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BIEDERMEIER FURNITURE

THE TERM “BIEDERMEIER” covers the wide spectrum of simple, Classical, handcrafted, functional furniture made between 1805 and 1850, which was made at the same time as furniture in the Empire style (see p.212). While the nobility furnished their formal rooms with Empire furniture, the more
private parts of their houses and mansions were furnished in the Biedermeier style, which was favoured by the wealthy middle classes in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Scandinavia.
Political unrest in the German states in the early 19th century created a general feeling of uncertainty and increasing poverty. As a result, people withdrew into the privacy of their own homes, and the middle classes in particular began to take an increasing interest in furnishings.
MODEST STYLE
Biedermeier furniture typically had straight lines and lacked decorative carvings. Motifs inspired by Classical designs, such as columns, gables, egg and dart, and bead and reel details
were all popular.
The cupboard door is decorated with an arched panel.
From about 1830, designs incorporated scrolled forms: chairs often had splayed legs, sofas had arched backs, and moulded cornices were used as ornament for writing cabinets.
POPULAR WOODS
The most fashionable woods for Biedermeier furniture were mahogany which was imported and, therefore, rather too expensive for this essentially middle-class style, and also less costly local woods such as walnut, cherry,
pear, birch, and ash, combined with dark elm and thuyawood. The grain of the wood was the most important decorative feature. The natural grain of the veneer was emphasized with various pyramidal or fountain-like shapes. Root veneers of acorn, burr-walnut, and elm were also popular because of their varied colour and attractive markings. Darker woods were frequently used as borders around diamond-shaped keyholes, block feet, or cornices.
RESTRAINED INTERIORS Biedermeier interiors were modestly furnished, and the emphasis was on practicality and comfort, rather than decoration. The furniture was moderate in size, rounded in shape, comfortable, and homely.
Many pieces had a counterpart –another piece that was similar in size – to balance the furnishing of the room. The secretaire with a fall front and the blender, which looked like an imitation secretaire, but was
A typical Biedermeier living room, c.1820-30
This simple Saxon living room is typical of a modest townhouse of the period. The living room was the social centre of the home, and great care was taken with the arrangement of the furniture.
designed for use as a linen press or wardrobe, were very common styles.
An overall colour scheme was a prominent feature of Biedermeier interiors and frequently light-coloured upholstery, curtains, and woods were chosen to create a homely interior with an integrated sense of design.
The advances in manufacturing that occurred during this period did not have much impact until the second half of the century, so early Biedermeier furniture was visibly hand-made. Upholstery was generally flat and square, made of silk or horsehair, and wooden surfaces were simply planed and polished with oil.
By the mid 19th century, the style was seen as comfortable but rather dowdy, and was given the name Biedertmeier, a satirical term that meant “the decent common man”. The name was originally used in a German publication for a fictional middle-class character, and was not intended to be particularly flattering.
The style gradually began to decline in popularity and it was only at the beginning of the 20th century that this negative evaluation began to fade, and Biedermeier-style furniture once again became much sought after. This led in turn to the style being widely copied.
BIEDERMEIER DINING CHAIRS
These chairs are made of solid walnut wood and walnut veneer. The backs are balloon-shaped and have double baluster splats and a shaped top rail. The tapered, upholstered seats are typical of the period and sit above sabre
legs. The chairs are upholstered with a Neoclassical-style striped fabric, probably the original fabric, that is decorated with flowers. 1820
BIEDERMEIER WRITING CABINET
Covered entirely in cherry-wood veneer, this impressive writing cabinet has a fall front that opens to reveal a fitted interior. The inner compartment consists of 11 small drawers flanking a central tabernacle. The lower portion
of the cabinet consists of three large drawers set on simple bracket feet. This practical piece embodies the Biedermeier ethos of comfort and convenience and would have been used in the sitting room, which was the focal point of the home. c.1820.
Pigeonholes provide storage space for letters.
The interior drawers have Ivory handles.
The fall front opens to forma writing surface.
The bottom part of the cabinet is made up of three drawers.
BIEDERMEIER SOFA
The frame of this elegant sofa is scroll-shaped with a slightly raised back. The shape takes its inspiration from Classical pieces, and is typical of the simple, geometric design that was favoured by Biedermeier designers. Ornate carvings and
decoration were not part of the Biedermeier style. The sofa is veneered in cherry wood, which has been blackened in places, using a simple inlay of ebony to accent the flat surface of the wood. The upholstered seat
is coil-sprung for comfort. c.1825.
BIEDERMEIER WALL MIRROR
This mirror frame is architectural in style and is decorated with cherry veneer. The ebonized columns are edged by gilded bases and capitals, which support a Classical-style cornice and pediment. The central mount shows the goddess Diana. 1820 30
BIEDERMEIER WALNUT-VENEERED COMMODE
This commode has a top with an ebonized border above a frieze drawer. A further two recessed drawers are flanked by turned, ebonized columns with gilded Corinthian capitals and feet. The middle drawer is decorated with floral and figural details. 1820 30.
BIEDERMEIER GLAZED CABINET
This birch-veneered cabinet was made in Berlin and has a stepped pediment with a flat top. The oval glazed door panel is decorated with fine wooden spokes emanating from a central sun motif. At the base of the cabinet there is a single drawer with a lock. c.1820.
BIEDERMEIER DINING TABLE
Made in southern Germany, this simple dining table is veneered in cherry wood with a star pattern on the table top. Some of the veneer is blackened to add visual interest. The single pedestal terminates in a tripartite base.
c.1830.

