Posts Tagged ‘jug’

Antiques Recently Found on Antcollectors (3) - Scandinavia

THE GREAT BRITISH VICTORIES of Abukir
(1798) and Trafalgar (1805), which opened up trade along the North Sea coastline, suggest that sympathy for Britain and British design could be evident in Scandinavian furniture. This was not always the case. Denmark and Sweden’s ambivalence to France encouraged the British Prime Minister, Pitt, to destroy the Danish fleet and bombard Copenhagen, creating much animosity towards the British. This affected trade and shipping and left the Danish-Norwegian economy at the point of bankruptcy in 1813.
So, although there are traces of British Neoclassicism in early 19th-century Scandinavian furniture, it was often due either to the residual effect of late 18th-century design, or it had filtered through the influence of north German cabinet-making.
The one positive outcome of these hostilities was that local craftsmen were protected from British competition and were encouraged to develop their own workshops and styles. As in the rest of Europe, the Empire style predominated, although it had marked local characteristics.
DANISH EMPIRE
A traditional preference for simplicity, and the need for frugality as a result of war and financial hardship, gave rise to a version of the prevailing French style called Danish Empire, which was taken up by three of the Scandinavian countries. Although mahogany was
favoured, and was used in the larger, wealthier cities, it was difficult to obtain due to war. As a result, the Danish Empire style made use of light local woods, such as alder, maple, ash, and birch, which could be polished to look like satinwood. Mahogany furniture did reappear after 1815, and was generally veneered on pine rather than oak pieces.
Danish furniture was often inlaid with contrasting woods, such as citrus, rather than having ormolu mounts. Inlaid lunettes and arched details were popular, as was the occasional pressed brass or giltwood detail.
One of the most distinctive chairs produced in Denmark was the klismos chair, designed by Nicolai Abilgaard in 1800 and now in the Copenhagen
Museum of Decorative Arts. Similar
to a chair later designed by the sculptor Hermann Freund (now in the Fredericksborg Castle), it mimics the ancient Greek original.
The Danish custom of using one room as a combined dining room, drawing room, and study at this time resulted in some unique types
of furniture. One of these, the Chatol, consisted of a cylinder bureau with a retractable writing slide, surmounted by cupboards for storing cutlery and glassware. Another was a divan, which had cupboards in the sides.
HETSCH STYLE
In Denmark, the Neoclassical style lasted into the 1840s, thanks to the late Empire style popularized by Gustav Friedrich Hetsch. Hetsch had studied with Charles Percier in Paris earlier in the century, returning to Copenhagen to direct the porcelain factory. He was also a designer and his works were often scholarly reproductions of antique prototypes. This style, which favoured the use of carved appliques and mouldings over mounts, is sometimes confusingly called Christian VIII after the Danish king who reigned from 1839 to 1848.
SWEDEN
Sweden was slightly more francophile in its tastes than Denmark, particularly in Court circles. The furniture in the Yellow Room at Rosendal Castle in Stockholm, created for the king in the 1820s, is closer to true French Empire style than any furniture produced in Scandinavia during the early 19th
century It was designed by Lorenz Wilhelm Lundelius, the leading craftsman in Stockholm.
A famous secretaire, made by Johan Pettey Berg in 1811, demonstrates how Swedish cabinet-makers absorbed German heaviness, combined it with Empire motifs (such as white marble pilasters), and added the occasional British reference, such as the Sheraton-inspired inlaid shell.
The Hetsch style eventually arrived in Sweden, but it did not become dominant because Neo-Gothic had taken hold there quite early Indeed, by 1828, there was already a room decorated in the Gothic style in the Royal palace in Stockholm.

BIEDERMEIER LOVE SEAT
This mahogany, Biedermeier-style love seat has a solid, rectangular form with outswept arms. The back and sides of the seat have brass-moulded panels and fan spandrels. The arms have rosette terminals and mahogany
facings. The seat rail has brass mounts and is supported on verdigris brackets, carved in the shape of drapery. The piece terminates in massive gilt and verdigris claw-and-ball front feet. The love seat has an upholstered back, sides, and seat. Early 19th century.

SWEDISH SECRETAIRE
The tall, flame-veneered case of this Swedish Empire secretaire has tapering sides. The upper section of the case has a fall front positioned beneath a shallow drawer. The lower section consists of three graduated drawers; the bottom
drawer has a cut-away arched shape. The piece is raised on rectangular block feet. This secretaire is made in the style of furniture from towards the end of the period and is a move away from the Empire style. It was possibly made by J.C. Reher. 1841.

DANISH ARMCHAIR
The substantial hooped-back, upholstered backrest of this mahogany armchair is raised on curved supports. The upholstered seat has square, tapered legs at the front and sabre legs at the rear. Early 19th century.
EVE LATE GUSTAVIAN ARMCHAIR
This Swedish gilt-and-painted armchair has an upholstered seat and back, a curved top rail with lion’s head terminals, and carved, down-sweeping arms. The padded seat is supported on a carved seat rail and is raised on turned and fluted legs at the front and sabre legs at the rear. Early 19th century.
LADY’S WORKTABLE
This late Gustavian Swedish worktable has an oval, galleried top above a single frieze drawer. The table top is supported on tapering legs terminating in brass caps and casters and joined by a shaped cross-stretcher.

THE GERMAN-SPEAKING world developed its own style years before the modern German state took shape. Although the Biedermeier style had evolved from the Neoclassical movement, particularly the Empire look that emerged from Napoleonic France, it was distinctly Germanic. Its popularity was such that Biedermeier furniture never quite disappeared in the 19th century and a number of popular revivals occurred, particularly in the 1860x. At the same time,
Germany and Austria embraced the same eclectic historicism that was popular throughout Europe during the mid 19th century.
ROCOCO REVIVAL
The Rococo revival was met with particular favour in Vienna, a city whose conservative nature was such that the court had never relinquished the original Germanic Rokoko of the 18th century, and so there was a seamless progression to the revival
style. New processes and technologies ushered in by the Industrial Revolution made it possible to recreate Rococo forms from published patterns at a Fraction of the original cost and in less time, making them accessible to a wider market. Machines cut much finer veneers and carved Rococo ornament for application to carcases constructed from local woods.
One of the pinnacles of the Rococo-revival style was the refurbishment of the Palais Liechtenstein in Vienna,
which made a lasting impression on public taste. Michael Thonet (see pp.284-85), who assisted Peter Hubert Desvignes in this mammoth task between 1837 and 1849, went on to revolutionize the furniture industry in his adopted Austria with his mass-produced bentwood furniture. Other accomplished masters included Anton POssenbacher, whose lavish carved and embroidered chairs for King Ludwig 11 represent the zenith of Bavarian Rococo.
SIDE CHAIRS
These two chairs are from a set of six Biedermeier style, walnut veneered and polished side chairs made in Austria. The curved crest rail is supported on flat supports above a rounded, upholstered seat with lightly sweeping legs. c.1900.
GAMES TABLE
This Louis-Philippe-style mahogany games table has a moulded table top above a serpentine apron with carved finials at the corners. The rectangular table top opens up to reveal a playing surface, supported on a baluster column and four cabriole legs with floral carving. 1850-60.
PRESS CUPBOARD
This massive cupboard is made of oak, and is decorated with architectural style motifs. The design is completely symmetrical, in keeping with the Neoclassical style. The Lipper section of the cupboard consists of a moulded cornice, which projects above a carved frieze. Pilaster supports are positioned either side of two trained doors, which are designed
to resemble those found in Classical architecture. Below this are four narrow drawers. The lower section of the cabinet consists of two small cupboards with heavily inlaid and carved doors, also flanked by fluted pilasters. The whole piece is supported on a base that contains a further four drawers. Such an impressive piece would have belonged to a wealthy household. Late 19th century.
UNIFICATION AND RENAISSANCE Reworking of historical styles was characteristic of German and Austrian furniture design at this time. The same Gothic, Rococo, and Renaissance revivals that informed furniture design in Paris and London diffused through the continent far more quickly after the development of an integrated rail network in the mid 19th century. After the eventual unification of the German states under Bismarck in 1871, there was a general reappraisal of the roots
of German culture, creating a fusion of traditional vernacular design with these wider European trends.
Just as the United States embraced the Neo-Renaissance style after winning their independence from Britain, German designers developed a particular affinity for the style following the Franco-Prussian war in 1871. Known as the Granderzeit, this style continued to be popular into the 20th century, remaining fashionable in some circles in parallel with the
more radical jugendstil. New wealth, industrialization, overseas trade, and colonial acquisitions all contributed to a burgeoning confidence in the
new German state.
GOTHIC STYLE
The German Gothic revival, a lighter and fussier aesthetic than its British counterpart, often featured boullework – a product of Louis XIV’s France
rather than of the
medieval period.
The German version of the Gothic style was more elaborate, making use of multiple colours where the original French version had been predominantly monochrome. A carved oak bookcase designed in Gothic style by Austrian cabinet-makers Bernardo de Bernardis (1808-68) and Joseph Cremer (1808-71) was displayed at the Crystal Palace exhibition in 1851, and afterwards it was presented to
Queen Victoria by Emperor
Franz Josef.
Ebonized cupboard This piece is richly decorated with Meissen porcelain mounts, the most prominent being the oval panel on the cupboard door. They have chased gilt-metal borders and depict courting couples. The cupboard has a rectangular top with conforming gallery and is flanked by four polychrome, floral-decorated detached columns above turned, bulbous feet. c.1880.
PORCELAIN MOUNTS
GERMANY MAY NOT HAVE BEEN AT THE CUTTING EDGE OF EUROPEAN FURNITURE DESIGN IN THE MID I 9TH CENTURY, BUT THE PORCELAIN MOUNTS PRODUCED WON INTERNATIONAL ACCLAIM.
Ever since Meissen produced the first European porcelain, Germany has been a market leader in the ceramics industry. During the mid 19th century, enterprising cabinetmakers undertook to harness this resource and combine it with their own stock-in-trade. Cabinets decorated with porcelain mounts were not an entirely new concept - Oriental craftsmen had been making furniture with applied ceramic plaques For centuries, although their minimalist designs
were a far cry from the elaborate models produced in Germany. In France, Sevres plaques had been used to adorn cabinets on occasion, but it was in Germany that the most celebrated examples were made.
The carcases of these cabinets were roughly constructed from pine in Renaissance forms. An ebony veneer or, more usually, a coat of black paint provided a suitably dark ground on which to mount elaborate porcelain plaques, pillars, and feet: the dark wood acted as a foil to the richly decorated white ceramic. The best examples, many of which came from the Meissen factory, were hand-painted with scenes taken from 17th-century paintings with antiquarian or folk themes. The public appetite for these cabinets was vast, and William Oppenheim won widespread acclaim for an example he exhibited in Paris in 1878 For the Royal Dresden Factory.

