Posts Tagged ‘italian antique console’

EARLY 19TH CENTURY
BRITISH EXOTICISM
A RICH MIX OF BOTH FOREIGN AND HOME-GROWN INFLUENCES AFFECTED THE DESIGN OF BRITISH FURNITURE DURING THE REGENCY PERIOD.
FROM MOGUL DOMES to Islamic arches, Regency designers drew on a wide variety of exotic sources. When Napoleon invaded Egypt in July 1798, his invasion force included not only soldiers, but artists and poets, botanists, zoologists, and cartographers. The ensuing publication of Descriptions de I’Egypt established a vogue in France for all things Egyptian.
ANCIENT EGYPT
The Egyptian craze surfaced in Britain following Nelson’s subsequent defeat of Napoleon in 1798 at the Battle of the Nile. Sphinx heads appeared on the pilasters of bookcases and side cabinets and lotus leaves were carved on chair splats and printed on textiles and wallpaper designs.
Thomas Hope designed furniture based on the engravings of the French Egyptologist, Baron Denon, and Thomas Chippendale the Younger, who had inherited his father’s famous workshop, created a suite of furniture for Stourhead in 1805, resplendent with sphinx masks. These pieces were made in mahogany, but the foreign motifs of the period were often complemented by the use of highly polished, unusual, imported timbers: streaky salamander, dark ebony, or flecked amboyna.
CHINOISERIE REVIVAL
An integral part of the Rococo repertoire in Britain during the mid 18th century, Chinoiserie enjoyed a revival in the early 19th century. The Royal architect,
A DWARF GOTHIC CABINET
This lacquered cabinet has a crenellated
Lipper section with octagonal corner
towers. A deeper base with a pierced
quatrefoil gallery sits above a pair of
tracery panelled doors flanked by
clasping buttresses. The cabinet
stands on a plinth base. Early 19th
century.
REGENCY TORCHERE STAND This stand is made, of bronzed and gilded wood. Below the top is a guilloche moulded frieze and three gilt supports, with lion masks, joined by Cross supports with applied rosettes. The concave base rests on gilt paw feet.
A CHINESE EXPORT BUREAU This bureau has u fall front above three drawers, a shaped apron, and is raised on cabriole legs. All the surfaces are black and gilt lacquered with lake scenery and flowers.
19th century.
Henry Holland. was profoundly influenced by Sir
George Stauntons An Authentic Account of an Embassy
“M the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China n 1797: and interest in the Far East increased after Napoleon’s defeat in 1815, when further British envoys ere sent to the new emperor of China, Chia-Ch’ing.
Furniture was japanned black with gilt to simulate lacquer – as in the late 17th century – while lacquer cabinets (or lacquer panels reused from early screens) were incorporated into British cabinet work. Oriental bamboo was also echoed in the ring turnings on late Regency chairs. Many pieces of furniture were made out of genuine bamboo, while others were turned
and painted to simulate it.
The Prince Regent gave the royal seal of approval to this trend when he furnished several rooms at the Brighton Pavilion with bamboo furniture imported from China. Indeed, this architectural folly became the most famous mixing pot of all the exotic styles of the Regency period.
Western styles of lacquer and bamboo furniture were also imported from Canton. The trade in goods from China to Britain had been established since the early 17th century, but the scale of Chinese imports in the 19th century was unprecedented. As well as imported, Chinoiserie-style furniture, Oriental motifs such as dragons appeared on the crestings of convex mirrors, while latticework and Chinese panelling were applied to chair backs, commode friezes, or brass grills on side cabinets or chiffoniers.
STYLES FROM THE SUBCONTINENT
India, as well as China, influenced the decoration of the Brighton Pavilion. Nash was inspired by William and Thomas Daniell’s book, Oriental Scenery, and included pierced screens, copied from Indian jails (perforated stone screens from Madhya Pradesh), in his designs. The interest in India manifested itself more in the importation of Western-style furniture, than in the application of Indian motifs to British furniture. Exotic ivory-inlaid rosewood furniture and boxes came from Vizagapatam, and ebony chairs of Regency form were shipped from Ceylon.
HISTORICISM
Towards the end of the Regency period, designers and furniture-makers turned away from exoticism and towards their own traditions for inspiration. The Napoleonic wars and their subsequent victories spawned a surge in nationalist feeling. This, along with the historic novels of Walter Scott, inspired designers such as George Bullock and Richard Bridgens to include Elizabethan and Jacobean motifs in furniture for Abbotsford and Aston Hall in the late 1810s and early 1820s. Gothic motifs were always prevalent, particularly as tracery in glazing bars and in panels for cabinet doors. Pointed arches appeared as early as 1807 in the backs of hall chairs published by George Smith. This furniture, often commissioned by a new breed of antiquarian collectors such as William Beckford, was usually made in oak or other native timbers.