see also biedermeier art  deco desk kidney shape
biedermeier art deco desk bureau
biedermeier bedside commode chest
biedermeier furniture swedish drop front desk
biedermeier glass kaendler
biedermeier love seat sweden
biedermeier reproduction desk
biedermeier style doors
biedermeir interiors

authentic biedermeier mouldings

antiques clock index vienna biedermeier

Seat furniture
Until the 17th century most seating was provided by the stool; box-settles were also common in wealthier households. Side chairs and armchairs were introduced in the 16th century and the settee in the mid-17th century; this evolved over the next 200 years into the fully upholstered sofa. The demand for comfortable seating increased throughout this period, with upholstery gradually
eclipsing wood carving and decoration, especially after the introduction of the coiled spring in the 1820s. Over the centuries seating has been profoundly influenced by a succession of styles and forms, from the extravagant Baroque to the austere Neoclassical, all of which have been revived by later generations of craftsmen. The interest in historical design continues to this day.
Stools
The stool has been in use for thousands of years, and was and is common in one form or another to all civilizations. Its often simple construction and its portability have ensured its lasting popularity. Until the 17th century, seat furniture with backs and arms was scarce, and the chair was reserved for the head of the household; most seating was provided by the stool.
17TH-CENTURY JOINED STOOLS
Inventories from the 17th century show that stools existed in large numbers and were reserved for members of the household who had sufficient status to sit at formal occasions. This hierarchy persisted in court circles well into the 18th century. Most stools found today were made from the 17th century onwards. As with all types of furniture, examples of stools before 1600 are rare and those that come onto the market can be valuable. The simple, pegged, oak stool with carved decoration is probably the most common type. Called a joined or joint stool, it was made by a joiner, with mortise-and-tenon joints secured by pegs. Although regional variations exist, the design was basically the same throughout Europe. Generally only those pieces that were well made in good-quality wood have survived, and many stools intended for everyday use have long since disappeared.
Joined stools could be extended in length to become benches and were occasionally made with a small drawer underneath the seat. Even at this early date they were often made in sets, a practice that was to become widespread in later centuries. Originally the seat would probably have been softened with a squab cushion but during the 17th century padding became an integral part of the stool as the demand for comfort increased.

LATER STOOLS Because stools were perennially popular they tended to keep up with fashion trends. In the late 18th century British stools were made after designs in The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer’s Guide ( 1788-94) by George Hepplewhite (d.1786) and French stools after designs by Pierre Fontaine (c.1762-1853) and Charles Percier (1764-1838), as well as those in Receuil de decorations interieures (1801-12). Shapes diversified as the interest in historical styles and forms, whether real or imaginary, took hold. For example, the X-frame form, first made in ancient Egypt and common in Europe during the Renaissance, was revived in Europe and North America during the early 19th century.
The 19th century saw an increased use of mechanization, which enabled carving to become extremely elaborate, and stools were made in a variety of bizarre forms with carved and moulded decoration. From the third quarter of the 19th century a new type of upholstered seating, the pouffe, was introduced. The upholsterer played an increasingly prominent role in furniture-making as comfort became an ever more important criterion.

•   COPIES OF JOINED STOOLS during the 1920s and 1930s
many copies were made of the joined stool; signs of a genuine example include wear in the right places, such as the stretchers; irregular pegs that stand proud due to shrinkage and are visible on both the inside and outside of the frame; “dry” wood underneath the seat
•   GEORGIAN STOOLS look at the colour of the wood under the seat rail (the drop-in seat should lift out) – this should be “dry” and unstained; exercise caution with small stools, which are popular with collectors – fakers may have used the front pair of legs from two damaged chairs and fixed them into a seat rail; check for odd proportions and for tops of legs hidden by the seat rail

