The Empire Style - France - Part 2

Their furniture, much of which was made by the Jacob family, was based on a close and rather pedantic study of actual pieces, or authentic representations of them, from the ancient world. The Greek chair of klismos form with sabre legs, the classical couch with scrolled end, the circular tripod stand of Roman times, the sarcophagus adapted as a wine-cooler, even the pyramid itself conceived as a support for a circular table-top - all these provided good basic shapes, as did the Roman curule (stool on X-shaped support) and the Egyptian throne-chair with its lion-legs. To these were added, in ever greater profusion, such imperial symbols as eagles, winged lions, bees, fasces of arms (from which fascism derived its name), not to mention Napoleon's cipher, the letter 'N' in a laurel wreath. An important medium for disseminating fashionable ornament, as well as simplified shapes, was La Mesangere's Meubles et objets de gout, first appearing in 1802 and then continuing in magazine form. It provided patterns for good, honest, bourgeois handmade furniture.

The basic Neoclassicism of La Mesangere, Percier, Fontaine and others was well under way before the Revolution and the rise of Napoleon but the direction this movement took in Napoleonic France, influencing as it did the development of furniture throughout Europe, was the result of a entirely conscious attempt to create a stage setting for the Emperor, as he was styled 1804 - 1814. As such it has a grandly theatrical air about it due, perhaps, in no small part to Percier's scenic work for the opera. For practical reasons, he and his partner often had to work as stage designers do when quick changes are called for; they could take their time over the throne-room at the Tuileries, but it was often necessary to run up something effective but temporary for one of the Emperor's lightning visits to an ill-prepared provincial city. For this kind of emergency, they made effective use of tent-like draperies in striped material, and so created a fashion for the decoration of rooms and particularly for hangings over beds.

The beds themselves lacked posts and were often elaborately shaped. The lit bateau was boat-shaped, with curving prow and stern. One side, rather than the head, was set against a wall and the drapes were suspended over it. In some examples, the ends of the bed were shaped to resemble swans. A simpler type, much favoured by the middle classes, was the lit droit with an architectural headboard of painted wood. The classical scroll-ended couch of Greek derivation became the immensely fashionable chaise-longue - David's famous portrait of Madame Recamier shows her reclining on one.

Another very popular item of non fitted furniture, was the psyche - a free-standing mirror, originally circular, slung between upright supports, and soon to develop into the rectangular, full-length cheval looking-glass. The commode began to lose its importance as a status symbol and gradually became relegated to the bedroom. It was rectilinear but not break-fronted, with flush drawers veneered in the fashionable mahogany - for those who could afford it. The blockade of France made the importation of exotic woods difficult and expensive, and native woods such as oak, ash, elm, walnut and fruitwood were promoted from the sphere of regional furniture to the more luxurious products of the capital.

The Empire Style - France - Part 1

The French Revolution began in 1789 and the reign of Louis XVI ended with his execution in 1793. During the violence and upheaval, many aristocratic homes were sacked and much fine handmade furniture was wantonly destroyed. The revolutionary government sold a great many pieces from the royal palaces, the agents of foreign powers being among the biggest buyers. Many craftsmen with known monarchist sympathies fled abroad to escape the Terror. Yet, two years before Louis and Marie Antoinette finally went to the guillotine, furniture was being officially commissioned for the Convention Nationale in a severe, no-nonsense style which was really a late version of Louis XVI, deprived of its trimmings.
Known as the style republicaine, it was made for the government of the day by Georges Jacob, to design by Charles Percier (1764 - 1838) and Pierre-Francois-Leonard Fontaine (1762 - 1853).

Having completed their first task for the Convention, they separated briefly, Fontaine going to London for a time and Percier becoming - significantly, as his future work demonstrated - a designer of scenery for the opera. In 1798 they joined up again in Paris, designing furniture to be made by Georges Jacob for the Council of Five Hundred (one of the two chambers in the government of the Directoire, 1795 - 1799).

