Early cupboards and meubles en deux corps.
During the medieval period a cupboard was an open shelf or set of boards for storing cups; what is now understood to be a cupboard – a receptacle fitted with doors intended for storage – was known in England as an aumbry. Later the two terms became interchangeable.
MEUBLES EN DEUX CORPS.
The earliest cupboards-on-chests or meubles en deux corps – that is, furniture made in two sections and enclosing drawers in both the top and bottom sections –were originally employed for writing or storing papers and valuables. First recorded in Italy during the 16th century, these cupboards, such as bambocci made in Tuscany, were almost always made of walnut and are architectural in form; the fall fronts and cornices are Supported by putti, armorial cartouches, and Classical arcades, or even carved in relief with biblical or mythological scenes.
Interestingly, it was these Mannerist figurative reliefs, often either biblical or mythological, which were rapidly adopted for the meubles en deux corps made for the Court of Francis I at the chateau of Fontainebleau, outside Paris, during the mid-16th century. Usually made of walnut, or occasionally ebony, they were sometimes enriched with gilding or polychrome decoration. Conceived both for their decorative and their functional nature, with drawers to the base and either hinged fall fronts (the prototype for 17th-century escritoires or secretaires) or doors enclosing fitted interiors with further drawers to the top, they are characterized by their exuberant decoration, invariably carved in relief with Mannerist caryatids and arabesques in the style associated with the designers Jacques Androuet DuCerceau (c.1515-85), whose engraved publications included Petites Grotesques (1550) inspired by the designs of the later Italian Renaissance, and Hugues Sambin (c.1520-1601), in his L’Oeuvre de la diversite des termes dont on use en architecture (1572). These forms and decorative motifs were also inspirational to cabinetmakers in the Low Countries. The 16th-century meubles en deux corps were enthusiastically collected throughout the 19th century, and thus numerous copies, as well as others composed of elements of both old and new pieces, survive in some number.
THE LOW COUNTRIES.
During the early 17th century cupboards became increasingly important pieces of furniture in the Low Countries; some were carved with Mannerist motifs, while others were painted or decorated with inlay inspired by Italian prototypes. The main timbers used were oak and walnut, with bony inlay. An outstanding type made in the province of Holland in the northern Netherlands was the Beeldenkast, the name of which was taken from the term for the carved caryatid figures that decorated the uprights. Like the meuble en deux corps, the form was of an upper and lower stage separated by a frieze. In Zeeland in the southern Netherlands, which until 1648 was under Spanish rule, cupboards were carved with geometrical patterns probably introduced into the Netherlands by Spanish craftsmen, who were inspired by Moorish designs. Decorative inlay is particularly associated with workshops in Middelburg.
• EN DEUX CORPS these were widely copied during the 1850s through to the 1880s in both England and France while the Renaissance enjoyed a revival; it is extremely rare to find an example that has not had some alterations; 19th-century versions have less crisp carving and generally confuse the motifs usedalterations.
• many pieces that purport to be 17th century were actually made up in the 19th; these can be difficult to identify, although check that the carved elements have not been cut off in mid-flow, and that colour and patination are concurrent on all parts, and that distressing and wear are consistent with age.
Cupboards and linen-presses before 1840
In the second half of the 17th century, the fashion, and indeed the resulting demand, for domestic furniture became increasingly widespread. Traditionally, walnut cassoni and oak coffers, often commissioned to celebrate a marriage, sufficed for the storage of linen and candles. However, their hinged tops prevented ready access to those items stored at the bottom, and so they were seen as impractical and outdated.
NORTHERN LINEN-PRESSES
Although chests and coffers continued to be produced in provincial areas, the princely courts of Burgundy, Frankfurt, Tuscany, and The Netherlands commissioned upright cupboards to fulfil their storage needs. Inspired by early Renaissance precedents, being both strongly architectural in form and linear in design, these presses are characterized by two doors, heavy cornices, moulded plinths, and bun feet.
Although designs varied, 17th-century north European presses all display an important refinement from their 16th-century precursors. Unlike Renaissance cassoni and chests, which were often made in situ, these presses were executed in a workshop, and could be broken down into sections, which were easily transported and assembled. This was an important development for all carcase furniture and can be most easily seen in the way that the cornice is fixed to the sides – often with long, hand-cut screws or pins.
