The Baroque Era - England - 5

As aids to writing development with the spread of literacy, so there grew a demand for the storage of books. The first rooms to be designated as libraries were a feature of post Restoration days. In London, the Victoria and Albert Museum has one of the earliest English bookcases. It is made from solid oak, stands on five bun feet and dates from around 1675. Shelves compose the upper and lower parts of this fitted furniture piece, both of which are enclosed by glazed doors. Heavy glazing bars are a feature of bookcases from this period and the more delicate tracery which was eventually to cover the fronts of bookcases was not to be seen until the late 18th century.
Lacquered and japanned cabinets of Restoration days were rectangular in shape and were mounted on elaborately carved stands. Other cabinets stood on chests of drawers and were cousins of the tallboy to be found in the bedroom areas of the house.

Of the vast fund of skill and talent which contributed to English handmade furniture and decorative design in the 17th century, there is no more romantic story than that of the wood-carver 'par excellence', Grinling Gibbons (1648 - 1721). Born in Rotterdam, and much influenced by the Dutch carving style, he became the leader of a highly talented school of wood-carvers which flowered initially in England at the court of Charles II - although Gibbons served successive monarchs equally faithfully. His 'discovery' is the stuff of legend. The diarist John Evelyn has described how, one day when he was out walking near the marshes at Deptford in south-east London, he found Gibbons at work in a thatched cottage. The subject was an elaborate carving of Tintorretto's crucifixion, a priceless work which is today housed on loan at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Gibbons was brought to the attention of Charles II and a long and successful royal connection ensued. The carver most liked to work in soft limewood, but examples of his incomparable carvings are to be found in oak and pearwood. He excelled in natural chains of fruit, flowers, foliage, birds and cherub's heads. One of his finest works is the frame of a portrait of Henry VIII after Holbein at Petworth, Sussex. It is carved in limewood and was executed between 1689 and 1692. Horace Walpole described it as 'the most superb monument to Grinling Gibbons' skill'.

His work abounds in London and neighbouring counties and much of it is documented by contemporary invoices and letters between carver and clients. There is one communication from Grinling Gibbons, dated 1686, to which a dramatic postscript was written two and a half centuries later. The letter was to a church dignitary and concerned an altarpiece or reredos (a screen), which Gibbons carved for the Wren church of St Mary Abchurch in the City of London.

However, in 1940 a German bomb wrecked the church and the Grinling reredos. A salvage team led by a woman verger combed the debris and gathered together 2,000 pieces of the shattered carving. Today, like the church, the reredos has been restored, a tribute to the master craftsman Grinling Gibbons and a remarkable example of links between 17th and 20th century skills.

 

The Baroque Era - England - 4

Tables became progressively smaller as the century progressed. it was the day of the gate-leg table, a type ideally suited to the custom of dining at a series of individual tables, rather than at one long refectory table. An innovation was the fitting of small drawers to the ends of such tables. Small rectangular tables on turned legs, with flat curved stretchers, were dotted around the room. After the Restoration, these were designed to go 'on suite' with mirrors and wall sconces (the latter to hold candles, which were increasingly effective in good decoration thanks to the reflecting qualities of mirrors).
Spirally turned, early Stuart legs were gradually replaced by tapering baluster legs and, by the end of the century corporate design - involving architecture, interior decoration and furnishing - had led to the introduction of gilded tables with tops of marble or scagliola, a composition used to imitate marble. These were known as pier tables, standing as they did against the pier or wall section between two windows, and often surmounted by elaborately framed pier glasses or mirrors.

Chests, which had begun to accommodate drawers in a modest way, during the 16th century, developed quickly in early Stuart days. By the Restoration, chests of drawers were in everyday use throughout England. The fashion for dainty clothing necessitated a profusion of small drawers and such chests frequently stood on stands with spirally turned legs. Later, these legs assumed the cabriole form which was affecting the design of chairs and tables. Inlays of ivory, mother-of-pearl and increasing use of marquetry and the geometrical parquetry added to the decorative qualities of this type of handmade furniture.

In the dining room, the buffet and court cupboard were coming into widespread use as utilitarian pieces of furniture and not merely for the ostentatious display of plate. The sideboard, as it became known, had its main working surface at a convenient height for carving. Of similar derivation was the Stuart dresser, the lower part with a cupboard and row of drawers beneath ranks of narrow shelves on which plates and other vessels could be arranged ready for use. The so-called Welsh dresser was not a native of that area but Wales took eagerly to the developing style and distinctive variations emerged.
North Wales dressers had a base completely enclosed with cupboards and drawers, while those from west Wales had three drawers and two cupboards with a 'dog kennel' space between; south Wales favoured a type with drawers below and an open pot board above.
By the end of the 17th century, the country yeomanry was becoming increasingly prosperous and a rich tradition of finely carved oak dressers was growing up in Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Sussex and Suffolk, as well as Wales. These pieces non fitted furniture are in high demand today.