The use of tiles as an architectural element, either as roofing or as decoration for walls, floors, or ceilings, has been a feature of most cultures. In the Middle East, glazed tiles have had a long tradition
in creating cool interiors. After the death of Muhammad (AD 632), the culture of Islam expanded rapidly throughout the region, spreading Islamic philosophy and arts. In Iberia, the westernmost outpost of the Islamic world, this influence is particularly evident in such building, as the Alhambra in Granada.
EUROPE
In Italy tin-glazed earthenware reached new heights in the late-15th and 16th centuries, and Italian tiles were first used for pavements in churches. Migrating potters transmitted their skills from Italy to France
and The Netherlands, and the tin-glazed tiling tradition continued from its epicentre in Antwerp (now in Belgium). In order to escape persecution by their Spanish overlords in the 1560s, many potters fled Antwerp for Rotterdam, Middelburg, Amsterdam, and Delft in the northern Netherlands. By the 1660s and 1670s Dutch potters had adopted a sober blue-and-white palette depicting local interests and activities. In Germany, and many other northern and central European countries, decorative tiles, mostly moulded in relief and covered in either a brown or a green monochrome glaze, were used mainly for cladding the exteriors of stoves.
From the 16th century until the latter half of the
18th century, when they went out of fashion, tin-glazed riles were made in large quantities in Britain. The range and variety of British tiles is great and offers the collector a fertile hunting-ground. From the late 18th century until the latter half of the 19th, decorative tileworks formed little or no part of Western interiors, but after the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London, tiles began to reappear, mainly as fire surrounds but sometimes used either as a tile picture or as a series of repeated patterns creating an exotic interior. Both Minton & Co. (est. 1798) and the designer William De Morgan (1839-1917) embraced the Aesthetic Movement and designed tiles
in Japanese, Turkish, and Persian styles. Although a few were hand-painted, the majority were transfer-printed.
NORTH AMERICA
Tiles were manufactured in North America from the second half of the 19th century. By the mid-1870s such firms as the American Encaustic Tiling Co. (est. 1875) in Zanesville, Ohio, and the Star Encaustic Tile Co. (est. 1876) in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, were making mosaic and inlaid floor-tiles. The Low Art Tile Co. (1877-93) in Chelsea, Massachusetts, produced glazed relief tiles that could compete with the best English tiles. At the Grueby Pottery (est. 1894) in Boston, Massachusetts, a variety of tiles in soft colours with matt glazes was made. Other factories making art tiles included the Trent Tile Co. (est. 1882) in Trenton, New Jersey, and the Rookwood Pottery (est.. 1880) in Cincinnati, Ohio.
• early tiles tend to be much thicker than the usual 6mm (approx.) of 18th- and 19th-century tiles; sizes became more uniform in the 19th century
• REPRODUCTIONS collectors should beware of reproduction transfer-printed tiles made in the late 1980s and 1990s
• COLLECTING tiles from Victorian fireplaces arc available in large numbers; Dutch tiles can be expensive; tile panels and pictures are rare and are usually very expensive; Iznik tiles are among the most expensive tiles available and can measure about 38cm ( 15in) in width