At that time, Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 - 1821) was establishing himself, having put down an insurrection in 1795 for which he was rewarded with the hand of Josephine, and the command of the army of the Alps and of Italy. He had established his headquarters, in an almost royal style, at Mombello, near Milan. Here he assembled works of arts which he sent home to Paris. In 1798 he conquered Egypt and the triumph was commemorated in a greatly increased use of Egyptian motifs of the fitted and non fitted furniture being produced, furniture which was already beginning to shake off the short lived austerity of the style republicaine.

France, ringed with enemies, made Napoleon 'First Consul' in 1799, and in the same year Fontaine and Percier were given an introduction to Josephine, who commissioned them to redesign the Chateau Malmaison as her residence. Having thus demonstrated their talents, they were given the task by Napoleon himself of creating a suitable background for him in his capacity as military dictator of France. Furniture of the Consulate (1799 - 1804) displays an increasingly archaeological interest in ancient Greek, Roman and Etruscan forms, with a heavy admixture of Egyptian ornament. This is particularly noticeable in the more expensive, commissioned works, such as the chairs in the music room at Malmaison which have sabre legs a la grecque, topped with arm-supports in the form of winged sphinxes. For the bourgeoisie, a simpler rendering of the same ideas had to suffice, the legs often being square-tapered or turned types, and the sphinxes appearing as heads only, shorn of their wings. The style is recorded in the first edition of the designs of Fontaine and Percier, published in 1801 as Recueil des decorations interieurs - the first known use of the term 'interior decoration'.

Neoclassicism - England - Part 7 (final part)

Workboxes and tables, firescreens, and reading and music stands in many shapes reflected other typical occupations among the leisured classes. Sets of three or four graduated small tables were known as trio or quartetto tables in the late 18th and early 19th century when they began to be made. Although somewhat flimsy in construction, these nests of tables were invaluable for refreshments, needlework, cards and many other activities. At this period appeared a range of useful pieces of handmade furniture combining several functions. There were needlework-cum-games tables, and reading, writing and needlework tables (often housed in the bedroom) all with appropriate fittings. Because it was an essentially feminine occupation, the furniture made for needlework was among the most daintily elegant of all. Specially fitted needlework tables and boxes were made in noticeable profusion from the early 19th century. They were usually lined with padded silk or satin, with compartments for thread, needles, scissors, knotting shuttles, crotchet hooks, stilettos, and all the other paraphernalia of the worker. These accessories, of ivory, tortoiseshell or mother-of-pearl in the best examples, are now much collected.

Card playing was always a favourite pastime and for more than a century had given rise to special tables, generally with fold-over tops concealing a baize or needlework surface. Similarly shaped fold-over tables with polished wood inside surfaces were for tea. Some tables had three leaves, providing a baize surface and a plain one, to accommodate both card playing and tea drinking.

The elegant ritual of tea begat numerous other items of non fitted furniture, such as small tables including a variety supported by a pillar on a tripod base known as a teapoy. Later the name teapoy was given to a large tea caddy supported on one of these pillar and tripod bases. The sofa table - a rectangular form of the Pembroke - appeared at the end of the 18th century. Its central section, usually with a drawer or two in the frieze, sometimes slid open to reveal a chess board, or rose on brackets as a reading or writing stand. In the design of most small tables, a central column with splayed feet was replacing four legs by the closing years of the 18th century.

Developments in bedroom furniture, apart from the changing styles of beds, were most noticeable in washstands which, by the close of the 18th century, were well supplied with fittings and compartments for washing, shaving and other aspects of the toilet. The familiar and still useful corner washstand, with drawers and sometimes a cupboard below, was a popular and space-saving form. Night tables and cupboards often had tambour doors in their upper parts, while a lower section drew out on casters to reveal a close-stool, commode or, as 18th century parlance had it, 'convenience'.