Usually of walnut or fruitwood, late 17th-century presses from Burgundy are evolved from the mule chest – featuring a storage drawer within the plinth. This form was also adopted in the Spanish Netherlands, Amsterdam, and The Hague. Presses from the Spanish Netherlands arc usually of ebony (or ebonized wood) and oak, enriched with parquetry decoration and perhaps inlaid with ivory, bone, or slate panels. The earlier, more elaborate examples are enriched with Mannerist decoration and architectural motifs in the manner of Hans Vredeman de Vries (1526–c.1604), including caryatid figures and arabesques. This architectural vocabulary was gradually superseded by more florid decoration, richly carved in relief with flowers and putti, the doors often divided by Solomonic or barley-twist columns.
The Schrank and Nasenschrank (cupboards) made in Germany during the late 17th and early 18th centuries, represent the purest expression of the northern Baroque style. Usually of walnut or oak, their decoration is restrained in the extreme, often depending entirely on the shaping of mass within the geometrical raised panelling on the doors, or the rich figuring of the veneer, for effect. This architectural purity of design, at first enhanced by the use of geometrical parquetry, was gradually diluted by the use of floral marquetry during the early 18th century. For all their restraint, particularly in the insides, which featured plain pine or oak shelves, these Schranke invariably display elaborate iron or, on the most sophisticated examples, steel locking mechanisms of great complexity and ingenuity; these )–ere often engraved with strapwork or foliate arabesques, and occasionally signed and dated.
Italian linen-presses were invariably of walnut and architectural in form, the full-length doors no doubt conceived to match the decoration of the room for which they were originally supplied. These presses are characteristically sophisticated on the exterior, while the interiors have a very crude basic construction, typical of all Italian furniture. They are enriched with simple moulded panelling on the doors, which in turn are framed as if by pilaster strips. Examples from Lombardy, are often distinguished by their ebonized mouldings, while Tuscan presses are often lined with marbled paper.
ROCOCO LINEN-PRESSES
As the Rococo movement gained momentum during the second quarter of the 18th century, the linear form of the linen-press (armoire) became both outdated and restrictive. In such principal centres of cabinet-making as The Hague, Dresden, and Mainz, a new Rococo form emerged that, although clearly evolved from the earlier Baroque prototypes, represented a profound reaction to the architectural severity of the 17th century. Of increasingly bombe (swollen) form, Rococo linen-presses clearly reflect the style expounded by such French designers (ornamentistes) as juste-Aurele Meissonnier (1695-1750).
The linearity of the previous period was superseded by more organic forms, which were lighter and more curvaceous. Decoration took the form of asymmetrical cartouches, stylized vases of flowers, C-scrolls, acanthus, and rockwork. Rococo linen presses are distinguished by their waved cornices, above serpentine, moulded panelled doors, and deep shaped aprons. These presses were usually made of walnut, tulipwood, or kingwood, and were frequently further enriched with marquetry, and pronounced floral ormolu handles and escutcheons. However, the most important evolution from the 17th- century linen-press was the division of the form into two parts with a high waist; the doors of the upper section were reduced considerably in size to allow for the introduction of a series of long drawers in the base.
This fundamental development, which provided a far more effective means of storage, was subsequently adopted as the basic pattern for linen-presses in England and North America during the 18th and 19th centuries.
PROVINCIAL ARMOIRES
Running parallel to the mainstream were the provincial furniture- makers of Brittany, Normand, Bordeaux, Frankfurt-am-Main, and the Alps. Unlike cabinet-makers in Paris and London who had access to a range of fine timbers both indigenous and exotic, furniture-makers in the regions were restricted to locally available woods, and thus provincial armoires are usually constructed of fruitwoods such as cherry, chestnut, and walnut, or hardwoods such as elm and oak. However, furniture-makers in such ports as Bordeaux, also had access to cheap tropical hardwoods, particularly mahogany, that arrived as ballast on ships from the West Indies; this distinctive group is known as “Port furniture”.
What is most noticeable about provincial armoires of the 18th and early 19th century is that the basic form is essentially that of the 17th century, onto which has been grafted mid-18th century Rococo motifs, years after they were abandoned in Paris. This fusion and continuity of tradition was popular long after the Rococo taste had been discarded in favour of Neo-classicism from the 1760s. Not only were provincial furniture-makers frequently slow to absorb the fashionable decorative language of the day,but they also often slightly misunderstood or diluted these ideas and then showed great reluctance to abandon them. However, this is the mark, and indeed the charm, of provincial furniture.