Glass is distinguished from other materials by its transparency.
People like glass because of its shine and the way drinker.
glass refracts the light that passes through it. Glass is also extremely practical. It does not allow liquids to permeate it and is a poor conductor of heat. On the other side of course is glass’s only disadvantage — its fragility. Glass today is something modern humankind takes for granted. There is an involved process before glass objects reach the consumer.
Glass is formed by heating various metal oxides and quartz. In addition to the raw materials of glass (quartz and borax), there are also alkaline substances (potassium or sodium oxide). These make the silicates indissoluble.
The right composition of substances for glass is the result of centuries of experience. Glass was probably first made about 4,000 years ago — perhaps discovered in ancient Egypt by chance.
The production of glass was then a relatively straightforward process. The glass-makers first smelted glass in earthenware vessels over an open fire. The glowing pieces of glass adhered together and were then plunged into cold water where they splintered.
These shards of glass-like material were known as frit. The frit was then ground between millstones under powdered when it was smelted once more to achieve the desired result.
This principle was in use until some time after 1500. Old illustrations often show two glass furnaces: one is for the initial smelting of the raw materials and the second for melting the powdered frit.
The production of glass was changed in the eighteenth century in Britain. Coal replaced wood for the glass furnace but this turned the glass yellow from the sulphur dioxide that is released. This meant that glass had to be smelted in a sealed kiln.
This also made it more difficult to keep an eye on the smelting process. A solution was found by producing softer glass mixtures.
Means of decoration
Glass can be decorated in a number of ways. The most direct method is to apply layers of other glass or to mark the surface during the glassblowing process while the glass is soft. Such results depend on the skill and artistry of the glassblower. Glass has been blown since early times and had reached a state of high art in Roman times.
There are various waysin which glass can be decorated during blowing. One way is to add small pieces of glass or `prunts’. Another way is to spin the glass of the same or contrasting colour so that it forms a spiral on the glass surface. Many of the varying techniques are based upon centuries old traditions.
An entirely different way of decorating glass is to enamel or paint it.
This technique does not rely on the artistry of the glassblower. This is done with either ‘cold’ or fired enamel. Glass can also be gilded with precious metals such as silver or gold. Further ways of decorating glass are by cutting or engraving it. Glass is engraved with a diamond which ‘draws’ a design on its surface and it can also be stippled (a Dutch invention) with either a diamond or softer stylus.
Different effects can be created by making either open or dense stipple marks.
Glass has been cut since early times but etching was discovered by the Swede Sheele who notice that the acidic gases of hydrogen fluoride ate in to glass. Glass can also be ‘etched’ by sand-blasting. Encapsulation is done by placing objects in glass while it is still soft that then become fixed in the solid glass. This method was especially popular in Europe between 1800 and 1850.
Glass production from east to west
The production of glass spread to other countries from Egypt around 1000 BC. The techniques were extensively improved between the sixth and second centuries before Christ.
A very important discovery was made at Sidon in Syria in the first century before Christ – the glassblower’s ‘blowing iron’.
This enabled objects to be made of thin glass. It was a technique that spread throughout the Roman empire to Italy and Spain to the west but also to Gaul (France), Britain, and Germany in the north. The major glassblowing centres were established along the Rhine and in Gaul (France).
Production in the east
In common with many other techniques, glass-making was also largely forgotten following the fall of the Roman empire but this was not true in the east. The most important glass-producing region was Byzantium where new techniques were also developed that can be seen in cut and engraved goblets, bottles, ewers, and mosaics of the era.
Arabs were extremely fond of glass embellished with gilt or enamel and major Arab glass centres were Damascus and Aleppo in Syria.
Very fine coloured glass goblets, bottles, ewers, lamps, and dishes were made in these towns between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries. These were often decorated with bright painting.
Persian glass-making took over the leading position in the fifteenth century and Persian glass even influenced Spanish glass. Surviving Persian glass from this era consists mainly of bottles of green or blue glass.
Medieval European glass
Glass production in the former western Roman empire after its fall only survived in Gaul (France), Germany, Flanders, and Britain.
In the early Middle Ages the preference was for decoration with grooves, flattening, and decoration with ‘threads’
of glass. Several new types of object appeared such as `trunked’ and ’studded’ beakers. Otherwise just simple medicine bottles were made from green glass that was far from perfect.
Glass production even went into decline in the ninth century and many in Christian countries regarded glass as a heathen product. After all the heathens used bottles for their ‘pagan’ burials. Pope Leo IV even banned the liturgical use of glass. Not everyone was of the same opinion.
Bishop Isidorus of Seville in Spain wrote a treatise about glass based on Naturalis Historiae, written by the Roman Plinius. The monk Theophilus wrote an extremely important work about glass —probably during the late tenth or early eleventh century, somewhere along the Rhine.
In a piece about the art of glass he described the constituents of Roman and Asian glass, wrote down many legends, and described the process of glassblowing in great detail.
Venice
Sometime around the birth of Christ, glass was produced in northern Italy. The technique was maintained by cloistered orders and spread from these during the Middle Ages throughout Europe. It was in this region that the one of the most famous glass-making centres was established.
Benedictine monks in Venice specialised in making bottles by the year 1000. Following the conquest and pillage of Constantinople by the crusaders in 1204, many Byzantine glassblowers sought to escape to the powerful trading city of Venice.
They strengthened Venetian glass-making with techniques such as glass mosaics. The first thin and hollow glass-ware and first glass jewellery were made in Venice in about 1250. Soon afterwards the production of glass became a monopoly of the Venetian state. The glassblowing works though were forced to move outside the city. With their extensive use of fire they threatened the safety of the city and hence were moved to the island of Murano.
The first reports of exports of glass from Venice are also recorded around 1250. They also made optical glass for spectacles and window glass.
A great deal of glass incorporating soda from burnt seaweed was made in the fourteenth century. The Venetians also began to make latticinio glass with thin white threads around 1400. The Venetians were also known to make golden coloured glass by chemical means and other colours too with copper and cobalt.
They also decorated their glass by `burning’ colours into it. This is very characteristic of fifteenth century Venetian glass. In the sixteenth century the Venetians mainly decorated their glass with patterns of opaque white threads. Vegetal and abstract designs were also created on the thin-walled soda glass.
In addition to clear cristallo glass, Venice also made opaque white lattimo glass that was translucent but not transparent, millefiori containing tiny rods of coloured glass, and frosted glass with a cracked surface. The glassblowers also produced all manner of decorative forms with glass. The chemical composition of Venetian glass was a secret with severe penalties for anyone who revealed the procedures to make it. Despite this, many Venetian glassblowers left for other parts in the early sixteenth century and became involved abroad in the production of imitations of Venetian glass. Excellent copies of glass d la facon de Venice were made in Spain, France, and the Low Countries. These are so good that it is very difficult to determine whether a piece is made in Venice or elsewhere. The main differentiation is that the metal (body of the glass) of the imitations is not so clear, fine, and thin as that produced on the Venetian island of Murano.
Developments elsewhere in Europe
In Bohemia and Germany they also tried to join in Venice’s success. The glass works there only flourished after the Middle Ages. Many attempts were made in France employing Italian immigrants to make totally transparent and clear glass. Dutch glass makers began to make diamond engraved fluted glasses in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and it was the Low Countries too that made glasses with a characteristic ‘winged foot’. It was also quite common for glass made in one place to be decorated elsewhere.
BOHEMIAN AND GERMAN FOREST GLASS
The extensive forests of Bavaria were home to many glass works. The production area lay within an area bordered by the Thuringia and Bavarian forests, and the Alps and Fichtel mountains. Because of iron and potash in the raw materials the glass produced was mainly green.
New types of glassware were created that were primarily functional with the main output being glass beakers but ink pots and alchemists’ and apothecaries’ jars were also made.
This was often decorated with prunts and molten threads of glass. Glass was also decorated with bizarre relief forms. All these products were small icrean size in the fourteenth and fifteenth century. Larger pieces were noss bt made until the sixteenth century.
The most widespread of these are so maigelein: shallow beakers of blown gas
A 17th century Dutch green Romer glass. This type first appeared in the 15th century.
of which the bottom is pressed inwards. There were also much larger Pasglas measured glasses, beakers in the form of cabbage stalk, beakers with finger grips, and vertically ribbed cylindrical beakers. The classical slim and tall beakers of Bohemian glass were made in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Their small stems are externally decorated with prunts of molten glass. The Romer glass was first made in the fifteenth century. These wine glasses were extraordinarily popular in the Rhineland. A bellied glass, shaped like an onion with a curved neck consisting of several plaited tubes of glass also appeared in Bohemia in the late Middle Ages.
ENAMELLING
Every glass works outside Italy strived to improve on Italian glass with their local products but the shape of their glassware is clearly different from that of Renaissance Italy. This is because of different local drinking customs. Wine was drunk in Italy but north of the Alps people mainly drank beer. This caused different demands of glasses. The Humpen beer glasses were made from the middle of the sixteenth century.
At first these were conical in form but later only cylindrical Humpen were made. This latter type had a low sole and sometimes also had a hinged lid. The style of painting was intended to give the impression of an Italian product and this also helped to mask the imperfections in the glass.
Enamelling was commonplace on sixteenth century central European glass. The best period for this form of decoration was reached in the earlier seventeenth century. The quality of glass was then improved through the addition of chemicals.
Another category of glassware was the beakers that bore the owner’s crest of arms.
These were also monogrammed and dated. Others, known as ’state eagle’ Humpen were decorated with the German state arms. Quite separate from these glasses though were the Fichtel mountain ox-head glasses that were painted with pictures of the wooded hills from which the Eger, Main, Naa, and Saale rivers rise. Old and New Testament references, fables, and allegories were also common painted decorations in both the Renaissance and Baroque eras.
Although enamelled glass originally came from Venice it gradually became the speciality of central Europe. This method of decoration was used for more than 250 years.
Spun stem Dutch glass. Spinning a thread of glass of the same or contrasting colour around a glass core is one method of decoration.
Enamel became less expensive in the later seventeenth century so that ‘ordinary’ citizens were able to buy it. Finally it became a product for the masses and when applied to milchglass became a cheap alternative to porcelain.
Finding out the origins of a piece is no easy matter. There are countless different types with regional and local characteristics but these became less pronounced as glassblowers moved to work at different places.
PAINTED TRANSPARENT GLASS
A new manner of decorating hollow glass objects was introduced in the later eighteenth century using transparent enamels instead of opaque ones. The porcelain artist Samuel Mohn of Dresden was the first to use this technique.
His ‘friendship’ glasses are painted with portraits, landscapes, allegories, and verses. He customarily signed his work with Mohn fecit. His son, Gottlob Mohn, established himself in Vienna in 1811 and signed himself G. Mohn in Wien. His first work was the painting of town views.
The Viennese porcelain and glass artist Hothgasser took up this popular subject, working mainly on bell-shaped glasses on long branched stems. He mainly signed his work with his monogram between the ‘teeth’ of the branched stem.
Sometimes though he used his full signature on his glasses. These were given as a present or friendship’s token, or served as souvenir. Kothgasser’s glasses with playing cards were very popular around 1875. Kothgasser’s work was in great demand and hence widely copied but reproductions are easily spotted by the naive compositions and lack of technique.
BOHEMIAN ENGRAVED GLASS
The process of engraving was already known during Roman times but the ancient technique was re-invigorated during the sixteenth century in southern German with fresh demand for this style of decoration. This arose because of exports of engraved crystal from Milan. The so-called ‘mountain’ crystal was rare and hence expensive. This led to people in southern Germany deciding to apply the decorative technique used with crystal on glass. Lehmann One of the most famous engravers is
Kasper Lehmann, engraver to the court at Prague. Until recently he was even deemed to have been the ‘inventor’ or glass engraving.
Engraved ginger glass, circa 1700. Although known since Roman times, it was not re-introduced until the 16th century, in southern Germany. Engraved glass became very popular in the north of the Low
Countries.
He established himself in Prague around 1600 and in 1609 he gained a monopoly from the king for the engraving of glass. Lehmann had a number of students, including Georg Schwanhardt, the most important of them, who returned to his home town of Nuremberg following Lehmann’s death. There were many engravers working in this town but each had his own area of speciality.
Schwanhardt mainly worked with Venetian-type goblets, although Venetian glass itself is not suitable for engraving because it is too fragile. Glass with lime added was used for engraving. This sparkling glass was clear and pure with strong refractory properties. It became known as Bohemian crystal.
Bohemian ‘crystal’ was discovered between 1670 and 1680 more or less simultaneously in three glashutten in southern and northern Bohemia. Knowledge of the process spread quickly throughout Bohemia.
Painting with enamel was depressed here by engraved Bohemian ‘crystal’. The first decorations were copies of motifs used in Venice. Because of the high quality of the new material it quickly became a formidable competitor for Venetian glass. Traders not only succeeded in selling Bohemian glass throughout Europe, it was also shipped to other parts of the world.
When the engraving switched to the Baroque style Bohemian glass was even more successful.
SILESIAN ENGRAVED GLASS
The successful formula of Bohemian glass works was also followed in Silesia. The works of Count Schaffgotsch were very important to this region. The glashut in Hermesdorf in particular produced some fine pieces. This was due to the engraver Friedrich Winter who engraved a series of friendship goblets and beakers there after 1690.
The engraved glass from the works at Lobkowitz in Wiesau and Warmbrunn were also of exceptionally high quality. Silesian glass is characterised by the narrowing at the bottom of the drinking vessel. Although Bohemian glass itself was of higher quality, the exceptional Silesian engraving was better than that of Bohemia.
Glass production was advanced following Prussia’s capture of Silesia from Austria in 1742. Glass production in Silesia and Bohemia began to become less significant in the mid eighteenth century due to a number of factors. These included a smaller market through European wars that had caused economic collapse and also a reduction in the size of the market through the development of porcelain and lead crystal. Superb glass goblets made way for simple beakers. Both form and decoration were simplified and more suited to the new circumstances.
The Bohemian glass industry searched for a way to emerge from the crisis.
One of their developments was milchglas that was supposed to compete with the rapidly growing market for porcelain. Entire sets of tableware and drinking services were produced from 1760 to the mid nineteenth century by works at Harrachov in Bohemia.
The opaque ‘milk glass’ was much cheaper than porcelain but could emulate it in both form an enamelled decoration.
GERMAN DEVELOPMENTS
The discovery of the addition of lime to forest or potash glass in Bohemia was also important for the German glashutten.
This was especially true of those works of the electors of Saxony and Brandenburg which bordered Bohemia. Silesian experience in both glass making and engraving was utilised at Brandenburg works at Potsdam, Berlin, and later also at Zechlin. Potsdam attracted Martin Winter, brother of the highly regarded Helmdorf engraver.
The glass specialist and alchemist Johann Kunckel was given the task of researching the best composition for glass. He is credited with discovery of Zwischengoldglas or ‘gold-ruby’ glass. Other gifted engravers also worked for Brandeburg glass makers in addition to Winter.
Glass from this time is solid and heavy. The foot or stem, drinking vessel, and lid were decorated with leaf motifs. Pieces were lighter after 1720 under the influence of the engraver Elias Rosbach. Zechlin glass though (which had gilt medallions melted into its surface) remained fairly robust.
Knowledge of how to produce Bohemian glass spread via Nuremberg northwards. Important centres were established at Brunswick and Hesse, while the glashutten of Thuringia were also important parts of the German glass industry. Just as with porcelain, the electors of Saxony also initiated establishment of glassworks in their domain.
The Saxon works copied Bohemia so precisely that their glassware closely resembles Bohemian glass. Saxon glass though uses slightly different forms, such as horizontal, diagonal, and faceted rims on the stem and underbelly of the bowl. There is a difference too in the gilded relief and gilded engraving
‘RUBY GOLD’ GLASS
In addition to engraved glass, Bohemian glass works also produced ‘ruby gold’ glass or Zwischengoldglas during the prime era for Baroque style. This type of glass had been known in Roman times but forgotten. Following its rediscovery by Johann Kunckel in Brandenburg, Bohemian glass makers also started to make it. The same type of decoration was employed as was used for Bohemian `crystal’.
This consisted of engraving, silver gilt or gilt leaf motifs placed between two layers of glass. Only a few pieces were double layered at that time.
English lead crystal and Dutch glass
Around 1750, glass that was stabilised with lead became important in Europe. The heavy lead ‘crystal’ was well adapted to practically-shaped pieces following
Painted glass box, circa 1850. This type of movingly painted glass boxes were made in Friesland in the Low Countries Classical lines. Lead crystal has unique properties.
It is absolutely clear and is decorated in an entirely different way. By use of a diamond cutting disc a large number of facets can be created that cause light refraction — acting as a series of prisms. Dutch glass was extensively engraved with diamond cutters and lead crystal became extremely popular there. After 1750, some exceptional Dutch pieces were made by stippling the glass with a diamond.
The solid goblets used for this purpose were partly imported from Britain.
Nineteenth century glass
Bohemian crystal found a strong competitor with English lead crystal cut glass. This was because the lead crystal was ideally suited to the forms of the fashion for Classicism. The Bohemian glass makers reacted by adopting the English cut-glass technique but Bohemian glass was not suitable for cutting. The consequences were therefore limited and the technique was restricted so that cutting remained solely an extension to engraving. The subjects for engraving were determined by the current fashion and this can be seen by the motifs used.
Count Georg Buquoy of Neugrdtzen in southern Bohemia became very taken with Wedgwood’s ‘Egyptian Black’. In common with Friedrich Egermann in Haida, Neugrdtzen began making black Hyalith glass that was mainly decorated in a golden chinoiserie style.
The wares included carafes, coffee services, dishes, and vases. Egermann created Lithyalin, a different form of opaque glass that resembled jasper and agate. Like these stones it could be facet cut. Egermann’s glass works also used a golden yellow glass paint that he invented. This was used on goblets and beakers from 1820. Egermann’s greatest achievement though was his contribution to the enriching of glass.
With the help of copper he was able to create cheap imitations of expensive
golden-coloured ruby glass. Glass makers sought an ever greater range of colours and forms for their wares. On the one hand they attempted to improve the process of applying coloured glass to a clear glass base while on the other they sought to develop new methods.
This led to a new technique in which several layers of coloured glass were applied to a base. It was a process that had originated in China. By cutting away parts of the different coloured layers, all manner of colour effects could be created. The use of several layers of milchglas was particularly popular. With this, when a pattern had been cut out it was further decorated with enamel.
Bohemian glass companies exported lots of this type of ware in the 1850’s. Around 1820 the Bohemian glassworks also made glass that was smelted with embedded plaster or porcelain with portraits of famous persons. From 1830 onwards the glass market changed radically because of the major changes in how glass was made. Until that time each piece was individually crafted by a glassblower. During the nineteenth century factories began to press mould glass. This process made it possible to mass produce glass making.
The artistic level of the output dropped of course but commercial considerations were generally more important than aesthetic ones. Very few managed to avoid this trend. One who did was the Viennese artist Ludwig Lobmeyr, who owned a quality glass making works in Steinsch6nau. He was one of a group of artists who opposed the levelling down and increasing lack of taste of the mass produced wares.
This group studied ancient and exotic forms of glass and this led to their works making new types of glassware with simple and functional shapes. Before this trend gained wider acceptance though it was consumed in an even more radical movement that swept Europe under the Art Nouveau and Jugendstil names. The artists A. Daum and E. GaI16 gave glass-making back its individual power of expression and returned to the old traditions. In the United States Louis Comfort Tiffany was inspired by oriental and classical glass. His work was widely admired and echoed in Europe.
One glass works that copied his lead was the Liitz works at Klostermiihle in Bohemia.
Glass and jewellery
Glass paste and beads were used for jewellery back in the age of the ancient Egyptians. Alexandria supplied the then known world with glass beads during the
ancient Greek civilisation and during the Roman empire. The strings of beads made with them were of different colours. The glass was decorated with wavy melted threads of lighter-coloured glass. The production of beads spread through Constantinople and the other towns of the Roman empire to Europe.
Venice was an important production centre for glass beads in the eleventh century. Imitation gem stones had been made in Bohemia as early as the fourteenth century. In the eighteenth century
Louis XIV style mirror of the 19th century.
They also started to make glass beads. Production of glass beads had started in the German Nuremberg in the sixteenth century followed by the Fichtel mountains area of Bavaria in the seventeenth century, and soon afterwards by Potsdam and Thuringia.
Bead production of importance got under way in France in the seventeenth century.