Neoclassicism - England - Part 6

Sheraton followed the Drawing Book with the Cabinet Dictionary in 1803, another book of designs with practical guidance on cabinet - and chair-making, and in 1805 came the first instalment of his most ambitious undertaking, the Cabinet-Maker, Upholsterer and General Artist's Encyclopaedia of which only about a quarter was completed before 1806 when Sheraton died, poverty-stricken, lonely and deranged, with no inkling of the influence his work was to have on succeeding generations of cabinet-makers.

Handmade furniture of the late 18th and early 19th centuries had evolved as much in type of variety as in form from that being produced a couple of decades before. To begin with, dining rooms had become commonplace in the houses of the middle classes as well as in the stately homes of the aristocracy, and a whole range of fitted and non fitted furniture - generally of imposing dimensions - developed for them. The dining table itself was by now a large affair, fitted with additional leaves when company was expected; chairs were 'respectable and substantial' and the sideboard, sometimes with a cellaret or sarcphagus under its middle section, had become a commodious item with a central drawer flanked by two smaller drawers or cupboards in which cutlery, glass, silver and a chamber pot could be kept. Lead-lined compartments were sometimes fitted for warming plates or cooling wine.

'The drawing room', according to Sheraton writing in the Cabinet Dictionary in 1803, 'is to concentrate the elegance of the whole house, and is the highest display of richness of furniture.' Here, furnishings were formal and upholstery lavish, but it was in the ante-rooms and breakfast rooms that the greatest changes were seen. For in these smaller rooms the main occupations of the household took place. Bookcases and writing desks had developed new forms. The Carlton House writing table with a superstructure of small drawers surrounding three sides of the writing space was probably named after a piece designed for the Prince of Wales' residence, Carlton House, and the davenport, a much smaller feminine item appeared about the same time, that is, during the 1790s. It is named after a Captain Davenport for whom Gillows probably made the first of its kind.

Flexible sliding tambour doors for cupboards and tops for writing and work tables, made from strips of wood glued to canvas, were one of the many innovations from France in the late 18th century. They were in widespread use in England by the 1780s, and were popular for several decades, although by 1803 Sheraton was complaining that they were unsatisfactory for furniture in constant use 'being both insecure, and very liable to injury'.

...to be continued.

Neoclassicism - England - Part 5

One of the most extensive London firms in the later years of the 18th century was that of George Seddon, who was master of the Joiner's Company in 1795. He set up premises in Aldersgate Street at around 1750 and in spite of disastrous fires in 1768 and in 1783 his firm prospered and employed over 400 skilled men. It survived, under his sons George and Thomas, his son-in-law, Thomas Shackleton and several other generations of his family, until the mid-19th century. As early as 1768 George Seddon was described as 'one of the most eminent cabinet-makers in London' and his firm's output of handmade furniture must have been enormous, yet few pieces attributable to him have been unearthed. Those that have turned up with their original bills or, very occasionally in the early 19th century stamped 'T&G Seddon', are of fine quality and workmanship and most are of satinwood.

Hepplewhite's reign was a short one: the 1790s were dominated by frenetic social upheavals, fitted and non fitted furniture was stylistically affected by the prevailing restlessness. The traditional style the closed the 18th century and at  the same time heralded the cooler but still revolutionary period of the Regency, is known, for better or worse, as Sheraton.

Like Hepplewhite and Shearer, Thomas Sheraton is a somewhat shadowy figure who may never have had a workshop of his own. As his trade card of c1795 suggested, he was a designer rather than a maker of furniture: 'T. Sheraton No. 106 Wardour Street, Soho Teaches Perspective, Architecture and Ornaments, makes Designs for Cabinet-makers, and sells all kinds of Drawing Books etc'. He also published a number of religious tracts.

