Posts Tagged ‘louis philippe furniture’

A wall clock is simply a clock that can be fixed to a wall. Lantern clocks of the late 16th and 17th centuries were the first domestic wall clocks, but from the early 18th century large wall-hung clocks were made for taverns, inns, and other public buildings. Wall clocks of the 18th and 19th centuries range from elaborate, gilded French cartel clocks to the mass-produced, wooden-cased clocks of the USA.
LANTERN CLOCKS
A lantern clock is a weight-driven wall clock that strikes the hour on a bell. It is especially associated with Britain, where it was first made c.1620, but versions were also produced in continental Europe and Japan. Made almost entirely from brass – “lantern” may be derived from the old English word “fatten”, meaning brass – the clock resembles a domestic lantern: the square brass case has four small ball or urn feet, an engraved dial plate, three pierced frets, and a bell, covered by four straps and topped with a finial. The chapter ring, showing hours and quarter hours, was very narrow on the earliest examples and extended over the sides of the clock. In the dial’s centre are the maker’s signature and engraved designs – typically foliate scrolls and flower-heads – and often an alarm setting disc. The single hand is usually of iron but may be of brass or blued steel. Hands were “blued” by heating – this process not only strengthened them but also altered their colour to a dark blue-grey that was clearly visible against the dial.
Early lantern clocks were regulated by a balance wheel escapement, but after the pendulum was invented in the mid-17th century, most clocks were converted to or made with the more precise pendulum-controlled verge or anchor escapements. The verge escapement was especially popular throughout the 18th century with provincial makers. Lantern clocks went out of fashion in the early 18th century, but in the 19th century reproductions were made (and old clocks fitted) with spring-driven movements. Some clocks were refitted with balance wheel escapements as lantern clocks have become increasingly valuable in recent times.
TAVERN AND DIAL CLOCKS
Wall clocks for taverns, inns, assembly rooms, and public buildings were first produced in the 1720s.
The first such clocks are known as “tavern” clocks and sometimes erroneously as “Act of Parliament” clocks: in 1797 a tax on clocks and watches was instituted by the British Parliament (although repealed one year later), and this led to the popular misconception that these clocks were placed in taverns for customers who could not afford clocks in their homes. However, most tavern clocks predate this act by several decades. Measuring up to 76cm (30m) in diameter, and with a long trunk for the weight and pendulum, tavern clocks were designed to be seen clearly from a distance, and are usually only timepieces. The earliest examples from the 1720s have virtually square dials with arched tops; these developed into shield-shaped wooden dials. The numerals and chapter ring are usually gilt, and gilt designs
of flowers and scrolls feature in the corners of the dial, often with chinoiserie designs on the trunk.
Gilt finials sometimes ornamented the top of the case, but on some clocks these have broken off. Round dials were introduced in the mid-18th century: the dial itself was initially black with gold numerals, but from the 1770s a white dial with numerals and chapter ring in black was popular. As neither shield nor round dials had glass covers, the numerals and chapter ring are often worn away or repainted. Many round-dial tavern clocks also had black lacquered cases with chinoiserie decoration. From the 1790s lacquered tavern clocks declined and gave way to mahogany cases.
Dial clocks, made from the 1750s, became possibly the most popular style of clock ever produced. Simple in design, they consist of a round dial of engraved, silvered brass (18th century), painted wood (from c.1805), or painted iron (from c.1830), covered with glass and a brass bezel, and housed in a wooden case. The first dial clocks appeared with mahogany cases, but oak, walnut, and rosewood were also used in the 19th century, when these clocks were made by many British, German, and American firms to meet the demand for inexpensive timekeepers in offices, shops, and railway stations.
CARTEL CLOCKS
Cartel clocks are decorative, spring-driven wall clocks that were made in France, and to a lesser extent Britain, Austria, and Sweden, in the 18th and 19th centuries. “Cartel” is probably derived from the Italian word cartella, meaning “bracket”. The clock, with a verge or anchor escapement, typically featured a white-enamelled dial and a finely cast and gilded bronze or brass case. Elaborate, asymmetrical scrollwork, flowers, fruit, and shells are typical of mid-18th 18th century Rococo cases; more symmetrical Neo-classical designs of sunburst rays,masks, and urns were popular from the 1780s. Cartel clocks were produced in Britain on a limited scale from the 1730s to the 1770s; many are copies of French designs but are less exuberant than the Rococo originals.
AMERICAN WALL CLOCKS
Clockmaking began in New England c.1750 and was initially a very small industry, with parts such as dials Imported from Europe. In the early 19th century such clockmakers as Eli Terry (1772-1852) in Connecticut used streamlined methods of production and standard parts to mass-produce inexpensive clocks. As brass was expensive in the USA, movements as well as cases were often of wood. Most wall clocks from before c.1870 are weight-driven, with an anchor escapement.
Although many early American clocks were based on European designs, some distinctive new types were

