The Empire Style - England - Part 1

The opening years of the 19th century saw a renewed enthusiasm among the English both for Neoclassicism and for the Gothic taste. Although the Neoclassical style introduced by Adam and other architects in the 1760s had never really died out, it had become watered down and overlaid with non-classical influences, particularly from France. The new Greek revival was more strictly purist in its search for classical form and design and, again, the influence was mainly French. The Prince of Wales, a supporter of the Whigs and a sympathiser with the revolutionary aspirations of the French, led the fashion for classicism and many of his commissions were carried out by Frenchmen.

By the opening years of the 19th century the classical designs of the French architects Fontaine and Percier were being widely circulated, but at the same time, a distinctly English version of the Greek revival style was emerging. Its chief influence was the architect Henry Holland, who had been in charge of the refurbishing of Carlton House for the Prince of Wales and also worked for many other eminent Whigs. he was the close friend of another Greek revivalist, Charles Heathcote Tatham, whose Etchings of Ancient Ornamental Architecture, published in 1799, proved invaluable to contemporary designers. In his furniture, Holland made use of darker woods, especially rosewood which began to replace satinwood for the best quality handmade furniture. Ormolu (gilt bronze) mounts and brass inlays were also beginning to be used in preference to marquetry or painted decoration.

The most enthusiastic exponent of the Greek revival in England was the wealthy dilettante Thomas Hope, whose book, Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, was published in 1807, a year after Holland's death. This was mainly a record of Hope's London house in Duchess Street and the fitted and non fitted furniture he had designed specifically for it to complement his remarkable collection of classical antiquities. It contained designs in the Egyptian style as well as the Grecian.

Napoleon's campaigners in Egypt in 1798 had stimulated interest in the antiquities there, and Egyptian motifs such as sphinxes, terms and hieroglyphic figures began to appear on furniture soon afterwards, often intermingled with classical ornament. An especially English brand of Egyptian taste, manifested in the occasional appearance of crocodile heads of furniture, was stimulated by Nelson's victory at the Nile in 1798. while the national nautical interest fostered by the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 found expression in rope-back or Trafalgar chairs. Anchors and dolphins also appeared on furniture about this time as decorative features. Of these, the dolphin was the longer lasting and was used on chairs and table legs for the following two decades.

...to be continued tomorrow