Posts Tagged ‘lowenfink’

FRANCE: RESTAURATION
THE RESTAURATION STYLE, as its name
suggests, refers to the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy from the expulsion and final exile of Napoleon in 1815, until its fall in 1830.
Louis XVIII became King of France in 1815 and was followed by Charles X in 1824, who finally abdicated in 1830 in favour of the exiled Due d’Orleans, Louis Philippe. It was a period of considerable political unrest, culminating in the revolutions of 1830 and 1848, which forced Louis Philippe to flee to England.
The market for furniture also changed, with growing interest from the middle classes and the increasing
industrialization of furniture-making due to improved tools and the use of steam. Fortuitously, this coincided with the need to furnish apartments, which, for the first time, the middle classes could rent.
CHANGING STYLES
Empire decoration remained the leading style of furniture and many of the cabinet-makers who had worked in the Empire style, such as JacobDesmalter, Felix Remond, and P.A. Bellanger, continued to produce furniture with a great deal of success.
However, Napoleonic motifs and
mounts gradually disappeared, and the
Empire style was slowly watered down as severity gave way to comfort. Strict linearity eventually relaxed into the occasional curve in a nostalgia for Rococo style. Overall, forms became heavier and more solid, replacing the Empire love of rectilinear elegance. As elsewhere in Europe, furniture became bulkier. Inlays became more common and mounts gradually became smaller, or disappeared altogether.
STYLE DIFFERENCES Restauration-style furniture can sometimes be difficult to distinguish from the
simpler, more domestic Empire pieces (see pp.200-01). The surfaces of Restauration pieces tend to be even simpler and less decorated than those found on French Empire furniture, which was typically designed to create an opulent effect.
SECRETAIRE A ABATTANT
This flame-veneered mahogany writing cabinet is raised on claw feet and has a moulded cornice above a pair of Gothic-carved, glazed doors, enclosing shelves, above drawers. A frieze drawer fitted for writing is set above cupboard doors flanked by scrolls. c.1820.
DRESSING TABLE
This is a mahogany dressing table with a swing-frame mirror set above a platform with two small drawers above another drawer. The dressing table stands on C-scroll supports and has a shaped platform base. c.1825.
FAUTEUILS AUX DAUPHINS
This set of six mahogany armchairs, made by Pierre-Antoine Bellanger, has straight top rails terminating in carved scrolls. The curved arms are carved with dolphin heads and each chair has a padded, upholstered seat with a plain seat rail and is supported on sabre legs. c.1815.
CHARLES X DRESSING TABLE
This dressing table is made of burr elm inlaid with amaranth depicting stylized foliage. The top section has an oval mirror with carved supports in the shape of swans. The table top is made of white marble. The lower section consists of a frieze drawer above two carved consoles. The piece terminates in a shaped platform base and flattened bun feet. 1825
BOIS CLAIRS
Restauration furniture was usually made of oak, but it was increasingly veneered in lighter woods, the so-called bois clairs. This change in tone began in 1806, when the British blockaded the importation of mahogany to France from its colonies. As a result, local woods became more popular, including walnut, sycamore, ash, elm, yew, plane, beech, and, perhaps most characteristically of all, decorative bird’s-eye maple.
Mahogany, being expensive, was reserved for the most lavish interiors, so its use was often an indicator of the high value of a piece of furniture.
Traditionally, the Duchesse de Berry the daughter-in-law of Charles X, is credited with the introduction of bois clairs, but this appears to be an unfounded myth. Mahogany, however, continued to be extensively employed both as a veneer – where the decorative effect of its figure was much exploited – and in the solid.
With the decline in use of mounts, various timbers, particularly ebony, and metals such as brass or pewter, were inlaid instead. However, their treatment was always restrained. Some furniture even included plaques of painted porcelain.
GOTHIC STYLE
Towards the end of the Restauration period, the Romantic-revival styles gradually became evident in French furniture design.
These were probably first hinted at in Pierre de La Mesangere’s Collection de meubles et objets de goat, published between 1802 and 1835 in the Journal des Dames et des Modes. Here, La Mesangere adapted the severe, architectural style of Perrier and Fontaine to create a simple, domestic style for the middle classes. He also began introducing the motifs that
would dominate the next epoch –Gothic motifs, otherwise known as the Troubadour style.
Unlike the Chinese style, which was completely forgotten in early 19th-century France but played an important role in Britain at the time, the Gothic style did create a small impact. For example, in 1804, the cabinetmaker, Mansion the Younger, suggested a Gothic-style piece for Napoleon.
However, it was not until the late 1820s and 30s, that the pointed arches so typical of the Gothic style started appearing on Empire-style furniture.
CIRCULAR CENTRE TABLE
This table is made from rosewood inlaid with fruitwood and marquetry. The circular top, and the four frieze drawers below, are raised on a columnar support, which has four splayed legs that terminate in paw feet on brass casters. c.1830.
CHARLES X OCCASIONAL TABLE
The top of this oval rosewood table is inlaid with a panel of Gothic tracery and is bordered with a boxwood rolled moulding. The frieze has a single writing-slide drawer. The table stands on six turned legs joined by a double-baluster stretcher. c.1830.
This mahogany meridienne has one end higher than the other, and an elegant, curved, padded back. The frame of the sofa has scrolling sides, a plain frieze, and stands on volute feet. 1820
This table has a black-and-grey-veined Saint Anne marble top set above a plain frieze. The massive columnar support is baluster shaped although it has been facetted. The three scrolled feet are similarly angular and are square in section.
MERIDIENNE
MARBLE-TOPPED TABLE
The mahogany frieze is unadorned Will) the mounts typical of the French Empire style.
The scrolled feet show a move away from the strict angular design of the previous epoch.