The provincial tradition also embraced painted furniture, particularly in Britain, Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, Spain, The Netherlands, and Germany. Immigrants from The Netherlands, Switzerland, and Germany took their traditions to North America, which flowered during the 18th and 19th centuries. Decorating onto cheap and locally available softwood carcases, which were usually pine, the artisan, painters displayed remarkable imagination, whether in the Rococo or in the later more restrained Neo-classical style. On the plainest armoires, richly figured veneers were simulated by exaggerating and enhancing the lines of the grain with paint, a technique known as “graining”. On more accomplished pieces of furniture such exotic and expensive materials as tortoiseshell, specimen marbles, and pietre dure (hardstones) were convincinglydepicted, and on the most elaborate German and north Italian examples, capricci (imaginary scenes) and townscapes, or portraits of a patron or ruler were painted on the door panels. On much 18th-century Italian painted furniture, the finest details and pastoral scenes are in fact cut-out prints and engravings, which were applied, in a way similar to a collage to the painted surface and then varnished in imitation of Oriental lacquer. This technique, known as lacca povera (”poor-man’s lacquer”), was much cheaper than lacquering or even japanning, and enjoyed a considerable revival in the 19th century, particularly in France and Britain as “Decalcomania”.
NEO-CLASSICAL ARMOIRES
With the advent of Neo-classicism during the late 1750s, the excesses of the Rococo were cast aside in favour of the Classical ideals of ancient Greece and Rome. Inspired by the excavations of such ancient sites as Herculaneum (1738) and Pompeii (1748), and popularized by the publications of Jean Charles Delafosse ( 1734-89) and James “Athenian” Stuart (1713-88), to name but two, Neo-classicism embraced the return to sober, architectural linearity of form. Neoclassical presses arc, therefore, distinguished by their strongly architectural design and restrained decoration. Usually in finely figured mahogany or, exceptionally, ebonized in the Etruscan taste inspired by ancient vases, the veneer is carefully cut to run through the drawers, and this was to have a profound influence upon furniture-makers during the Empire period throughout
Europe, particularly in Germany and Denmark, and North America. Although often enriched with carved decoration, this is limited purely to Classical architectural vocabulary – dentilled cornices, columns applied to the angles, husks, swagged garlands, and fluted feet inspired by antique fluted columns. The use of ormolu mounts, although lavish on the grandest examples of the Louis XVI period (1774-93), was usually similarly restrained, and often restricted to handles only.
REGENCY LINEN-PRESSES
The uncompromising Neo-classicism of the Parisian gout Grec (Greek Revival) of the 1760s gradually gave way to a lighter, although strongly architectural, style that was swiftly adopted in England by the cabinet-maker Thomas Sheraton (1751-1806) in The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer’s Drawing Book (1791-1802) and George Hepplewhite (d.1786) in The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer’s Guide (1788-94). Their designs were influential as far as Denmark and Italy, but most particularly on American furniture designs during the early Federal period (1795-1815). These usually enclose three or four oak presses (shelves or trays), from which the name “linen-press” is derived, in the upper section. The most refined linen-presses are lined with cedarwood both for fragrance and to keep moths at bay. Made of kingwood, rosewood, or tulipwood, or inlaid very simply with lines of ebony or boxwood, Regency linen-presses are characterized by their splayed bracket feet, oval or rectangular panelled doors, plain sides, and arched or plain, as opposed to pedimented, cresting. Often of bow-fronted form and with dished aprons, they rely purely on their lines and the finely figured timber for decorative effect. Often linen-presses were adapted at a later date; their shelves were removed and the drawers cut through to allow for a greater hanging space. The simple form of the basic Regency linen-press remained very popular in Britain throughout the the 19th century. Early linen-presses are often only distinguishable from the direct copies that were made during the later Victorian and Edwardian periods by the quality of the timber that was used.
• GERMAN NASENSCHRANKE usually of walnut or oak;
very plain, with restrained decoration.
• PROVINCIAL ARMOIRES because the basic form of the
armoire did not change, the style of ornament is the best indication of date; such armoires are usually fitted with hooks or pegs for hanging clothes
• PAINTED ARMOIRES beware, as these often have
spurious dates and initials painted on the doors.
• REGENCY LINEN-PRESSES often the panelled doors have
shrunk or warped, creating gaps at the top and bottom; the quality and use of the timber is of note in such examples; cedarwood is used for the most refined examples.
• ALTERATIONS linen-presses are often been converted to make room for a hanging space by removing the shelves or by cutting through the top drawer and introducing a hanging bar.