Antique Engraved Glass

Engraving, whereby a decorative pattern is finely cut onto the surface of the glass, dates back to Roman times. The very earliest types of engraving were diamond-point engraving, which involves scratching fine lines into the glass with a sharp instrument (usually a diamond stylus), and wheel engraving, where the design is cut into the glass by means of a rotating
wheel. Stipple engraving, a more sophisticated form of diamond point engraving, where patterns of tiny dots rather than lines at used to create a shaded design, was first used from c.1621 acid etching, which involves burning a design out of the top layer of glass with acid, evolved with the invention
hydrofluoric acid c.1770 and was widely used in Britain.
Although glass was engraved from Roman times, and examples of fine engraving exist on 15th–century Venetian glass, the widespread use of such techniques as diamond-point and stipple engraving dates mainly from the second half of the 16th century. These techniques were introduced to decorators in the Low Countries by itinerant Venetian glassworkers. Wheel engraving was first used in Germany in the late 16th century.
DIAMOND-POINT AND STIPPLE ENGRAVING Diarnond-point engraving, in which the design or decoration is scratched onto the surface of the glass by a sharp diamond stylus, is particularly suited to thin-walled glass too hard to withstand wheel engraving. It was the only engraving technique suitable to
be used on delicate cristallo glass. Diamond-point engraving was therefore quite common on 15th-century Venetian and later facon de Venice (”in the style of Venice”) glass. However, the technique did not reach its apogee until it was taken up in the Low Countries during the 17th century, where it was carried out by both amateur (those who decorated glass as a hobby) and professional glass decorators. Anna Roemers Visscher (1583-1651) was an amateur glass decorator in Amsterdam, where she engraved delicate designs of flowers, fruit, and insects, as well as lines of poetry in calligraphic script, on beakers and Romer (a type of drinking glass). Another distinguished amateur glass decorator, Willem Jacobsz van Heemskerk (1613-92), in Leiden, produced most notably free-flowing calligraphic designs on such wares as bulbous serving bottles and jugs. Among the best-known professional engravers was Willem Mooleyser (active 1685-97), from Rotterdam, who used diamond-point engraving on bowls, flasks, goblets, and Romer.
In stipple engraving, which is a development of diamond-point engraving, a stylus is very gently tapped on the glass to make a design built up of small dots; these dots create areas of light (dense areas of dots) and shade (sparse areas of dots) to create the delicate design. The detail may be so fine that the design will Only be seen clearly when the glass is held to the light. Common designs include portraits and allegorical Subjects. Examples of stipple-engraved glass are rare,
as the technique is slow, extremely difficult, and requires great skill and patience.
As with diamond-point engraving, the most notable designs were produced by glass decorators from the Low Countries. Visscher introduced the technique to The Netherlands c.1621, but perhaps the best-known exponent was Frans Greenwood (1680-1761), an amateur glass decorator in Dordrecht who employed the technique exclusively from c.1722. He incorporated floral and fruit motifs and also copied designs from contemporary mezzotints and paintings. One of his followers was David Wolff (1732-98),
), a painter who
produced his own designs and portraits. Some of Wolff’s pieces are signed and his style inspired other artists towards the end of the century; such pieces are commonly known as “Wolff” glass. Another follower of Greenwood was the painter and engraver Aert Schouman ( 1710-92). Greenwood, Wolff, and Schouman all mainly worked on glass thought to have been made in the factories around Newcastle-upon-Tyne in northern England, which made a soft glass that was better suited to the stippling technique than the more brittle soda glass.
WHEEL ENGRAVING
In wheel engraving, a mechanical wheel fed with an abrasive paste (typically a mix of oil and emery) is used
cut a design onto a glass surface. The technique, which has been used since Roman times, is best suited
thick-walled pieces, because the depth of the cut is an essential part of the design. The modern technique was probably developed between c.1590 and 1605, at the court of the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph 11 in Prague, by the gem engraver Caspar Lehman 15-0-1622), who engraved plaques and beakers with portraits and allegorical subjects.
In Bohemia a new type of glass known as “lime” glass, in which chalk lime carbonate was added to the batch to give a strong, colourless crystal suitable for deep engraving, was developed c.1683. At about the same time water power was introduced to drive the wheels, and this also enabled deeper cutting. Especially notable is the work of Dominik Biemann (1800 1857), whose training at the Prague Academy of Drawing is reflected in his fine engraved portraits on beakers and medallions. Of particular note are the Baroque pokals lidded goblets) decorated with Hochschnitt (”high cut”) engraving by the Silesian Friedrich Winter (d.C. 17 12). One of Lehman’s pupils was Georg Schwanhardt the Elder 1601-70), who left Prague for Nuremberg where he established a workshop and founded a dynasty of skilled engravers, including his son Heinrich (1624l
The technique was further developed in the 19th century, as Bohemian craftsmen pioneered a process whereby glass was overlaid with a layer of glass in a different colour and then wheel engraved to show the design in the colour of the first laver. Two lavers of glass were standard, but sophisticated pieces were composed of up to four layers. Such pieces demanded great expertise, as each coloured layer cooled at a different rate, and with each additional colour the risk of cracking increased. Common decoration included forest and hunting scenes, rural views, and castles. However, most sought after are special commissions such as portraits of famous people, battle scenes, and important buildings. Highly skilled Bohemian craftsmen travelled across Europe, so many pieces of this type were produced in various countries.
Towards the end of the 19th century some fine wheel-engraved pieces with Hochschnitt and Tiefschnitt (incised or intaglio) decoration were designed by J. & L. Lobmeyr (est. 1823) in Vienna. The firm produced copies of 18th-century designs and worked in Classical and contemporary styles. Leading engravers who worked for Lobmeyr included Karl Pietsch ( 1826-83), Peter Eisert ( 1828-94), and Franz Ullmann (1846-1921 ).
Engraved glass was also produced in Sweden. In the 20th century some outstanding pieces were made at the Orrefors factory (est. 1898) in Orrefors, in the Sul Aland region. In 1916 Simon Gate ( 1883-1945) was brought in as a chief designer, and he was joined the following year by Edvard Hald (1883-1980). Gate’s designs typically feature elegant Neo-classical figures,
while Hald’s figures are more caricatured and are mostly shallow engraved. Between 1928 and 1941 Vicke Lindstrand ( 1904-83) also worked for Orrefors, producing stylish and elegant designs.
Diamond-point and stipple engraving
• CONDITION diamond-point engraving should be shallow, with ragged, slightly broken lines, minor damage will not greatly affect value of early pieces
• BEWARE copies were decorated by
enthusiastic
amateurs in the I 9th century; when dated there is no Confusion, but undated older glasses can be misleading
Marks
Diamond-point pieces may he signed on the foot or in the design
Wheel engraving
• TYPES OF GLASS 19th-century Bohemian coloured glass Was a popular base; this glass should feel heavy
• DECORATION late 18th-century pieces feature formal designs; heavy, ornate engraving is typical; high-quality pieces have elaborately cut, ornate feet