created in the 19th century. In 1802 Simon Willard
( 17,53-1848) of Massachusetts invented the “banjo” clock, which featured simple but well-made brass movements and a white-painted metal dial. The long trunk, holding the weights and pendulum, was flanked by curved brass frets, with a box at the bottom decorated with verre eglomise (reverse-painted glass) panels. Only about 4,000 such clocks were produced and these are very collectable today.
Simon’s brother Aaron Willard (1757-1844) introduced a variant of the “banjo” clock, known as the “lyre” clock, which had a curving trunk of carved wood and a pendant-shaped bracket at the bottom of the case. In the mid-19th century the clockmaker Chauncey Jerome (1793-1868) of Bristol, Connecticut, designed an inexpensive, 30-hour duration shelf or wall clock known as the “OG” (ogee) clock, which took its name from the shape of the moulding around the dial and door. These mass-produced clocks had cheap brass movements, ogee-moulded veneered softwood cases, white-painted zinc dials, and verre eglomise panels. Early, rare American wall clocks are highly sought after in the USA.
Lantern clocks
• MOVEMENT a spring-driven mechanism indicates a clock made or altered in the 19th century
• CONDITION any shiny or artificially distressed parts are likely to be replacements; these should be good quality in order not to reduce the value
Tavern and dial clocks
• DESIGNS shield-shaped dials are typical of tavern clocks made between the 1720s and 1750s; later versions have round dials
• MOVEMENT dial clocks made before 1800 had verge escapements; anchor escapements were usual thereafter
• CONDITION some repainting of the numerals, chapter ring, and signature is common; clocks with extensive repainting should be avoided
Cartel clocks
• DESIGNS a gilt-bronze or brass case usually indicates a French make; most British versions are of carved, gilded wood
American wall clocks
• DESIGNS verre eglomise panels are typical
• LABELLING few are signed on the dial: instead they often have a label at the back of the inside case

Some of the finest Art Deco furniture was produced in France, where designers reacted against the Art Nouveau style, and were inspired instead by the lines of 18th- and early 19th-century French furniture.
Cabinet-makers such as Jacques-Emile Ruhlmann
1879-1933) created one-off pieces in exotic woods; others were influenced by African and Oriental art,
while from 1925 the machine aesthetic of Modernism gained prominence, with such materials as tubular steel.

TRADITIONALIST DESIGNS
The leading French furniture designer
from c.19 IS to the mid-1920s was
Jacques-Emile Ruhlmann, whose exceptionally fine handmade furniture is an elegantly pared-down version of the Neo-classical and Empire styles, with typical 18th-century features such as tapering, fluted legs. Decorative effect     is provided by exotic wood veneers, sometimes with inlaid ivory, mother-of-pearl, and tortoiseshell. After 1925 Ruhlmann used Modernist materials, such as tubular steel, but continued to work in a traditional style.
Other designers inspired by historical furniture were Louis Sue (1875-1968) and Andre Mare (1887-1932), who in 1919 formed the Compagnie des Arts Francais to produce a range of pieces including chairs, commodes, and desks, typified by massive forms and veneered in exotic woods with carved or inlaid stylized flowers, fruits, and plants. Their designs are heavier in style than Ruhlmann’s, as they favoured adaptations of Louis Philippe furniture of the 1830s and 1840s.
Many leading Paris department stores
had separate studios that provided a complete interior-design service. From 1921 Maurice Dufrene
( 1876-1955) directed La Maitrise, the design studio of Galeries Lafayette, and from 1923 Paul
Follot (1877-1941) was artistic director at Pomone for Au Bon Marche. Follot designed a wide range of  furnishings; urnishings; his furniture, like Ruhlmann`s is based on 18th-century forms, but
is distinguished by giltwood frames and richly coloured, patterned upholstery. Although his designs became more geometric after 1925, Follot continued to prefer wood, gilding, lacquer, and inlay to tubular steel, plastic, or glass.
EXOTIC AND MODERN DESIGNS
The geometric motifs typical of this period were derived from Cubist painting, which itself was influenced by the stylized forms of African masks and sculpture. The
furniture designer Pierre Legrain (1887-1929) took inspiration from African furniture, fashioning traditional designs in Western materials.
The Art Deco taste for Oriental art is evident in the popularity of lacquered furniture, the leading exponents of which were the Swiss-born Jean Dunand (1877-
1942) and the Irish-born Eileen Gray (1879-1976), both active in Paris. Dunand’s early lacquered furniture featured floral designs; his work from the 1920s depicted geometric forms in red-and-black lacquer and sometimes panels of crushed eggshell (coquille d’oeuf). Gray studied lacquering in Paris with the Japanese master Sougawara, and in 1920 she designed a furnished apartment for the milliner Suzanne Talbot, featuring a collection of African-inspired spired pieces. From c.1925, influenced by Modernism, she produced furniture of tubular steel, glass, and aluminium.
The leading designer of Modernist furniture was the architect Le Corbusier (1887-1965). At the 1925 Paris Exhibition he designed the Pavilion de VEsprit Nouveau, a stark, geometric space sparsely furnished with mass-produced items such as bentwood furniture by Thonet. From 1926, with Charlotte Perriand (b.1903) and his brother Pierre Jeanneret, Le Corbusier designed his own functionalist furniture using tubular steel and other “new” materials. These and other Modernist designs have been reproduced since the 1960s by the Italian furniture company Cassina.

Jacques-Emile Ruhlmann
•    FORMS simple, elegant forms    18th-centuryforms
based on 18th-century designs, with a very high standard of workmanshipMATERIALS
•     exotic wood veneers, such as Macassar ebony, amboyna, palisander, and amaranth; ivory inlay
•    COLLECTING all work collectable, and highly priced
Marks
Ruhlmann’s work carries this signature
Compagnie des Arts Francais
•    MATERIALS marble tops, velvet upholstery
Legrain, Dunand, and Le Corbusier
•    FORMS Legrain: African-inspired with angular, stepped features; Dunand: naturalistic floral designs, geometric designs; Le Corbusier: stark, Modernist designs TECHNIQUES AND MATERIALS Dunand: lacquering, crushed eggshell; Le Corbusier: tubular steel frames
•    COLLECTING Le Corbusier: modern reproductions
mass-produced by Cassina arc more accessible