Settles and sofas before 1840
The box-settle was in existence in northern Europe by the 15th century. The earliest examples usually have planked seats and pierced trellis or linen-fold panelled backs, and are often richly carved. A plainer and sturdier form was the oak “monk’s table”, which had a bench-like seat, often set above an enclosed well used for storage, and a hinged back, which when brought forward served as a table. This basic form was adopted by furniture-makers in Britain (particularly in the provinces), and the Low Countries from the 16th century. Early box-settles were usually of oak, although elm, chestnut, and fruitwood were increasingly used during the 18th century; they continued to be made in the provincial tradition until well into the 19th century.

DOUBLE CHAIR-BACK SETTEES
The double chair-back settee dates from the mid-17th century, and its evolution reflects that of the chair back (splat). Invariably of walnut, this type of furniture is distinguished by caned seats, carved upright splats, and baluster-turned or strapwork legs joined by stretchers. By the late 17th and early 18th centuries the double chair-back settee was characterized by a drop-in, upholstered seat, slightly serpentine toprail with vase or baluster-shaped splats, and cabriole legs with pad feet. Usually made of walnut, it became increasingly bold and elaborate in form and decoration; by the reign of Queen Anne (1702-14) settees were frequently veneered with burr-walnut and enriched with seaweed marquetry on the splats and legs. George I examples (1714-27) were often inspired by the architect William Kent (c.16851748), and have carved shells, foliage, lion-masks and paws, and eagle’s-head arm terminals and claws. Mahogany settees were first made under George II (1727-60); those from the 1750s and 1760s frequently follow chair-patterns in the Chinese, Gothick, and French Rococo styles popularized by Thomas Chippendale (1718-79) in The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker’s Director (1754-62). Continental examples were often gilded or painted with flowers and chinoiserie decoration, and are far more Rococo in form than their English counterparts, with exaggerated cabriole legs, serpentine toprails, and asymmetric splats. This latter feature is also characteristic of Dutch double-chair back settees, which parallel English Queen Anne and early Georgian examples, save for the enrichment of floral marquetry. However, Dutch chair-back settees with floral marquetry on a mahogany, as opposed to a walnut, ground are more usually 19th century. English settees of the late 18th and early 19th centuries are usually of carved mahogany or satinwood. Painted designs include peacock feathers and flowers in the manner of George Seddon & Sons (est. 1785), and Etruscan-black decoration, inspired by Classical vases. These painted examples are usually of beech and often display caned or rush seats with squab cushions.
CANAPES AND CHAISES-LONGUES
Canapes with padded backs and seats dating from the reign of Louis XIV (1643-1715) usually have walnut frames with simple channelled decoration to the legs and stretchers, scrolled arms, and cabriole legs. The most sophisticated canapes of the Regence period (1715-23) are masterpieces of the carver’s art; their giltwood or walnut frames were carved with foliage, shells, and chimerical dragons, and their backs strewn with flowers in the style of Juste-Aurele Meissonnier (1695-1750).
During the 1730s and 1740s, Rococo canapes became even more exaggerated in form and detail. They were usually gilded or of walnut, although Italian craftsmen also employed a mix of silver and gold leaf, a decoration known as mecca. Italian canapes are often less well constructed than French seat furniture.