Coloured glass
Coloured glass is made by adding metallic oxides to the glass batch. This technique was widely practised in ancient Egypt and Rome, where brightly coloured glass was often favoured over clear glass. In the 15th century opaque white glass, slightly translucent glass, and glass in imitation of hardstones were produced in Venice; in Bohemia glass in bold colours of blue and
ruby-red was widely produced before 1800. In the 19th century, with advanced technical and mass production methods production was much more widespread with notable firm operating not only in Italy and Bohemia but also in Britain France, and the USA. Experimention with new staining any overlay techniques produced a wide array of coloured designs.
EARLY GLASS
The Egyptians experimented with coloured glass, exploiting their extensive trade routes to acquire the necessary materials. Ancient Egyptian glass comes in a myriad of bright, pure colours. One of the most common was bright turquoise blue, coloured by adding copper oxide to the batch. Antimony and tin oxide, imported from Assyria, were used to colour glass an opaque white, while pure opaque yellow was trailed over dark blue core-formed objects, with white or pale blue, and
combed into festoons or feathery patterns and zigzags. Fine alabastra (bottles or flasks) known as “gold-band” incorporate stripes of real gold.
The Romans continued to experiment with coloured glass, producing most famously dark blue glass overlaid with opaque white and cut with cameo decoration. Mosaic glass was made from brilliantly coloured canes of glass cut into tiny slices and fused together in a mould. Most coloured glass was blue, although purple and amber pieces are also found. Much excavated Roman glass will have an iridescent surface; this is the result of a chemical reaction with the metal oxides in the earth after the glass was buried. Roman wares include bowls, bottles, flasks, and cups.
VENETIAN GLASS
From the mid-15th century the sophisticated know-how of Venetian glassmakers gave rise to many different types and effective combinations of coloured glass. In the late 15th century a “milky” opaque-white glass made by adding tin oxide to the batch was developed. This glass (known as lattimo in Italy) resembled porcelain, and it became particularly popular in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, when imported Chinese porcelain was in vogue. From the late 15th century a fine marbled glass known as “chalcedony” ” or “agate” glass was created by mixing together coloured opaque metals to resemble hardstones. Opaline glass, which was slightly translucent and less dense than opaque-white glass, was probably first made in Venice in the 17th century by the addition of oxides and the ashes of calcified
bones to the batch; when held to the light it can be distinguished from opaque-white glass by a red or yellow tint, which is known as the “fire’
BOHEMIAN GLASS
In the 16th century a distinctive dark-blue glass was produced in Bohemia by the addition of cobalt oxide. The clear vivid body colour was a perfect canvas for the brightly coloured naive enamelling popular at that time. At the end of the 17th century a deep pink glass was invented by by Johann Kunckel (c.1630-1703), a chemist and director at the Potsdam Glasshouse (est. 1679). The colour was produced by adding gold chloride to the batch. This “gold-ruby” glass (known as “Kunckel red” or, in German, Rubinglas or Goldrubinglas) was also produced in Nuremberg and other glasshouses in southern Germany. Gold-ruby glass was decorated with engraving, cutting, or gilding, and was considered a luxury product.
• MAIN AREAS OF PRODUCTION ancient coloured glass was made in Egypt and Rome; it was produced from c.1450 in Venice and from the 16th century in Bohemia
• TYPES blue glass; porcelain-like “milk” glass; coloured glass in imitation of hardstones; opaline glass; gold-
ruby glass
• FORMS densely coloured pieces may appear heavy bodied
• COLOURS ancient glass: many pieces have dark blue bodies sometimes with yellow and white decoration
• COLLECTING ancient Egyptian glass is very rare and valuable; generally colour will not play an important part in its value; gold-ruby glass is rare and valuable
Bohemia
The 19th century was an age of experimentation in glass technology. Glassmakers, some of whom were also skilled chemists, developed new colours, new ways of applying colour, and innovative techniques to produce glass
The most celebrated types of Bohemian glass from this period are “Lithyalin”, “Hyalith”, stained, and flashed glass.
LITHYALIN AND HYALITH GLASS
Count Georg Franz August Langueval von Buquoy 1811-1851), the owner of a number of glasshouses in southern Bohemia, produced an opaque black glass c.1817, which was inspired by the black basalt wares produced from the end of the 18th century at the Wedgwood factory (est. 1769) in England. In 1819 lie produced another dense opaque glass, known as -Hyalith”, usually in sealing-wax
red or jet-black. Hyalith was usually decorated with gilding.
Von Buquoy’s experiments may have inspired Friedrich Egermann (1777-1864), who in 1829 at his factory in Haida, northern Bohemia, patented “Lithyalin” glass, a polished opaque glass that resembled hardstones, which he continued to produce until 1840. The surface of the glass was brushed with metal oxides to resemble veining and marbling. Strong colours are typical, especially red; more unusual are dark-green, blue, and purple. Wares were usually cut and polished and occasionally gilded or enamelled. Lithyalin glass was used mainly
~, vases,
for purely decorative items, notabl
and scent bottles. Lithyalin glass was also produced at the Harrach Glassworks (est. 1`14) in Neuwelt (now Novy Svet in the Czech Republic), and by Hautin & Co. in France. Although these copies are difficult to distinguish from pieces by Egermann, they are usually slightly lighter in colour.
STAINED, FLASHED, AND OVERLAY GLASS Egermann also invented an effective and inexpensive method of colouring glass with a
thin stain of colour, which was called flashing. This involved painting a clear object with a stain and firing it at a low temperature to fix the colour. This gave a solid, even, pale colour. Egermann is particularly noted for his yellow coloured stain, developed in 1818 using silver chloride, and his ruby-red stain, perfected in 1832, using gold
chloride and copper oxide. Wares were often cut through to the thin colour to reveal the clear glass beneath.
In casing – a technique reinvented by Egermann –the glass vessel is covered in a differently coloured glass and then fired; as the glass cools, the two layers fuse together. Some pieces were “double-cased”, i.e. dipped into two differently coloured batches of glass to give a multicoloured effect. The flashing technique is sometimes confused with casing as the terms were used interchangeably by some glassworks; however, in casing the layers of glass are much thicker. If there is a sharp line between the two colours, this suggests flashing, whereas shading or thinning between two colours suggests overlay. Flashing and staining are characteristic of 19th-century Bohemian glassmakers as they are inexpensive methods of colouring glass and thus well suited to the mass-produced wares made during the 19th century.
OTHER COLOURED GLASS
During the 1820s and 1830s a series of
industrial exhibitions held in Prague gave rise to the development of other types of coloured glass, including violet, pink, green, and blue. Further experimentation with colour in the early
I 9th century sparked the discovery in Bohemia of other ways to colour glass. Of particular note is the work of Josef Riedel (active 1830-48), who in the 1830s used uranium to produce a vivid fluorescent greenish-yellow (Annagriin) and yellowish-green (Annagelb) glass, both named after his wife Anna. However, this glass was mildly radioactive, and the process was later abandoned.
Lithyalin and Hyalith glass
• CONDITION ceramic restoration techniques are often used, so repairs can be difficult to spot
• COLLECTING display vessels such as vases and bowls arc most common; display cups and saucers and pieces with gilt oriental and chinoiserie decoration are rarer; lithyalin overlaid on dark-green hyalith is valuable
Flashed, stained, and overlay glass
• CONDITION check pieces carefully, as damage is often hard to detect on coloured glass; good condition is vital
• COLLECTING the condition and depth of the colour determine the value; beware when collecting blue stained glass as it fades easily and can lose value
Other Bohemian coloured glassTYPES
• vivid green Annagriin and Annagelb glass
Britain, France, and the United States after 1800
Coloured glass was widely produced during the 19th century in Britain, France, and the USA. In Britain two important events gave a new impetus to the manufacture of coloured glass in the middle of the century. The first was the removal of excise tax on glass in 1845, which encouraged makers to experiment with new techniques and styles, among them coloured glass. The second was the Great Exhibition held in London in 1851 at which glassmakers from Europe and the USA were keen to show their new skills and techniques. In France glassmakers at all the major factories manufactured coloured glass in a range of styles and forms, and in the USA firms experimented widely with colour, producing an extensive range of designs, most characteristically in delicate pastel shades with subtle
BRITAIN
All blue, green, and amethyst glass produced in Britain from the end of the 18th to the middle of the 19th century is generically described as “Bristol” glass. The most characteristic colour is a brilliant royal blue, produced by adding cobalt oxide to the batch; such glass is frequently embellished with cold gilding. Drinking glasses were generally green, ranging from grass green to a turquoise green. Amethyst glasses are rare, but when found the colour is true and clear, with no sign of red, unlike the plum tone found on later Victorian glass.
In the mid-19th century the influence of coloured glass manufactured by well-established glass companies in Bohemia became increasingly visible in the products of British factories. Not only did important Bohemian factories such as the Harrach Glassworks (est. 1714) in Neuwelt (now Novy Svet in the Czech Republic) exhibit quantities of coloured glass at the Great Exhibition, but Bohemian glassworkers were also employed by British factories where, freed from the constraint of having to produce wares in traditional styles, they were able to manufacture very exciting wares in an outstanding range of new colours.
In the late I 870s a type of
type
opalescent glass, known as
“Vaseline” glass due to its greasy,
vaseline-like appearance, was developed
in Britain and designed to resemble 15th-
and 16th-century Venetian glass. The opalescent colour was produced by using tiny amounts of uranium together with other metal oxides to create shades of yellow, green, blue, and, more rarely, red. Stevens & Williams Ltd (est. 1847), of Brierley Hill, near Stourbridge, was one of the leading innovators in the field of patent colours and colour combinations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The company’s rare double-cased “Rockingham” ware is particularly sought after, as are the Bohemian-style
pieces with alternating panels of engraved colour-flashed and clear glass produced by WIT.,
B. & J. Richardson (est. c.1836), also near Stourbridge. Amber was the most commonly used colour for the vases, decanters, and claret jugs in this style, although some pieces were also produced in purple, green, and red.
Gold and uranium oxides combined with sodium nitrate were used to manufacture the “Queen’s Burmese” range of glass by Thomas Webb & Sons (est. 1837), near Stourbridge, patented in 1886. Queen’s Burmese was inspired by the “Burmese” glassware patented in 1885
by the Mount Washington Glass Co. (est. 1837), in South Boston, Massachusetts, and favoured by Queen Victoria who ordered a set – hence the name. It had a body colour that shaded from a pale lemon-yellow (sometimes light green) at the bottom through to salmon-pink at the top. Some pieces feature enamelled and gilded designs. Although Queen’s Burmese ware was made by other British companies – including WIL, B. & J. Richardson –pieces by Webb are the most desirable. Typical wares include vases, posy bowls, and lampshades. Another type of glass introduced by Webb was “Peach” glass, a type of cased glass that shaded from pink through to a deep red.
A Tazza
The tazza is a distinctive Venetian form of serving dish. The revival of 15th- and 16th-century Venetian glass forms and styles of decoration was started in Venice during the mid-19th century and gradually spread throughout Europe. In Britain the Revival was supported by William Morris, who disapproved of the heavily cut glass prevalent at the time. One of the leading British manufacturers of Venetian Revival glass was James Powell & Sons (est. 1834), which produced “Vaseline” glass wares similar to the example shown above, and in delicately tinted glass from the 1870s.
FRANCE
In France, the Baccarat Glassworks (est. 1764 as the Sainte-Anne Glassworks) in Baccarat, near Luneville, Lorraine, produced glass c.1880 in a distinctive, delicate shade of pink known as “tinted-rose”.Many
wares feature acid-etched Classical decoration. Another fashionable trend was the production of coloured opaline glass, a semi-opaque white glass, opacified by the addition of the ash of calcined bones and coloured with metallic oxides. The Venetians had been the first to introduce this translucent glass, which was later made in Bohemia and Britain, but the French opaline glass first produced c.1823 at Baccarat was more translucent. The finest French opaline was made at Baccarat, at the Saint-Louis Glassworks est. 1767) near Bitche, in the Munzthal, Lorraine, and at the Choisy-le-Roi Glassworks (est. 1821) in Paris. Wares were made in delicate pastel shades such
as turquoise, pink, and pale green, and include pairs Of vases with enamelled decoration, and vases, jugs, and dishes of inventive forms, often with coloured cane rims. Saint-Louis Glassworks made many pieces IT soft pink or blue, with latticinio decoration and glass cane rims.
THE UNITED STATES
Throughout the 19th century American glass manufacturers launched and developed a range of innovative coloured glass. One of the most popular and now widely collected colours is the transparent “Cranberry” glass, which has a distinctive raspberry pink tint, first produced in the glassmaking region of Stourbridge in England. Huge quantities of useful and ornamental wares were made, most notably at the Boston & Sandwich Glass Co. (1826-88) in Sandwich, Massachusetts.
However, it was only during the 1880s, when there was a move away from cut and pressed glass by the leading glass manufacturers, that they began to experiment in earnest with a more sophisticated range of coloured art glass. One of the leading companies at this time was the Mount Washington
Glass Co., which launched the widely copied and enormously popular “Burmese” glass in 1885. Most Burmese glass has a satin finish, although some has a glossy surface, and is characterized by subtle gradations of shading from a light lemon at the bottom of the piece to a delicate pink at the top. In 1883 the firm of Hobbs, Brockunier & Co. (est. 1863) in Wheeling, West Virginia, developed “Peachblow” glass and incorporated it into its range of coloured wares. This cased glass is a warm buttery yellow at the base shading through to a purplish-red at the top and is lined in a white opal glass. Peachblow was made at other companies, including the New England Glass Co. (1818-90), originally in East Cambridge, Massachusetts, which called it “Wild Rose”. New England was also notable for its “Amberina” range of glass, which it produced as “Pressed Amberina”. Both Wild Rose and Pressed Amberina were developed by Joseph Locke (1846-1936), an English glassworker, who emigrated to the USA in 1882. Patented in 1883, Amberina glass contained small amounts of gold, and graduated from pale amber at the base through to a rich fuschia at the top. It was made until 1900. Hobbs, Brockunier & Co. also made Pressed Amberina under licence from the New England Glass Co.
France
• MAJOR FACTORIES Baccarat, Saint-Louis, Choisy-le-Roi
• TYPES pastel-coloured opaline glass and wares with decoration are most notable
• COLLECTING wares by Baccarat are sought after
Marks
Saint-Louis: this mark was used from 1870 to the present day; some pieces marked “Argental” or Munzthal the German for Argental, often with a tiny cross of Lorraine
The United States
• COLLECTING Cranberry glass: very popular with
collectors; later Cranberry tends to have a less warm hue and a bluey tinge when held to the light
Marks
Mount Washington Glass Co.: mark used on Burmese ware from the 1880s
New England Glass Co.: Amberina ware; mark used from 1880s
Britain
• TYPES Bristol glass, overlay glass, Vaseline glass, decorated opaque and opaline glass
• BEWARE there are many early 20th-century copies of Bristol glass: beware of glasses that are larger than usual (more than c. I Ocin/4in high) and thin glass
Marks
Thomas Webb & Son

