writing table has a three-quarter brass gallery and a central, pull-out insert. There are six drawers behind a lift-up flap, two drawers on either side, and two in the frieze, supported on slender, turned legs. c.1800.
LIBRARY TABLE
The rectangular top of this rosewood library table is inlaid with a Greek-key border in satinwood and ebony. The frieze has a central pierced ormolu palmette and two drawers. The bowed legs are headed by gilt lion’s heads and
terminate in lion’s-paw feet, joined by a shaped stretcher. c.1810.

Vincennes and early Sevres
The Meissen factory went into decline following the Seven Years War ( 1756-63) and was supplanted in terms of importance by the factory of Vincennes, later moved to Sevres near Paris. This factory was taken under royal control, and its commercial interests were protected by royal edicts. Employing the finest artists of the day, the factory became the leading producer of porcelain in the Rococo style and, from the 1770s the more severe Neoclassical style.
VINCENNES
The Vincennes factory was established c.1740 at the chateau of Vincennes, with the help of runaway Workers from Chantilly. The first director was Claude-Humbert Gerin ( 1705-50), who discovered the secret of producing a soft paste that was much whiter and finer than that used by earlier French factories.
In 1745 Louis XV granted the factory a 20-year exclusive privilege to produce porcelain. The earliest wares, primarily influenced by Meissen, are heavy in form and painted with small flower sprays, often combined with gilt trellis and scrollwork borders, or landscape and figure scenes.
The painting can be distinguished from that of Meissen by its freer brushwork and a softer palette.
Among the more distinctive early products were porcelain flower-heads, which were bought by marchands-merciers (dealers in luxury products) and mounted on metal stems. These flower arrangements were placed in vases or used to embellish such items as lamps, clocks, and chandeliers. Figures were made on a limited scale in the 1740s and were usually simply glazed. Popular subjects included birds, animals, nymphs, hunters, and children or putti.In
1748 the goldsmith Jean Claude Chambellan Duplessis ( 1690-1774) was hired to create new forms in the Rococo taste. He designed lighter and more elegant shapes that show the influence of contemporary silver. In 1752 the painter Jean-Jacques Bachelier (1724-1806) was hired as artistic director; he introduced lighthearted, designs of children in the style of the Rococo painter Francois Boucher, and fanciful birds. In 1753
the King granted a new privilege to Vincennes and issued an edict restricting rival factories in their use of subjects, colours, and gilding. In 1751-2 the factory pioneered the fashion for biscuit, or unglazed, porcelain in Europe. Bachelier abandoned the production of small, freely modelled figures in favour of three-dimensional, sculptural pieces designed by such artists as Boucher.
EARLY SEVRESIn
1756 the factory moved to the chateau of Sevres, near Paris. The quality of the paste and gilding was strictly controlled, and the King issued sumptuary laws banning the use of gilding by any other French porcelain factory in order to protect the commercial interests of Sevres. In 1768 deposits of kaolin were discovered in the Limoges region, enabling the factory to produce hard-paste porcelain.
A Cuvette a fleurs by Sevres
This basin was intended for holding flowers. It is possible that it was designed by Duplessis, who is credited as being responsible for many of the forms made at Sevres at this time.
(c.1757, ht 32.5crr/12Yin; value H)
During the late 1750s and the 1760s
Sculptors, goldsmiths, and designers created
larger and more ambitious pieces, such as the purely decorative vases a teted`elephants
(vases modelled with elephant
heads supporting candlesticks), and other
decorative items, such as pear-shaped ewers
with flat covers. In addition to coloured
grounds, the factory introduced several
patterned grounds in the late 1760s: oeil de
perdrix (”partridge eye”), cailloute (”pebbled”), and verinicule (”worm-cast”). The reserve panels are often filled in, with little of the white porcelain left showing, contrasting with the more spare decoration employed at Vincennes. However, large, functional services, tend to have less elaborate painting – typically, small scattered flowers, which are more stylized than those used at Vincennes. Biscuit was the most popular medium for figures and the sculptor Etienne-Maurice Falconer (1716-91), chief modeller between 1757 and 1766, continued the tradition of charming, if sometimes rather sentimental groups of children, lovers, and allegorical subjects.
Vincennes
• BODY Soft-paste porcelain
• STYLE copies of Meissen; later, Rococo wares
• unglazed with tree stump, rockwork, or vase supports in the 1740s; after 17-51 three-dimensional, crisply modelled biscuit figures
Early Sevres
• BODY soft-paste porcelain
• STYLE delicate and elegant Rococo
• DECORATION patterned as well as plain, coloured grounds reserved with typically Rococo themes within fine gilt frames
• FIGURES sentimental biscuit figures and groups of . lovers and children, inspired by Boucher’s paintings Marks
Vincennes: interlaced “L”s without a date
letter were used from c.1740
1740 to 1752
Sevres: the first date letter was introduced in
17-53 the letter “H” is for 1760