His chief work, and the one which embodies what we call the Sheraton style, was the Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Drawing Book, issued in four parts between 1791 and 1794. Its designs are full-bodied refinements of the Neoclassical, and at the same time give forward glimpses of the Regency and Victorian periods. Comfortably rounded forms appear with Neoclassical motifs and draped silk; turned, simetimes even bulbous legs replace the straighter shapes associated with the Hepplewhite period; there is an evident delight in mechanical artifice, and upholstery is given a new prominence. The natural beauty of wood is revered and while inlaid and painted decoration are favoured, gilding an japanning are kept to a minimum.

Sheraton was largely concerned with perspective and geometry and his book differs from its predecessors in its attentions to the principles. He also provides 'accurate patterns at large for ornaments to enrich and embellish the various pieces of work which frequently occur in the cabinet branch'. The Sheraton style , which is actual furniture generally took a simpler form than most of the designs in the Drawing Book, , was disseminated far and wide, and not just in the British Isles and her colonies. It spread to Russia, Germany, Scandinavia, Italy, Spain and of course America, and by the early 19th century had totally overshadowed Hepplewhite.

To be continued...  

Neoclassicism - England - Part 4

Hepplewhite is supposed to have contributed designs to another book of engravings published in 1788. This was Thomas Shearer's The Cabinet-Makers London Book of Prices, and Designs for Cabinet Work. The book 'calculated for the Convenience of Cabinet-makers in General: Whereby the Price of executing any Piece of Work may be easily found', went into further editions  in 1793, 1805 and 1823, and is especially interesting in showing how costs were calculating, but it never achieved the acclaim of Chippendale's, Hepplewhite's or, later, Sheraton's books. Of Sheraton himself, practically nothing is known, and no records of the handmade furniture he made, if any, have survived.

One of the most important cabinetmaking businesses of the later 18th century was not based in London at all. This was Gillows of Lancaster, established late in the 17th or early in the 18th century (the firms records go back to 1731), and exceedingly prosperous by the 1760s. A showroom or warehouse was opened in London about 1760 but the main factory remained in Lancaster. Gillows were patronised by the gentry and aristocracy of the north, such as the Duke of Atholl and the Earls of Strafford and Derby, and they had a flourishing export business to the Baltic countries and the West Indies.

The greater part of their output, especially during the 1780s and 1790s, consisted of well made at reasonable prices, and in following the fashionable styles of the period they exercised an elegant restraint. As an early 19th century writer put it, 'their work is good and solid, though not of the first class in inventiveness and style'. Gillows are perhaps best remembered now for their commodious clothes presses of the type known as a 'gentleman's wardrobe'. These had sliding trays in a cupboard section in the top half with a chest of drawers below.

More recently it has been suggested that Gillows originated many of the designs in Hepplewhite's Guide. A number of pieces illustrated in the Gillow records (now in Westminster Palace Library), among them the shield-back chair, have parallels among Hepplewhite's drawings, and according to one tradition Hepplewhite has been apprenticed to Gillow.

Gillows were among the few firms to adopt the French habit of stamping their fitted and non fitted furniture, and a good deal survives, marked - on the inside edge of a drawer or some other unobtrusive place - GILLOWS or GILLOWS LANCASTER. Stamped or labelled furniture is rare in England, but examples marked with the names of cabinetmakers from all over Britain do turn up from time to time, and they provide valuable pieces to add to the jig-saw of furniture history. Many of them also prove that a high proportion of good cabinetmakers were based outside the metropolis.

The best trade labels provide detailed information about the kind of work a firm was able to undertake. It was usual for cabinetmaking to be combined with upholstery, and many firms undertook funerals. Others specialised  - in chairmaking, looking-glass manufacturing, carving and gilding or japanning. There were makers of particular items - among them Edward Beesly, maker of 'Cane and Stick Heads', John Folgham, 'Shagreen case-Maker', Banks the cellaret maker', or Elizabeth Barton Stent, 'turner'. Woman do appear from time to time in the annuals of cabinetmaking , even in the unemancipated 18th century. Some, especially in the upholstery and similar branches of the trade, were in business on their own account but most, like Alice Hepplewhite and Elizabeth Stent, were successors to the firms of husbands or fathers.