Art Deco Glass
After a decline at the end of the Art Nouveau period, art glass became popular once again during the inter-war years. France was the leader in design and innovation, with the prolific Rene Lalique being the foremost glassmaker in the Art Deco style. Functional pieces were very often turned to purely decorative purposes, and Lalique’s moulded, opalescent, or frosted glass,
ranging from vases to architectural panels, spawned a gre many imitators. In the USA the Steuben Glass Works produce fine engraved stemware. Moulded glass was usually max produced and sometimes hand-finished; makers also used such techniques as enamelling and engraving to embellish glass -will the fashionable stylized motifs of the era.
Lalique, Daum, and Marinot Glass
European industrial decorative-glass manufacturers of the Art Deco period, most of which operated in France or Bohemia, were primarily influenced by the work of Rene Lalique ( 1860-1945). Many chose to copy his style and techniques, making clear or opalescent glass vessels and statuary with a frosted finish. The wealth of output provides a wide range of choice for collectors, and many focus on only one category, or even on one colour or motif. The present-day market is similarly led by Lalique prices, and most glass by other manufacturers, found throughout Europe, North America, and beyond, rarely rises above decorative value.
RENE LALIQUE Glass
Lalique began glassmaking in 1910, having already established a successful career as the leading jeweller of the Art Nouveau period, and in 1921 took over a large glassworks at Wingen-sur-Moder in Alsace to produce his designs. He was a prolific designer, and made an enormous variety of items, ranging from , and tablewares to clocks, lighting, and architectural panels. Most of his work was machine-made to a high standard. Lalique relied on metal moulds for casting or mould-blowing glass, and many items, particularly panels and larger vessels, show evidence of “chill marks”, or ripples, on the surface. Mould seams were often left, or only partially polished off. Certain objects, including vases, were made by Lalique himself (rather than by the workshop) using the cire perdue (lost-wax) technique. Since the mould has to be broken in order to retrieve the glass, each cire perdue cast is unique, and such items are highly collectable.
The majority of Lalique wares, and virtually all architectural panels, lighting, and table glass, are clear with a frosted or partially frosted surface. Opalescent glass was also used. Some vases were produced in colours, including amber, electric blue, and black, and these command
premium prices. Lalique created various forms of lighting, often in inventive shapes or containing geometric or figural decoration. Clear or opalescent light bowls are generally more desirable than those of a Yellow colour. Lalique designed several hundred perfume bottles, the rarest and best of which are as valuable as some coloured vases. Other categories of collectable interest include the range of 27 automobile-hood ornaments (car mascots), made from 1925 to 1932, boxes, inkwells, ashtrays, and letter seals.
THE INFLUENCE OF LALIQUE GLASS
Marius-Ernest Sabino (1878-1961) produced a wide range of vases, statuary, and lighting from c.1923 until the closure of his glassworks in 1939. Much of his work clearl displays the influence of Lalique; however, few examples are as finely executed as Lalique wares, nor were Sabino’s designs as imaginative. The best examples are in deep, opalescent glass of milky blue. Most popular are the highly stylized figures of women, while coloured vases, mostly black or smoky topaz, have a limited following. Sabino also
produced car mascots, often copies of designs by Lalique. Reproductions of Sabino’s wares using the Original moulds have been made since the 1960x.
Edmond Etling &- Cie (active 1920x-1930x) commissioned moulded opalescent glass, comparable in standards of design and manufacture to Sabino. Figures of draped female nudes produced during the mid-1920s, often in a pale-bluish tint, are especially collectable, with values rivalling Sabino and lesser Lalique. Other typical subjects were animals and ships, and some vases were also produced.
Other French glassmakers in Lalique style include the firm of Verlys, which operated in France and the USA; Andre Hunebelle, who specialized in lighting and frosted vases of geometric design; and the firm of Genet & Michon, makers of innovative lighting, frosted architectural panels, and vases. A large variety of frosted glass, geometric-patterned
glass geometric-patte lampshades, and hanging lights is reproduced today and can be found at reasonable cost.
DAUM GLASS
The factory operated by the Daum family in Nancy from 1875 to the present day produced some of the best and most distinctive French Art Deco glass of the late 1920s and early 1930s. Daum Specialized in artistic Art Nouveau overlay and etched glass until the
1920s, but introduced new lines in the Art Deco style before 1930, mostly under the direction of Paul Daum. The two most characteristic types of Art Deco Daum glass are the mottled and the acid-etched lines.
Mottled glass was usually of amber colour, often with golden metallic inclusions, and was used for vases and some lamps (which are far more desirable than vessels), blown into heavy metal armatures. The typical wrought-iron metalwork may be signed “Edgar Brandt” or attributable to the firm of Louis Majorelle 1859-1926) in Nancy. Daum glass of this type is relatively low in value as pieces tend to be cumbersome and a little sombre.
Vases, bowls, and table-lamps in heavy, thick-walled, vividly coloured glass with deeply acid-etched decoration are the most collectable Art Deco Daum. Colours include green, amethyst, amber, turquoise, and grey; monumental vases in “electric” colours, particularly bright blue and vibrant yellow, are highly sought after. Matt and polished surfaces were sometimes combined. Value is directly in proportion to the depth and complexity of the etched decoration; vessels with shallow, sparse decoration tend to be of later origin and are relatively inexpensive. Pale colours and a smoky grey arc also indicative of late origin (possibly post-World War II). Table-lamps are usually in thick, clear glass with a frosted or grainy surface texture and vertically etched grooves forming a geometric, abstract pattern. Lampshades are bullet-shaped (the more popular) or mushroom-shaped. Any authentic Daum etched table-lamp is of considerable value, particularly if it is of large scale. A few- shades of similar style were also made, but are generally less popular than lamps.
MAURICE MARINOT GLASS
Maurice Marinot (1882-1960) was a painter and glass artist who worked largely independently from c.1911. This glass was not mass-produced and is rarely found on the market; however, it is easily identifiable and widely collected, particularly in Europe. Marinot created mostly functional pieces such as vases, jugs, and bowls, often of abstract, sculptural form, and experimented with decorative techniques such as trapping bubbles or metal foil within thick, heavy walls of glass. Between c.1915 and 1918 Marinot made enamelled glass, which is somewhat less collectable than his later work and consists mainly of pale-coloured or bubbly vases and decanters painted with Art Deco-style flora, fauna, or figures in bright polychrome enamel. Later, internally decorated pieces are often in the form of stoppered bottles (the stopper may be a glass sphere), free-blown in thick, clear glass decorated with bubbling, inclusions, and streaks of colour, and sometimes deeply etched with geometric or figural patterns.
Rene Lalique
• TYPES before 1930: clear glass with partially frosted finish is most common; after 1930: almost all frosted and clear; some pale opalescent and pale yellow/amber colour; designs remained in production after Lalique’s death, when a new crystal glass N as used
• ALTERATIONS authentic but altered pieces of Lalique include vases with ground necks, perfume bottles with “married” stoppers, and opaque vases with “plugged” bases; all designs are recorded in a catalogue raisonne
• FAKES mostly inferior and of poor quality with signatures added; beware of post-war Lalique with the pre-war signature added
Marius-Ernst Sabino
• TYPES opalescent glass using typical Art Deco motifs
• REPRODUCTIONS since the 1960s old moulds have been used to make certain items; the opalescence is more intense than on the originals and map appear “oily-
• COLLECTING large, stylized female figures are the most popular
Etling & Cie
• TYPES most pieces are in opalescent glass, comparable in standard to Sabino
• COLLECTING figures of draped female nudes produced during the mid-1920s 920s are especially collectable; values rival Sabino and lesser Lalique; reproductions in frosted glass were made in France in the 1970s
Marks
Opalescent glass is marked with the name, usually with “France” or “Paris” added
Daum
• TYPES most characteristic are mottled and acid-etched
• FAKES these exist as similar but ulterior pieces, including table-lamps, that appear to be acid-etched hut can be identified as moulded on close inspection
• COLLECTING monumental vases in “electric” colours
with deeply acid-etched decoration are preferred; metal armatures are often cracked and should be inspected
carefully;depth, quality,and complexity of decoration Lire vital for determining value – vessels with shallow, sparse decoration tend to be of later origin and have little value; pale colours and a smoky grey are indicative of later origin (possibly post-World War II)
Maurice Marinot
• TYPES handmade, small-scale items with heavy, thick-walled glass arc most typical; much of Marinot’s work is internally decorated or enamelled
• COLLECTING work is rare and consequently expensive
Marks
All pieces are engraved with the Marinot signature
Other French makers
ARGY-ROUSSEAU AND DECORCHEMONT
The style of the pate-de-verre (glass paste) specialists Gabriel Argy-Rousseau (1885-1953) and Francois-Emile Decorchemont (1880-1971) evolved from the Art Nouveau to the Art Deco during the 1920s. Argy-Rousseau produced vases decorated with stylized figures or geometric patterns in rich colours, together with table-lamps (the most valuable of all Art Deco pate-de-verre), plaques, and some translucent pate-de-cristal vessels. Popular Argy-Rousseau Vases were produced in large numbers, each one being hand-finished; motifs included Egyptian and mythological subjects. The output of Decorchemont, whose work is less collectable than that of Argy-Rousseau, is mainly in pate-de-cristal, often of bluish tone. Small vessels of Neo-classical form are typical. External decoration is subtle, and may be in the form of geometric engraving.
GOUPY AND HEILIGENSTEIN
Working from his Paris studio between 1918 and c.1936, Marcel Goupy (1886-1954) designed glass and ceramics sold mostly through the gallery of Georges Rouard in Paris. Goupy glass includes thin-walled vases, decanters, and goblets in clear or pale monochrome glass, painted with stylized flora, fauna, or figural decoration in semi-matt polychrome enamels. Auguste-Claude Heiligenstein (1891-1976) was an assistant to Goupy at Rouard from 1919 until 1926; he produced enamelled glass for several firms and independent commissions until the mid-1930s. Heiligenstein specialized in figural decoration, often featuring Neo-classical women in translucent enamels. Colours are naturalistic, often predominantly bluish and sometimes edged in gilt. Forms include vases, decanters, and pendants.
Other French Art Deco glass artists who used enamel decoration include Andre Delatte, who worked near Nancy in the 1920s and made mostly vases in opaque, bright colours. In his best pieces the decoration combines etching overlay with polychrome enamel painting. The firm of Muller Freres (est. 1895) in Luneville made speckled glass comparable to Daum c.1930, which may be fixed with metal armatures. The most valuable glass of this type was used for a series of lamps in the form of animals.
LESSER-KNOWN MAKERS
French Art Deco glass by small or lesser-known makers is widely available and varies greatly in quality. The unique, deeply acid-etched sculptural work of Aristide Colotte (1885-1959) in clear crystal ranks among the highest achievements in Art Deco decorative glass, but not widely collected. Similarly, the strikingly Modernists geometric glass desk items designed by Jean Luce (1895-1964) arc not greatly sought after, despite the practicality. Luce also designed glass for the ocean liners of the Compagnie Generale Transatlantique
(C.G.T.). Other Art Deco glass includes the
popular range of vases, lamps, and other wares
produced by Charles Schneider (1881-1953) from
c.1918 until the early 1930s. Most is of mottled.
bubbly glass mould-blown into heavily walled
vases and bowls. Vessels of this type, which may have applied feet or handles of contrasting colour, are common and of relatively little value. Schneider produced vases and a few table-lamps as “Lc Verre Francais”, typically in overlay glass etched with Art Deco decoration.
Argy-Rousseau and Decorchement
• WARES before c.1920: mostly small, Art Nouveau pieces, including jewellery and ashtrays; after c. 1920: larger items, including vases, in a more symmetrical style
• CONVERSIONS attention should be paid to large vases,
which may have been drilled for lamp attachments
• RESTORATION this may be visible on heavy, opaque pieces through transmitted light, and reduces value
• COLLECTING rich, deep colours and well-defined decoration are most desirable; heavier vases are popular
Goupy and Heiligenstein
• DECORATION polychrome enamelling
• COLLECTING Goupy: large-scale works and figural work are his most collectable pieces
Marks
Goupy: enamel or gilt script in the design or on underside of foot; Heiligenstein: most have an enamel or gilt signature, dates, and title of decoration
Lesser-known makers
• COLLECTING Luce: desk items arc popular with Art Deco collectors; Schneider: mould-blown vessels are common and of relatively little value; large pieces, geometric forms, lamps, and pieces with applied elements are the more valuable Schneider wares

