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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 beginnings of Portuguese faience are obscure, and prior to the 17th century few pieces can be attributed with any certainty. Although written records indicate that there was production from at least the 13th century, evidence is sparse until the 16th century, when there appears to have been a flowering in this craft. In 1552 there were ten potteries in Lisbon alone. It is most likely that the industry was boosted by migrant potters, perhaps from Italy, France, or The Netherlands. While some European-type wares were made, including Italian-Style albarelli and late 19th-century wares in the style of the French potter Bernard Palissy \ (c.1510-90), 10-90), the most
wares were those decorated in the manner of Chinese export porcelain made during the late Ming Dynasty ( 1368-1644), indicating the importance of the
Portuguese trade with China at this time.
Although some of these mainly blue-and-white wares are fairly fine renditions of Chinese porcelain, most have a crowded market-place appeal, with robustly drawn if somewhat garbled motifs in what is known as the “Sinn-Portuguese” style. Motifs include the Fight Precious Things (including the artemisia leaf and the musical stone, which often appear in the broad panelled borders of dishes). With time, these designs became simplified or formalized: Chinese-border sunflowers evolved into spiky demi-lines or a radiating scale pattern; the artemisia leaf began to resemble a spider. The compartmentalized borders taken from kraal: porcelain were retained, although the diverse semi-geometric patterns of the late Ming style were replaced by a simple “cross-stitch” trellis design.
AFTER 1700
During the 18th century Portuguese faience was strongly influenced by  French potteries, especially those in Rouen,    the Portuguese wares were never as meticulously drawn as the French. In general Portuguese faience produced in Lisbon, Oporto, Coimbra, and other potteries is very similar in feeling to provincial French faience. Furthermore, there was clearly a reluctance to advance or to experiment with new designs, so wares often seem old-fashioned – the formal Baroque style of early 18th-century Rouen wares is still found in the middle of the century or even later. This time-lag can also be seen on high Rococo faience, the style
being maintained until beyond the end of the 18th century. The most important pottery centres were
given a great incentive in 1770 when
a ban was imposed on all imported porcelain, save that from East Asia, which boosted domestic production.
In the 19th century, in keeping with the European trend, Portuguese potters produced considerable quantities of revival wares, borrowing indiscriminately from the classic wares of Italy, France, and The Netherlands. Among the more frequently encountered types are the lead-glazed wares made in Caldas da Rainha that were based on the wares of Bernard Palissy – dishes or hollow-wares with applied reptiles, covered in dark lead glazes. Nineteenth-century wares were skilfully potted and painted. Much late 19th- and 20th-
century pottery is traditional in feel,
using an Italianate or a debased Ming
export style. In the latter category,
deer and rabbits cavort amid
formal small-scale vegetation,
mostly painted in blue with
brown outlines. This refined
material may have a silky-smooth
glaze of slightly pinkish tone.

•    Body- generally fairly crude; less refined than Spanish
wares
•    GLAZE quite gritty
•    DECORATION usually very  schematic and quickly executed; 17th-century bloc-and-white wares: outlined in manganese brown, based on Chinese late Ming and Transitional porcelain; 18th-century faience: inspired by French faience; 19th-Century wares: inspired by 16th-century Palissy wares
•    FEATURES flatware was generally fired on a triangular
arrangement of pins visible on the underside of the  flangeIMPORTANT
•     CENTRES OF PRODUCTION Lisbon, Oporto, Coimbra, Caldas da Rainha
Marks
Before c.177() Portuguese wares were rarely marked
Lisbon: Royal factory of Rato (1767-183.5); mark for wares made under Brunetto (1767
Caldas da Rainha: Mafra factory (est. 1853); Mark for wares made under Manuel Gomel (active 1853-7)

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.