Display cabinets.
At the end of the 17th century the display cabinet evolved from the cabinet-on-stand tradition, and adopted many of the same features. The principal difference was that the outer doors of the cabinet were not solid, enabling the contents of the shelves –not drawers – inside to be easily viewed.
EARLY CABINETS
Italian cabinets were developed from the cabinet-onstand tradition, and by the mid-17th century Baroque display cabinets or showcases were also made. These were incredibly grand, opulent, and dramatic, made to display collections of semi-precious stones, minerals, plaques, or other curiosities. In Rome, glass-fronted cabinets were designed by architects, such as Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) and Francesco Borromini (1599-1677), and such architectural features as pediments, columns, and sculptural finials prevail. Cabinet-makers in Florence quickly adopted these ideas and combined them with their own tradition of pietre dure panels and gilt-bronze mounts.
The fashion for displaying objects arose with the craze for Chinese porcelain and blue-and–white Delftware at the end of the 17th century. Although an elaborate series of shelves was commonly used for their display, fine cabinets attested to the ()-,-,-net’s wealth and cultured tastes, and were symbols of great pride, especially as they were quite rare until the the 18th century. In England the late 17th-century display cabinet had glazed doors with half-round mouldings resembling those found on drawer fronts of the period, and the sides were veneered with walnut, often ten quarter-veneered. Supported on turned legs and stretchers, it might also have contained two drawers behind the doors, and rested on bun feet. Contemporary cabinets from The Netherlands were influential, partly owing to the Delftware displayed within, and partly because of Dutch craftsmen living and working in England.
Marquetry was still used in both English and Dutch designs. In England, after the end of Charles II’s reign (1685), coloured marquetry became more subtle, and arabesques were more popular than flowers and foliage. Alternatively,
coloured metal or brass-and-tortoiseshell veneering, in imitation of the latest Parisian
fashion inspired by Pierre Gole (c.1620-84) and Andre-Charles Boulle ( 1642-1732), were also used at this time, although still confined to the wealthiest patrons.
ENGLISH 18TH-CENTURY CABINETS
The earliest 18th-century display cabinets were simple in construction and were almost identical to contemporary bookcases or bureau bookcases and cabinets. The most common features included fine proportions, chamfered corners, gilded mouldings, and rich veneers. Between 1730 and 1750 mahogany gradually replaced walnut as the preferred wood, and also from 1730 the influence of William Kent (c.1685-1748) and Palladianism promoted the use of broken pediments and architectural overtones similar to those used in bookcases. Scrolled brackets, eagles’ heads, lion-masks, and garlands were typical decoration. The cabinets themselves were variously designed – in three sections with a “break-front”, or in two, with stands or on solid bases with doors. Marquetry decoration was replaced with finely carved wood although there were still instances of japanned cabinets and inlay with ivory plaques.
From c.1750, cabinets were decorated with Rococo ornament, inspired by France, or with Gothic or Chinese details, largely due to the hugely influential designs of Thomas Chippendale (1718-79) and his pattern-book The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer’s Director (1754-62). Chinese-inspired designs were especially important for display cabinets, as a result of the quantities of Chinese porcelain displayed inside them, and also as a result of the continuing vogue for Oriental decoration. Pagoda-shaped roofs and mouldings, openwork friezes, latticed galleries, and longitudinal glazing are characteristic of this style. Chippendale favoured chinoiserie above all else, although he was not averse to uniting it with distinctive Rococo touches. In The Universal System Of Household Furniture (1762), John Mayhew (1736-1811) and William Ince (c.1738-1804) describe a “china case for Japanning the inside all of looking-glass, in that manner it has been executed, and has a very elegant effect”. japanned cabinets were extremely popular, as were those that featured panels of imported Oriental lacquer. Hanging corner cabinets, made of mahogany and with similar motifs, were also produced, although in smaller numbers than the cabinets.
The design of cabinets was definitively modified by the aspirations of Neo-classicist architects, particularly Robert Adam (1728-92), and cabinet-makers from 1760. Influenced by Classical architecture, the new cabinets were more simple  than their predecessors. Doors and cupboards were framed with tapered and fluted columns and pilasters; cornices were surmounted by scrolled and pierced pediments, frequently with urns at the corners and centres; and friezes were delicately carved with anthemia, sheaves of wheat, or honeysuckle motifs. Mahogany was gradually superseded by satinwood or exotic wood veneers, and some cabinets were painted in subtle colours. The construction and look of all these display cabinets were still similar to, but slightly more delicate than, those of contemporary bookcases. The similarity is so close that The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer’s Guide (1788-94) by George Hepplewhite (d.1786) does not feature display cabinets as such. The astragals (glazing bars) and cornices illustrated on a separate plate were considered to be equally suitable for both bookcases and cabinets.

REVIVALISM AND THE BELLE EPOQUE

 During the 19th century, revivalism dominated fashions in cabinet-making throughout Europe and North America. In Italy the Renaissance Revival (known as Dantesque) was popular, and cabinets made in this style were carved with elements taken from the earlier period. The Florentine cabinetmaker Andrea Baccetti was arguably the greatest exponent of the Italian Renaissance Revival, making richly carved furniture during the 1860s and 1870s. As was usual, the 19th-century revivals were generally loose interpretations of the earlier styles; for example, “Renaissance” cabinets were made of rosewood with parcel gilding, materials unheard of in Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries.
In The Netherlands, the large, traditional 18th-century Dutch display cabinets were reproduced in great numbers during both the 19th and 20th centuries. Usually covered with floral marquetry, these cabinets possessed glazed bureau-style upper halves, with traditional-style bombe drawers below. Sometimes one of the lower drawers
was sacrificed in favour of a stand with a stretcher, in the early Baroque manner, but
these cabinet-on-stand varieties are less common than their bureau-inspired counterparts.
The cabinet-maker Francois Linke (1855-1946), working between 1882 and 1935, helped Paris to maintain its position as the world’s centre of luxury furniture in the sumptuous Belle Epoque style. Like that of many distinguished cabinet-makers of the Second Empire (1848-70), Linke’s early work is in the Louis XV and XVI styles, many pieces copied directly from 18th-century royal furniture. However, at the International Exhibition of 1900 in Paris he staked his reputation on a lavish display of distinctive furniture in Louis XV style with overtones of Art Nouveau, using the finest mounts applied to simple carcases with quarter-veneered kingwood or tulipwood. His signature motif was the coquille (concave scallop-shell), held by acanthus tendrils. Linke kept meticulous records, which demonstrate the staggering number of hours put into each piece of furniture.

• TYPES the variety is huge, although display cabinets only
were purpose built only from c.1800.
• MATERIALS watered silk commonly lines French cabinets to offset the gold boxes, trinkets, and curiosities displayed inside; few display cabinets had glass panes until the 19th century; early French pieces often had chickenwire fronting.
• LINKE the rarity and high quality account for the prices his pieces command; his signature “F. Linke” is usually visible on one of the ormolu mounts in a right-hand corner; much furniture was exported to the USA.