Most American glass made during the inter-war years was in traditional style and of press-moulded manufacture, but inexpensive interpretations of French glass, particularly that of Rene Lalique (1860-1945), were popular during the early 1930x. American glass of this period is rarely found outside the USA, as it was not exported; a thriving network of American-glass collectors exists, but there is virtually no interest in this type of Art Deco glass elsewhere in the world.
STEUBEN GLASS
Steuben Glassworks (est. 1903) was founded in Corning, New York, by the Englishman Frederick Carder (1864-1963). Steuben is the most prestigious and highly regarded American glassmaker, partly owing to its elegant and distinctive work in the Art Deco style.
Before 1933 Carder designed much of Steuben’s ware himself; after that date most Steuben Art Deco glass was designed by John Monteith Gates (6.1905) or
Sidney Waugh (1904-63), who worked almost exclusively in clear crystal. Steuben glass is not Modernist or avant-garde; vase forms are typically restrained, often of Neo-classical or Chinese inspiration. Engraved decoration is impressive, comparable to that of contemporary glass made by the Swedish firm of Orrefors (est. 1898). Much of the engraving is figural, featuring slender forms with subtle, geometric stylization. During the late 1930s and 1940s Steuben also produced a range of heavy, cast, clear crystal animals, some in geometric Art Deco designs, for use as bookends and paperweights; these are highly collectable today. Decanters, often with air-trapped stoppers, are also common.
Stemware, bar items, and a few elegant vases designed for Steuben by the leading industrial designer Walter Dorwin Teague ( 1883-1960) in the early 1930s are considered among the most innovative American Art Deco glass. Teague’s slender, elegant Art Deco cocktail and wineglasses are comparable in value to the best Lalique pieces.
VERLYS AND CACIQUE-STYLE GLASS
The trademark “Verlys” derives from “Venetic d’Andelys”, a French glassworks (est. 1920) in Les Andelys, Lure, founded by the American Holophane Glass Co. However, from c.1933 until 1955 most decorative Verlys wares were made in the USA, and pieces are often found on the market there today. Verlys ware is growing in popularity in the USA and also has some market in Europe. Typical of the factory’s output arc press-moulded vases and bowls, mostly with symmetrical patterns evocative of Lalique, in deep-bluish Opalescent glass. Smoky-grey, blue, and pink are rare and generally less popular; even the best designs have values comparable only to those of the plainest Lalique. From 1926 the Consolidated Lamp & Glass Co. of
Coraopolis, Pennsylvania, produced an inexpensive range of mould-blown vases and some figural plates in the style of Lalique under the direction of Reuben Haley. Production continued on the same site – trading as the Phoenix Glassworks – until the 1940s, under Reuben’s son, Kenneth Haley.
“RUBA RHOMBIC” AND DEPRESSION GLASS Between 1928 and 1933 the Consolidated Lamp & Glass Co. produced a stylish line of vases and table glass called “Ruba Rhombic”. Examples are highly collectable, although the line was relatively inexpensive when first produced. Liqueur sets and small vases in smoky grey are most common. Collectors focus on vibrant or rare colours such as green, yellow, lavender, and black. It is estimated that fewer than 1,500 pieces exist today.
Ruba Rhombic is the finest of the so-called “Depression” glass that was produced by scores of regional firms, and consisted mostly of heavily moulded kitchen- or tableware in pale monochrome, sometimes in the Art Deco style. Depression glass is collectable in the USA but remains very affordable.
Steuben Glassworks
• FORMS Neo-classical or Chinese-style vases, clear crystal animals,decanters with air-trapped stoppers; Art Deco stemware, vases, and barware by Teague
• ORNAMENT engraved, stylized figures or fauna
• COLLECTING elegant Art Deco cocktail and wineglasses are most valuable
Verlys
• FORMS press-moulded vases and bowls, with Lalique style symmetrical patterns
• COLLECTING becoming increasingly popular; opalescent colours are more desirable than smoky grey, blue, or pink
Phoenix Glassworks
• STYLE some copies of, or attempts to emulate, Lalique are found, but they can be distinguished by their light weight, poor definition, poorly finished rims, sugary frosted texture, and use of matt, pastel staining, sometimes in two colours
• COLLECTING as yet of no significant value

Ruba Rhombic glass
• FORMS angular, heavily moulded vases and tableware, mostly= pale monochrome
• COLLECTING angular “Ruba Rhombic” pieces in vibrant or rare colours such as green, yellow, lavender, and black are most desirable

The period of Eclecticism,
The Biedermeier style is regarded as the last creative style of the nineteenth century. Furniture makers had started casting their eyes back to examples in classical antiquity during the period of
It became fashionable to decorate and furnish in oriental style at the end of the nineteenth century. Furnishings such as carpets and rugs, vases, mother-of-pearl decorated furniture, and divans were widely found at this time.
The heroic style of the first Napoleon was overwhelmed beneath a welter of large upholstered pieces and drapes in the France of Napoleon III.
This excess and ostentation covered up a lack of creativity on the part of the citoyens who now held the leading positions in industry and commerce. This also brought about an increase in mass production. The flood of cheap and indiscriminate furniture led to a marked reduction in fine hand-made furniture by craftsmen. This process was also hastened by the attitude of the schools for the applies arts.
Eclecticism manifested itself in virtually every branch of the arts. Only Michael Thonnet contributed new creativity at this time. He discovered in about 1830 that it was possible to make thin lightweight sheets of oak veneer which could be bent and laminated in order to make furniture. He bent laminated sheets of oak veneer with the help of steam.
Another raw material which was also popular in the past for making lightweight chairs is rattan.
Jugendstil, Art Nouveau, and Art Deco
Opposition to Eclecticism arose in the late nineteenth century. The imitations of old styles and tasteless mass produced items were detested. Artists formed themselves into groups in many countries and strove for pure craftmanship and simple art. Above all objects were to be functional, original, and logically constructed.
Munich became an important centre in this movement. A publication entitled Die Jugend was established there and this gave its name to style which arose: Jugendstil.
This was more of a movement and trend than a style in itself with many different approaches in different countries.
An important group formed around John Ruskin in England for which the social aspect was also important. The emphasis was placed on craft traditions that still existed and had done so since the Middle Ages. The Arts and Crafts movement, as it was known, placed its main emphasis on craftmanship in the making of pieces. Another group of artists in Scotland, led by the architect Charles Rennie Macintosh, went its own way. Another important centre was Vienna where Sezession was formed, under leadership of the artists J.M. Olbricht and Gustav Klimt.
France had been pushed into the background during the previous period of furniture making and Art Nouveau arose as an innovative movement which tied in with activities elsewhere at that time. The main centres of French Art Nouveau were Paris and Nancy.
The British Arts and Crafts movement had hardly any effect on France and certainly none on its furniture designs. Hence the French developed a style of their own. French artists produced many delightful decorations with elegant and original designs, using expensive materials. Generally these new styles started from a standpoint that the eclectic character of nineteenth century furniture was pompous. The new designs were therefore lighter, more transparent in their construction, more fluid, and more `honest’. The silhouettes used were still of classical origin. Decorative elements were drawn from nature and the extent to which these were then stylised depend on the individual movement. This can be seen in the difference between Jugendstil and French Art Nouveau. Jugendstil’s decorations are more naturalistic than the stylised forms of Art Nouveau.
Major names of furniture designers of the time are Van der Velde and Horta in Belgium, Bugatti in Italy, and Louis Majorelle and Emile GaIIe in France. The German makers included names such as tioners in Britain. In addition to Macintosh, another great name from around the turn of the century is C.F.A. Voysey.
A further detail tends more towards Art Nouveau.
The Viennese Werkstatte was led by Josef Hoffmann who found himself drawn to the work of the Scot Macintosh. In common with other centres, the artists of the Werkstdtte did not fully subscribe to the ruling ideas of either Jugendstil or Art Nouveau. They did not consider that only traditional hand-crafting was valid and they also used machinery. Reproductions of the popular main great styles continued to be made up to the outbreak of World War I.
The styles of the French Kings Louis, Sheraton, and Chippendale continued to be very popular and not everyone admired the modern art approach of Jugendstil and Art Nouveau. After World War I a new style was discerned — Art Deco. Art Deco absorbed much of Art Nouveau but rejected its adherence to hand craftmanship and expressly chose to machine make objects. It was not furniture of the mid eighteenth century that inspired Art Deco designers, rather than that of Louis XVI and the Directoire at the end of the century.
The influence of Cubism can be readily seen in the modern designs of this time.