Dining-tables after 1840.
The 19th-century middle classes seem to have emphasized their much-vaunted family values with grandiose dining habits. The tendency during the later 18th century to eat in a dining-room furnished with a single large table rather than, more intimately, with several smaller ones, as had been the custom earlier in the 18th century, was developed most spectacularly in the baronial interiors of the Victorian nouveau riche, who recalled picturesque “Metric England” with long, rectangular dining-tables resplendent with “Tudorbethan” carved legs of massive bulbous form. The various styles of earlier periods were all recorded in the dining-table.
THE LEGACY OF THE EARLIER PERIODS
The fashion for this somewhat pompous dining furniture percolated through to the inhabitants of villas and terraced houses as well as the minor gentry in the country, who now found space for a dedicated dining-room whose central focus was a capacious table suitable for Victorian family meals. Expansion was the order of the day, and while few of these rooms could accommodate the 30- or 40-seater tables that only half filled the awesome spaces of mansion or baronial dining rooms, many were furnished with moderately sired tables that could be made bigger by the addition of leaves or the raising of flaps.
This idea of extending tables was nothing new. Tables with gateleg supported flaps had been in existence for more than two centuries, and “draw-tables”, with extending tops that could double the length of a rectangular table, for just as long. Dining-tables with extensions based on the gateleg principle were in use from c.1730. The D-end table, which could have extra leaves inserted, proved its worth from the 1750s onward, and the pedestal dining-table, made in sections and most convenient for sitters’ knees and feet, was
developed in the late 18th century. Extending tables with the “lazy tongs” telescopic underframing, which had been patented in 1805 In, Richard Gillow (1734-1811) of the firm of Gillow (est. c.1730) of Lancaster, were a popular introduction during the early 19th century. All these principles were exploited in the search for adaptability in the dining-rooms of Europe and North America. Some later 19th-century rectangular tables had as many as ten extra leaves to allow expansion from six or eight seats to twenty or thirty, and the round multi-segmented Jupe tables, patented in 1835, were copied with minor variations for the rest of the century.
MATERIALS AND DECORATION
Timbers were as varied as ever; mahogany, walnut or oak were most usual for large extending tables, while busily figured burr woods, amboyna, maple, or birch were favoured for the more ostentatious pillar tables, the tops of which might be covered in floral marquetry or intricate Gothic and Renaissance patterns in variously coloured woods. Throughout most of the 19th century the majority of dining-tables, of whatever shape or revival style, were fitted with casters, which allowed them to be moved around the room, and also enabled the extensions to run smoothly from the main framework. The architect Augustus Welby Northmorc Pugin (1812-52) was probably the first to break this general rule. His reformed Gothic style vle signalled a departure from the usual revivalist compromises, and his dining and other tables, whether of stark monastic simplicity or great decorative refinement, have their feet set directly and firmly on the floor. Progressive designers of the later 19th and early 20th centuries tended to follow his lead in this respect, but casters continued to be used on most mass-produced tables in the mainstream styles.
The dining-room was traditionally a place for ostentatious display of a distinctly masculine cast, and 19th-century exaggerations of earlier characteristics and styles were often most pronounced in dining-room furniture. The top of the dining-table itself was generally covered with a white damask tablecloth when in use, but legs offered plenty of opportunity, for conspicuous decoration, and even the tops of extending dining-tables, exposed at times, usii had deep moulded edges and ornamented friezes.
NEW TYPES OF TABLE
Some of the earlier systems of table extension were refined or slightly N altered during the later 19th century, but there was little real innovation. One of the few mechanical
developments was the square or rectangular table in two sections with a long metal screw under the top, which could be unwound with a special handle inserted at one end. Once the sections were fully separated, an extra leaf or leaves could be fitted into the middle. This system was adopted widely for the more ordinary dining-tables of the second half of the 19th century, of which examples abound today. The handles are often missing, but these call be easily replaced.
Not all ditung-tables were of the extending variety. A popular form, and one which could be embellished ill the widest variety of styles, was the round loo table. This table was
onginally conceived during the early 19th century for the card game of lantcrloo, but was probably later used just as often as a dining-table. I he top, chatacteristicalb, supported on a central sturdy pillar, could usually be tipped up when not in use, arid was often the vehicle for decoration, with flamboyant inlays or marquetry on the surface, and carving or moulding round the edge and on the pillar.
REVIVAL STYLES
Dining-tables were made in 19th-century interpretations of Gothic, Renaissance, Rococo, and Neo-classical styles, and eery often in an indiscriminate mixture of several of these at the same time. The Practical Cabinet Maker and upholsterer’s Treasury of Designs ( 1847) of Henry
Whitaker (active 182)-50) included illustrations of “Dining-Table Standards (pillars l and Legs” of both “Elizabethan” and “Italian” flavour, liberally carved with scrolls, fluting, and “jewelled” patterns in the Renaissance Revival style, or with fruiting vines. Mid-19th-century attempts to reform taste and purify design were largely unsuccessful, and dining-tables, like other furniture chosen by most of the population, continued to reflect the stylistic confusion and ornamental excess that characterized the period. However, from the 1860s, the efforts of the reformers gractualb, began to take effect. The firm of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. (est. 1861) in London, set up by the reformer and designer William Morris ( 1834-96), produced radical (and sometimes lavishly painted) furniture that became fashionable, at least among all influential elite (alongside furniture in the more cornmerciall, successful Chippendale Revival style), and the work of such designers as William Borges ( 1827-81), Owen Jones (1809-74), and Bruce J. Talbert (1838-81) was conscientiously Gothic in style.
The Japanese taste that swept Europe and North America after the International Exhibition of 1862 in London resulted in a wave of “aesthetic” fervour, turning table legs into spindly supports in real or imitation bamboo or with fretwork. However, on the whole, more solid styles such as “Old English”, “Jacobean”, or “Gothic” (but of a somewhat simpler and lighter form than before) were preferred for dining-room furniture.
Traditional forms, such as oval tables supported on pillars at either end, or tables with draw-leaf tops, were treated with stylish originalirv, but there were still plenty of dining-tables in revivalist modes for those who could not wean themselves from the past.