Antique Furniture History

Antique Furniture 18TH CENTURY ENGLAND
Furniture Early 18th-century forms
Antique furniture among turn-of-the-century developments was the evolution of the chest on a stand, by way of the chest-on-chest (or tallboy), into the large bureau cabinet. Some examples of this were double-domed, while others had a straight cornice (moulded projecting top). The disposition of storage space also varied: a kneehole arrangement of three or four drawers below the fall-front bureau section. Above, there might be a pair of mirror doors (on narrow cabinets a single door) concealing shelves or small compartments, or there might be plain veneered (or japanned) doors.

Antique furniture Gerrit Jensen (fl.1680-1715) is regarded as the first English cabinet-maker to achieve fame. Well-established before the Revolution of 1688, he is known to have made a table, stands and looking glass for Charles II (1660-85). These have not survived, but examples of the elaborate marquetry he made for William and Mary (1689-1702) and Queen Anne (1702-14) are still in the royal collections. His intricately crafted metal marquetry was undoubtedly influenced by that of the celebrated French cabinet-maker André-Charles Boulle (1642-1732) but it is relatively muted in its opulence, its silver and brass inlays being interspersed with dark and light woods and tortoiseshell. In his later furniture, including some pieces for Queen Anne, Jensen abandoned the use of metal inlays in favour of japanning and seaweed marquetry (patterns resembling fine seaweed leaves) of breathtaking complexity.

Antique furniture fashionable, as opposed to regional, can rarely be attributed with any certainty to individuals (it was not obligatory or customary for English makers to stamp their work), and most cabinet-makers who produced good-quality pieces for gentlemen’s houses remain anonymous. Of the few who did use trade labels or stamped their names, Hugh Granger, Samuel Bennett and Coxed & Woster are associated with fine case furniture, mostly veneered in walnut or burr woods, produced 1700-30. Another, Giles Grendey (1693-1780), worked in both walnut and mahogany.

The influence of Chippendale

Furniture Chippendale’s Director was the first design book to cover all kinds and it success in distilling the current styles of decoration into a form both workable for the cabinet-maker and acceptable to his clients ensured the adoption of “Chippendale” as a generic label for mid-18th-century. For posterity the Director has been an invaluable guide to the array of decorative styles available to the period’s gentry. Practically all the items covered alludes to the Rococo: even sober designs for library bookcases in the Palladian architectural idiom have Rococo flourishes as well as Gothic tracery or Chinese fretwork in the glazing bars.

Chairs with upholstered backs as well as seats were known as French chairs, whether they were of the round-contoured, cabriole-legged variety, with frames carved and gilded in French Rococo style, or of the minimally ornamented, squarish-backed type that we now call Gainsborough chairs. Tables – breakfast, shaving, tea, gaming, sewing, writing, china and “claw” – were made in a profusion of designs, as were beds. China cabinets, stands, mirrors, screens and much else were produced for the growing numbers of the well-to-do.