The chaise-longue was characterized by its long seat, which enabled the sitter to recline horizontally, and was first recorded in France, Italy, and England in the late 17th century. Louis XIV chaises-longues were usually of carved walnut or beech, with caned seats and squab cushions. During the early 18th century the frames became richer and more florid, often being gilded or japanned in imitation of Oriental lacquer, while the caned seats were rejected in favour of fully stuffed and upholstered seats. Usually carved in lime or beech, and intended to be painted or gilded, inid-18th-century Continental chaises-longues were of a pegged construction. Although rarer, day-beds, usually without side-supports, were also made in England during the mid-Georgian period.
It was under the influence of the Prince of Wales (later George IV) and his circle that the chaise-longue reached its apogee in England. The form was the perfect vehicle for the reproduction of Greek, Roman, and Egyptian ornament. Simpler Regency chaises-longues were also widely manufactured, mainly in mahogany or rosewood, perhaps inlaid with brass in the “Buhl” manner. Painted examples with Etruscan-inspired ebonized and parcel-gilt decoration, or with a grained or stencilled finish, also abound. The earliest Regency chaises-longues are light and elegant, with simple, free-flowing lines, sabre legs, and brass caps and casters. Examples from the 1820s and 1830s are increasingly florid and heavy; they are supported on claw feet and arc often richly carved with exaggerated, stylized foliage.
DUNCAN PHYFE (1768-1854)
The best-known New York cabinet-maker of the early and mid-19th century, Duncan Phyfe also gave his name to the generic term for American furniture in the Neo-classical style, making use of the forms and ornament of Classical Greece and Rome. The work of Phyfe and his contemporaries incorporates “curule” (Grecian-cross design) legs or sabre legs, paw feet, harp and lyre backs, caned toprails, and decoration showing sheaves of wheat, thunderbolts, cornucopia, and swags. Unless documented by a bill or label, New York Federal and Classical furniture should be attributed to the Phyfe school. Phyfe-type furniture was made into the mid-19th century, with a revival in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

EARLY 19TH-CENTURY SOFAS
The development of the chaise-longue in the 19th century was mirrored by that of the sofa. From c. 805 to 1810 sofas became increasingly bold and luxurious. Frames of plain mahogany were initially fashionable, carved with Grecian ornament as promoted by George Smith (active c.1786-1828) in his book A Collection of Designs for Household Furniture and Interior Decoration (1808); these were superseded by more florid examples in rosewood and, later, walnut, upholstered with bolster cushions at each end. This extravagance was continued in the design and decoration of the frames, which often had tightly scrolled arm-terminals and were embellished with gilt-bronze mounts or inlaid in the “Buhl” manner with foliate arabesques, as on sofas by the firm of Gillow (est. c.1730). The sofas were supported by hairy-paw feet. As seen in the designs of Michel Angelo Nicolson (c.1796-1844) in The Practical Cabinet-Maker, Upholsterer, and Complete Decorator (1826), the basic Regency form persisted throughout the 19th century. However, sofa designs became heavier as the century progressed, with the introduction of shorter and fatter legs, often reeded, and tapering to brass caps and casters.

•    BOX-SETTLES the most lavishly decorated settles, particularly those with linen-fold panelled backs, are often examples of 19th-century antiquarianism, in which old panelling has been reused or plain types have been later carved or embellished
•    DOUBLE CHAIR-BACK SETTEES the majority of these are 19th-century copies, which may be identified by the quality of the timber and carving, and by the use of carved ornament borrowed from different periods
•    CHAISES-LONGUES mid-18th century Continental chaises-longues should be of pegged construction; 18th-century examples were widely copied in the 19th century – these later pieces are usually betrayed by the stiffness of the carving; chaises-longues have very often been regilded (this will not affect the value if the work is of a high quality); examples that were once brightly painted have often faded