Classicism, Empire, and Biedermeier
England
English furniture makers between the sixteenth and eighteenth century adopted both the ornamentation and forms of continental furniture, although with a British tendency towards modesty and simplicity. There are three main periods of English furniture. The first is the Elizabethan era in which solid oak dominates. This lasted into the reign of the Stuarts. At this time Dutch furniture, which had much in common with the character of the English pieces, was imported together with luxury Flemish and French furniture.
The first new era of a distinctive English style was that of William and Mary when walnut was widely used.
The form of chairs brought over from the Dutch republic were adapted. The fretwork backs were raised in height and given scrolls. Fabric upholstery was replaced with harder woven seats and chair backs. Other types of chairs also evolved from this original type. A bench with a back was also created (a settee), a two-seated bench (double stool), and small sofa, known as a lover’s seat. These types were made well into the eighteenth century.
Oak furniture was often covered with walnut or other veneers and decorated with inlays. The Dutch example of tulips, other flowers, and birds was also adopted.
Both the cabinet and secretaire on turned legs were important pieces of furniture, which were fitted with drawers. Both marquetry and lacquer along the Dutch lines were popular between 1680 and 1720. Things continued in this vein until 1750.
The most important piece of furniture though was the chest of drawers, made in the form of a low or taller commode.
The wide and curved cabriole leg was very popular during the reign of Queen Anne (1702-1714) but was being replaced by 1710 with the bull and claw foot. The ubiquitous English Windsor chairs has neither of these characteristics.
THOMAS CHIPPENDALE
English furniture making was significantly altered in 1754 by Thomas Chippendale. He preferred to work in mahogany and had taste preferences drawn from French and Asian examples. But he was also inspired by native English Gothic. He brought together Rococo shells for instance with late Gothic elements.
Chippendale produced a number of types of table including reading tables, bookcases closed at the bottom and enclosed with glazed doors above, card tables, glazed dressers with a taller central section, three-part cabinets, a small table on bowed legs, a round folding table, and bureaux or writing commodes.
His commodes shared a curved front with those of France. But his greatest love was probably for chairs. Following on from his Chinese and Gothic influences he produced chairs with square legs and the merest hint of decoration. All his creativity went into the decoration of the backs of his chairs.
The curved central `splat’ of the back was fretcut and carved in the form of woven leaves and flowers, with curls, scrolls, `ribbons’, and loops.
ROBERT ADAM
Robert Adam gained great fame in the subsequent stage of English furniture design. Adam used Classicism in a very decorative way.
His semi-oval commodes have their front decorated with painting and extremely fine marquetry. The painting took the form of banding, garlands and laurel wreaths, mounted trophies, oval forms, urns, and columns.
Robert Adam’s storage furniture with its geometrical lines was made solely using light-coloured timber. This was mainly sandalwood. The top leaf and stringers of tables were decorated with either carved or burnt in patterns. These too utilised simple geometric motifs.
SHERATON AND HEPPLEWHITE
Thomas Sheraton and George Hepplewhite differed from Adam. Both made different types of cabinets but instead of using carving they preferred to see the natural figure of the grain of the wood.
Both Sheraton and Hepplewhite had a hand in the development of several types of table and they also made bureaux with cylinder locks, dressing tables, tables for placing against a wall, and bedside tables.
In common with Robert Adam they gave considerable attention to the backs of the chairs they made. Sheraton made the simpler type of chair, using sober, fitted for the purpose, and geometric designs. After 30 years as a furniture maker he reintroduced the use of rush seats for his chairs.
Hepplewhite in turn introduced the Prince of Wales feathers or ears of corn designs into the oval framing of his chair backs. More pointed oval forms and heart shape panels were also used by Hepplewhite.
ENGLISH REGENCY
The great flourishing of English furniture making drew to a close at the end of the eighteenth century. The English Regency period is considered by some as a mere variant of the French Empire style. It was not again until the 1860’s that English furniture once more emerged with fresh ideas.
France — Louis XVI and Empire
A new style arose in France out of the Louis XVI style known as Empire. It was directly derived from the Napoleonic ideal of a Roman Empire.
French ebenistes were not greatly inspired by theexamples from classical antiquity given by wealth of treasures uncovered by excavations.
Fortunately it was an era of artists with vivid imaginations and this included the architects P. Fontaines and Christian Percier who drew on the classical past for their designs for interiors, covering walls with carpet or colourful silk. Classical
Early 19th century mahogany half-moon table.Antiquity was glorified at this time so that artistic concepts of these idealistic days gained a romantic heroic overtones. This expressed itself through an almost pathetic level of ostentation, which was revealed in interior furnishings.
It is striking how similarly Empire furnishings are worked, making them readily distinguishable and rather uniform in appearance.
The furnishings were uncluttered and derived their form from architecture. The solid looking furnishings are strongly symmetrical with straight lines.
The Empire style also expressed itself in the design of furniture for the rooms. Important elements for Empire furniture are the cornices, pilasters, and columns
The decorative mouldings of acanthus stems, dolphins, egg and tongue mouldings, nymphs, laurel wreaths, lions, palmettos, sphinxes (which referred to Napoleon’s Nile expedition), urns, and swans created their own identity.
Empire style tables were fairly lavishly made for a range of purposes. Many four-legged tables served as writing desks but there were also bureaux with shutters and desks with pedestals.
Ordinary tables were round as was the case in ancient Greece and Rome. But tables were also made in various polygonal forms. Initially the table top was borne by a carved figure but this was later replaced by a plain columns with inlay and bronze capitals The wash stand also evolved.
A separate leaf was added for a water jug and the wash basin was often supported by a swan. The sliding drawer of the dressing table was often fitted with a mirror for hair styling.
Secretaires were an enclosed but compact piece of furniture. Commodes were simples and without curves, with two drawers or two doors. A new item in the bedroom was a large swivel cheval glass mirror or psyche set in a frame on a stand. Considerable attention was given during the Empire period to the design of beds. Although these no longer had canopies they still remained pretentious. Furniture makers happily used a boat form for beds, known as lit de bateau. Matching style bedside cabinets and night cabinets with decorated fronts were also made for such beds.
Chairs and other seating from the Empire period is characterised by an emphasis on woodworking skills and heavy construction.
At first these had round turned legs but later these stood on arched sabre legs. Interiors were also furnished with dumb waiters, plus flower and sewing tables and a bird cage. The strong love of music also meant that pianos were increasingly found that were mainly imported from London and Vienna.
Germany
German furniture making reached a crescendo in style shortly after the French Revolution. It is entirely unfair to compare the German style of this period with the style of Louis XVI.
New directions in art in Germany generally arose from philosophers rather than practitioners. The Louis XVI style had reached Germany by 1760 by way of the Rhineland. German copies lack the same finesse of the French originals and did not fully implement the style.
Furthermore Baroque influences still endured in Germany and affected this new style import.
Furniture from the area around Liege and Achen was much closer to the French examples. Further north in Germany, along the North Sea coast and around Lubeck, the Louis XVI style was diluted by traditional Scandinavian styles.
The heavy in scale white furniture from this region was influenced by the simple beauty of furniture from Sweden and Denmark. German furniture makers were increasingly influenced as the years passed by their English compatriots. Wide use was made in Berlin and Hamburg and other major cities of veneer.
In addition to the use of native wood from cherry, conifers, walnut, and pear, mahogany was imported on a greater scale. Eventually the native timbers were forced to yield to the imports. Types
of furniture dating back to the time of Queen Anne were copied from Britain, such as double commodes, sawing and dressing tables, and bureaux.
These were later followed by bookcases and glazed-fronted cabinets. English style tended to rule until the emergence of Biedermeier.
Display cabinets though were mainly inspired along French lines, largely due to David Roentgen. These pieces were largely made of course for the palaces and castles of the ruling German princes. These were decorated with inlays of animals, birds, and floral still life designs at Roentgen’s instigation.
After some time these designs were supplemented with allegorical scenes and chinoiserie along Dutch lines. The sober way in which ordinary German folk furnished their homes stood in stark contrast with the overwhelmingly ornate interiors of the palaces.
It is impossible to over-emphasize the longevity of the influence of Baroque throughout the whole of Germany. We have seen how English style influenced the north. In Prussian Berlin Karl Friedrich Schinkel was open to both high classical and emancipated popular classical examples. In the south, in Munich, Leo von Klenze was rather more inspired by French style. Vienna in Austria was another matter though. Furniture makers there combined decorative tastes with comfort.
GERMAN BIEDERMEIER
The first tendency towards more approachable furniture for the ‘ordinary’ home could be seen in the work of Klenze of Munich and these were popular with the generations leading up to the revolutionary year of 1848.
Biedermeier style became popular in the German-speaking countries of Germany, Biedermeier style was a counter to the rigid and pathetic Empire. It was inspired by furniture design that was popular with ordinary people around 1800.
The ordinary citizen preferred more approachable furniture with rounded corners and lightly curved surfaces, circles, ovals, and curved broad lines. The popular notion of comfort meant for instance wide sofas and divans. Sets of tables and chairs were given pride of place in the ‘ordinary’ home. Little use was made of bronze encrusted decoration or fittings in Biedermeier furniture. This was restricted to small turnkeys, horns of plenty, and key escutcheons.
In Germany, as in England, bookcases consisted of three parts.
Wardrobes, linen cupboards, and china cabinets had pilasters at their corners and otherwise were entirely glazed. secretaires managed to stay in existence during the Biedermeier period but their style varied from area to area.
The tops of these secretaires were sometimes reminiscent of a cathedral. The inside of a secretaire was subdivided along architectural lines with small drawers, mirrors, and small columns. It is fun to find all the secret cavities.
The most widely used woods were native elements. beech, ash, cherry, and pear plus ‘exotic’ mahogany. Most secretaires were decorated with paintings or veneer.
Furniture was often covered in floral cretonne with intensely coloured roses or with cotton rep. The walls were hung with plain wallpaper or with paper with floral or vine patterns. This made the rooms look busy even before the many items of furniture were added. These included sewing tables, dumb waiters for books and china, and wastepaper baskets.

Baroque Furniture
The principal characteristic of Baroque is its rejection of the rationalism of the Renaissance. Baroque is much more dynamic and lively, particularly with its use of light and shade in the manner of a painter. The design of a piece and its detail were subjugated to achievement of dynamism, which was at the core of Baroque. The eye for the main lines was expressed through the materials used. Wood was inlaid with gemstones or semi-precious stones, tortoiseshell, precious metal, and ivory. Light was reflected by polished wood. Supports were turned as scrolls and an overall impression of curved form was created by the use of projecting pediments, plinths, and cornices. Much use was made of acanthus stems with broad leaves and conch shell motifs.
It is difficult to determine with furniture when Baroque replaced the Renaissance because the two styles co-existed for a time. Furthermore the characteristic Baroque elements only became fully apparent during the late eighteenth century.
France
Most of Europe, with a few exceptions, fell sway to the dynamism of Baroque. France though preferred more rigid classical lines. This found its expression in an individual French style of furniture. It was precisely at this time that greater power came into the hands of the French king and with it a greater role in artistic commissions and hence of trends at the hands of the French court.
The best artists and craftsmen worked in the Royal studios — with the establishment in 1677 of the Manufacture Royale des Meubles de la Couronne. Cabinet making became regarded as an art in itself, with cabinet makers also working as ebeniste (specialist in inlay or marquetry — the name is derived from the
French predilection for ebony inlay) and woodcarver.
In addition to the importance of construction and decoration in the making of furniture, consideration was also given to the location in which the furniture was to stand. The ebeniste, designer of the ornamentation, and the architect all made decisions about the final form of a piece. In the Middle Ages furniture had been largely portable or easily moved but during the Renaissance furniture was made for a more set place in the interior of homes. Now the far extreme was reached in which it was no longer intended that the piece should ever be moved.
A strange schism arose between furniture for the citizenry and very luxurious pieces. This also meant that different materials were used in the making of these different items. Instead of the customary walnut, more exotic types of wood were now used.
A good example of this is the use of ebony, which by the time of Louis XIII was already being decorated with coloured inlays.
The artist Andre Charles, who worked for the court of Louis XIV was exceptionally talented, and stood out from the other ebenistes. In his early period he also used Dutch motifs such as vases of jasmine, roses, and tulips in his mosaic woodwork. Later he was influenced by the designs of Berain and Marot and replaced his motifs with banding linked together with acanthus stems. His designs were formed with both negative and positive inlays such as light pewter in tortoiseshell and vice versa. Later still he replaced the marquetry of the 1660’s and 70’s as it became less fashionable.
The bed was an important piece of furniture as the whole morning ceremony of rising or lever occurred around it. The enclosed square form of the bed remained with four posts and both outer and inner curtains. The bedroom had several ante-rooms attached in which there was much coming and going of court functionaries. The chest was banished from the furnishing of rooms and was replaced by the commode which became popular in France around 1700. The commode was a development of the chest with drawer which Boulle placed on legs. In the French salons table commodes also appeared, set on tall legs, encrusted with inlays of metal and tortoiseshell. These legs were furthermore decorated with bronze mascarons or grotesque masks. The drawers too were fitted with bronze handles which also held the encrusted decoration in the veneer.
The most important piece of salon furniture was a superbly made cabinet with drawes. At first the Boulle cabinets had separate plinths but later these were integral.
Tables were adapted to the considerable demands of the time and there were numerous variations. In common with other furniture, tables too were inlaid with metal and the same was equally true of cashier’s tables, most of which had a small drawer. The older-style baluster legs were considered too plump and were replaced by cabriole legs.
Other rooms than the salons were often used for a number of purposes and as required night and toilet cabinets might be placed in them.
There were also heavy tables with marble tops plus smaller tables for lamps and suchlike. Console tables provided an architectural element.Seating in the form of fa u teu ils (armchairs), tabourets, sofas, and chairs formed part of the interiors of the homes of the wealthy and the aristocracy but cabinets did not. These were found in the homes of the citizenry but the new item of luxury furniture was the bookcase.
Many different types of armchair and chair were made. Armchairs with turned legs were widely used but later these legs were replaced with richly decorated baluster legs. These were joined together
with diagonal carved stretchers or with H-form stretchers but these disappeared with the arrival of cabriole legs.
The backs of armchairs became more all encompassing and were upholstered and rounded off at the top in an arch. The curved arms of the chairs also became upholstered.
French furniture makers were also influenced by English furniture makers. This led to the introduction of the commodite — a kind of wide armchair — into France. The canape was also partially developed from the English day bed or lit de repos.
German-speaking Europe and the Low Countries
Baroque expressed itself in Germany through very excessive and lively inlay and carving and was of considerable influence there. The elements of the Baroque style were incorporated with both imagination and consistency. The output of German furniture makers was equally diverse as German politics. Designs based on the Renaissance endured for a long time but alongside this a new style developed in the palaces, castles, and grand homes of the countless principalities, which adopted a great deal of the influences from elsewhere. Furniture was imported into northern Germany for some considerable time from the northern Netherlands. After the death of Frederick I of Prussia in 1713 late Italian Baroque started to become more widespread and the artistic centre moved to Dresden, which became one of the most important artistic centres in Europe under Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony.
The Bavarian court in southern Germany was strongly influenced by French examples and items such as console tables with French baluster legs and lighter tables in the style of Boulle were made. The encrusted decoration of this maker and also of Marot found favour here too. Cabinets in ebony from Augsburg of this period are exceptionally fine. They have inlays of polychrome stones, ivory, wood, and pietra dura (mosaic of semi-precious stones).
Furniture was largely made from walnut with intarsia inlays of other wood. Great care was taken to ensure that the beauty of the grain of the walnut was revealed to its fullest potential.
The cabinetmakers achieved considerable results in such furniture. German Baroque ornamentation was dominated from the 1660’s by heavy use of acanthus leaf motifs that had replaced conch shell forms, and by small arrow-like columns. Intarsia decorations became figurative from the start of the eighteenth century (bouquets of flowers were very popular) and no longer utilised vines, squares, or rectangular patterns. Baroque became increasingly more valid in Germany and this is clearly apparent with cabinets.
The older-style cabinet on bun feet was drastically altered. It changed into a four-door — later two-door — cabinet with heavy cornice, turned pilasters or columns, and angled fronts.
In terms of furniture, the northern parts of the Low Countries can be considered as an entity with northern Germany, although there were local style variations of course. Hamburg was an important furniture-making centre. The Hamburg four-door cabinet closely resembled Dutch Renaissance cabinets. In addition to these a fine two door cabinet appeared from Hamburg around 1700 with a straight cornice. The faсade comprised large decorated areas with continuous pilasters. A similar cabinet from the Dutch Republic of this time is the linen cabinet for storing pillows.
The partial cornices of cabinets from Dantzig (Gdansk) gave them a less fussy appearance and their square panels were decorated with mythological scenes. By contrast, cabinets from Lubeck had arched cornices. The Baroque influence ensured that cabinets from Holstein and Westphalia were embellished with figurative decorations.
The influence of the naturalistic Dutch floral intarsia decoration remained apparent throughout the eighteenth century. In addition to the main show pieces many painted and non carved pieces were made in northern Germany.
In southern Germany, new life was given to Renaissance cabinets at Ulm and cabinets from Augsburg were smaller and sometimes overwhelmingly decorated. The popularity of the Wellenschrank originating from Frankfurt was great from the beginning of the seventeenth century. This is a simply decorated cabinet in walnut veneer with an attractive curved front. Cabinets were also the most important item of furniture in northern Germany too.
There were various variants of these as elsewhere. Those from Hamburg were decorated with acanthus stems while Dantzig cabinets were smaller with one or two doors.
Commodes with pull-out leaf for writing and bureaux formed important pieces of furniture in the homes of the middle classes. Their chairs had spiral, turned, or cabriole legs and leather seats and these were also used to sit at table.
These chairs had high backs with heavy armrests and were decorated with carved banding and acanthus stems.
Many canopy beds with turned posts had large panels that were usually copiously decorated with intarsia inlay or carving. Gradually beds began to be made without valances.
Carving fell out of favour over the years so that cabinets had large plain surfaces on their fronts which gave them a monumental appearance.

Furniture
The first humans were nomads who moved from place to place and found what they needed about them from what nature provided. When they learned to cultivate the soil humans generally ceased living as hunter-gatherers. They established homes beside their cultivated land and meadows. At first these were simple huts of wood and reed, perhaps daubed with clay or mud. Later some of them learned to make homes built of natural stone and baked clay but this was more the exception than the rule.
The walls of their houses were often weaker than the solid timber doors. It is not surprising then that the ancient Greek word for a ‘housebreaker’ has the literal meaning of ‘he who breaks through a wall’.
Early furniture
Humans only began to make furniture when they started to settle in a fixed place.
Anntiques can sometimes contain surprises. The year 1703 is inscribed in the leaf of this table but when the table is turned around it becomes apparent the top was originally a door (the keyhole can still be seen). Does the date relate to the door or when the table was made?
The early furniture was understandably very primitive and entirely utilitarian but gradually the appearance of furniture also began to have more importance and it became decorated. The furnishings of wealthy households became more refined and unified in style.
Large-scale excavations and research have revealed a rich treasury of information about early cultures. These provide evidence of an abundant variety of design in crafts and architecture. A few surviving fragments of furniture and surviving illustrations show that the early Egyptians and people of Mesopotamia used tables, chairs, chests, and cabinets.
Furniture in antiquity was sometimes richly and extensively decorated. Inlay techniques with gemstones, wood, majolica, and metal were already known. They were not used again widely until the eighteenth century.
The ancient Greeks and Romans had stools, three-legged footstools, easy-chairs, and forms of chaise longue.
There were tables with one to four legs (card tables and folding tables) and also beds, plus large and small cabinets and chests. In Egypt these were made of different types of wood, leather, string, palm fronds, and reed. Luxury furniture was often decorated with glass and majolica with fittings of precious metal.
Greek furniture
Comfort and aesthetic appearance of furniture was intentionally combined in Ancient Greece. In addition to chairs, tables, and chests of widely differing forms they also made high-backed lounging chairs or chaise longues and lightweight portable beds. Typical decorations on such furniture included stylised acanthus leaf motifs, meanders, metopes, eggand-tongue moulding, and parallel mouldings. Following the conquests of Alexander the Great, the Hellenic sphere
This chair of mixed styles is of no value to purists. The back is Louis XV, the legs are Queen Anne, and the sides are Louis XV.
of influence extended throughout the eastern end of the Mediterranean. This led to an interchange between the upper echelons of Hellenic society and the local populace which became apparent in arts and crafts.
THE CLASSICAL INFLUENCE
The Romans made contact with Greece and the Hellenic empire from the third century BC. In the centuries which followed, the Greeks became subject to the Romans but the Romans were in turn conquered by Hellenic culture.
The leading Roman scholars studied Greek and Greek literature and adopted Greek religions. Religious subjects were very important in Greek art and the Romans adopted this too.
Although there were differences between them it is possible to speak of a Greco-Roman classical culture.
The spread of this culture and its longterm influence was of great importance in the civilisation of western peoples and manifested itself in their arts. Think of the furniture makers of the Renaissance and Classicism who harked back to Greco-Roman forms of art. This classical influence has also been felt in later trends in which the specific intention has been to depart from the strictures of classical forms. Examples of this are Jugendstil and Art Nouveau around 1900 which determined to break free of both classical forms and their bombastic derived forms in the neo-styles.
Roman furniture
The Hellenic culture developed further during the rise of the Roman empire. Flexible furniture was made using metal and lathes were already in use. There were many forms of table but these were mostly round. Large pieces were decorated with plaster reliefs of chimeras, lions, and acanthus leaf motifs. Small numbers of folding chairs, tables, and bronze chairs have survived from this period. The Romans also had furniture with shelves.
Medieval furniture
Early Middle-age furniture
Knowledge of the majority of tools and techniques disappeared in Western Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire and were only rediscovered once more in the late Middle Ages. Certain techniques were retained though within the walls of monasteries.
An example is the lathe that once stood in the monastery of St Gallen in Switzerland. Knowledge of this technology and of other techniques spread once more through Europe from the ninth century.
A characteristic of the time was the lack of a fixed home. The rulers (kings and
queens) travelled from castle to castle and took furniture with them that needed to be portable: bed-side cabinets, beds, dining tables, chests, lounging chairs, lecterns, foot stools, three-legged stools, and folding chairs. The many different styles and shapes from the early Middle Ages is the result of localised culture, and the tools and materials available.
The personal tastes of the persons ordering items also differed and hence so did the styles of their furniture. This ranged from outstanding to ordinary, from intricate to simple, from royal to bourgeois or even somewhat rustic.
CHESTS
Chests were very important during the Middle Ages. They were used to keep money in particular but also clothing and tableware in. Northern European chests were mainly of softwood such as deal and other pine. The main tool used to make these were an adze (specialist woodworker’s axe), saw, and perhaps also a plane. These chests took various forms including those with saddle-form lids, elongated chests with decorative but straight moulding, and others that had the form of a coffin.
Middle-Age chests were also the first pieces of furniture to be artistically enhanced with very rich decoration. Northern European wood carving with arabesque motifs and twists was exceptionally imaginative.
New techniques for making furniture were first developed in southern and central Europe and the fronts of chests were embellished with copious curvilinear mouldings, irises, rows of stopped arc-forms, rosettes, and carved decorative mouldings. Iron fittings were not just used to join the wooden planks together but also formed part of the decoration. The few rare pieces from this period are mainly found in museums.
Gothic furniture
The feudal system began to change in western Europe in the twelfth century and standards of living gradually improved. The concept of chivalry, high moral principles, and courtly practices became increasingly more important. The nobility became increasingly more interested in pomp and splendour and much the same was true of the towns and cities, where the guilds in particular were of great influence in the development of the painting as an art form.
The guilds ensured the quality of goods and professionalism of craftsmen. The guilds also kept the various hand crafts entirely separate from each other. New guilds were even formed from within the timber workers’ guilds for joiners, turners, and cabinetmakers who specialised in finer quality furniture. Furniture only became everyday items in the late Middle Ages. Pieces from this period only turn up for sale very exceptionally. The form, design, and standard of joinery often exhibit high standards of craftsmanship. The sawmill was invented in Germany in the early fourteenth century and this enabled cabinetmakers to make lighter and more elegant pieces.
It was now readily possible to saw pieces for the construction of a carcass and furthermore very thin pieces of timber could be cut to use as veneer.
These were used for inlay work of wood of contrasting colours. This development also led to a new style of art arising: Gothic. This first became apparent in the building of churches which we can still enjoy to this day, with great richness of sculpture, slender columns, and pointed arches.
GOTHIC CHESTS AND CABINETS
Chests were still the main form of show in his home for the increasingly better-off citizen. In the fourteenth century these were often decorated with reliefs of heraldic animals but this gradually gave way to a series of Gothic arches and by the late Middles Ages to finials. The type of ornamentation was determined by the wood used and varied from area to area. Timber from conifers decorated with leaf motifs was used in southern Germany, Austria, and Tyrol. Joiners in the Rhineland and North East France decorated pieces with garlands of fruit and flowers, and stylised vine stems. The hardwoods used in England, northern Italy, Scandinavia, and Spain was ideal for carving cruciform decorations and script panels.
Cabinets developed from chests and two chests stood one on another formed the first decorated cabinets, which became the second important item of furniture. A decorative moulding ran through the centre of the cabinet and they rested on a plinth. The first forerunners of dressers were made in Flanders. These were chests with a cupboard set on high legs.
The legs were joined together with cross-stretchers. Metal tableware was stored and displayed on these cabinets which had doors on them.
TABLES
Tables existed in a variety of forms. There were round and octagonal tops on a broad foot, long rectangular tables with broad cheeked supports on which the legs were joined by cross-stretchers. Chest tables and cashier’s tables were made well into the eighteenth century.
SEATING
Little changed with seating. Folding chairs and those with three or four turned legs and also stools remained in use for some time. Throne like backed chairs were also used in France and the Low Countries. These contained storage space, making them part chest/part chair. Benches were lighter and less robustly made. Some of these had folding back rests.
BEDS
The bed was a major eye catcher in the well-to-do home. In northern parts of Europe these had a full or semi canopy over them.
In France and the Low Countries, beds were often fixed to panelled walls.