Desks, which had previously been little more than portable boxes, began to evolve in the form in which we know them today. When Charles II revived the monarchy in 1660, they were beginning to assume a more sophisticated form, consisting of two parts. the upper secretaire may have a sloping, hinged lid opening downwards, or be in the shape of a cabinet with a fall front. This upper section stood on a separate stand with spirally turned or baluster legs. Such pieces of furniture were among the earliest to be made in walnut, often in the form of fine veneers. Later the traditional English bureau was to evolve, with a chest of drawers surmounted by a slope-top writing compartment containing nests of small drawers. In a time of plotting and counter-plotting, secret drawers with hidden locks and catches became a feature of these bureaux and secretaires.

 

The Baroque Era - England - 3

An epoch-making event was the introduction, in around 1680, of the cabriole leg or goats leg from France. This outwardly curved style, which first appeared on chairs and later on tables, was to being about a revolution in handmade furniture. As a result the basic wood of English choice was to change, for curves and flowing lines demanded a softer wood than oak.
The age was fast approaching when the sturdy oak of England had to give way to walnut. The new age was ushered in towards the close on the 17th century. It was developed under William and Mary and was in full flower by the reign of Queen Anne.

It was inevitable that Dutch influence should predominate during the reign of William of Orange and his wife at the end of the century. It is arguable that Holland was equally as responsible as France for England's introduction to the cabriole leg. Certainly Dutch influence led to the adoption about 1700 of the claw and ball foot style of carving, which became the characteristic terminal feature of the cabriole legs of chairs and tables throughout the 18th century. The Dutch had imported this style, which was based on the symbol of a dragon's claw holding a pearl, from China.

Yet another Dutch legacy was the custom of collecting china jars, bowls and dishes, which led to the introduction of display cabinets in the reign of William and Mary.
From Holland came the fashion for marquetry, an art raised to the highest levels by the Dutch cabinet-makers of the 18th century. The taste for long case clocks also owes much to the stimulus given by William's countrymen.

The development of fitted and non fitted furniture from the reign of James I to the end of the 17th century is best traced through its component types. Early Stuart chairs, still oak, were assuming more comfortable proportions, with lightly padded seats, small black panels and often plain legs.
Stretchers were gradually being placed higher above floor level. The armless farthingale chair was so names because if offered a lady the opportunity to spread out and show off the dress of that name. The X-frame chair was given a new lease of life in a more richly upholstered form, which made the best use of existing talents in the embroidery of damask, velvet and brocade.

After the dog days of the commonwealth, Restoration furniture and reproduction furniture moved into new areas, with walnut and beech sometimes replacing the traditional oak. Upholstery became more common. Tall backs, in the Dutch style, acquired attractive panels of cane, which was also used extensively in seats.
The front stretcher, now abandoning completely its earlier function as a foot rest, became the vehicle for elaborate carving, an important decorative feature of the finished chair. Arms, on those chairs which possessed them, often ended in a downward scroll. Carving generally became open - pierced instead of the solid form of the previous century. Settees to seat two and three people, with cane or open splat backs gained favour in the last quarter of the century .

Under William and Mary, some of the more elaborate carving of Charles II's day was abandoned. Uprights of slender dimensions succeeded spiral turnings and backs assumed a narrower, more perpendicular appearance with finer cane panelling which often occupied the entire back section between the uprights.
The fashion for matching stools to accompany upholstered chairs allowed for much play with embroidery  sometimes fringed. By the end of the century, walnut chairs which combined comfort with decorative attractions were foreshadowing the curvilinear styles of Queen Anne's reign.

The Baroque Era - England - 2

Furniture followed a clear evolutionary pattern during the century. Under James I, style and simplicity followed the late Elizabethan indulgence in grotesque ornamentation. The oak chest experienced a decline in favour of more sophisticated handmade furniture. The lathe was an important factor in this evolution and the craft of the chair-maker began to separate itself from that of the cabinet-maker.
Turning gradually replaced carving and the lathe's use spread into rural areas, raising the quality and widening the range of country furniture. The century was also to see the birth of the Windsor chair, with its seat of elm, legs and uprights of beech and hoops of ash, beech, yew or fruitwood.
Restrained use of inlay became popular, but in the early years of the century, marquetry had not yet reached any degree of perfection. The time was approaching when furniture was to be designed primarily for its utility. Ostentation was frowned upon if it interfered with functionalism.

 

During the reign of Charles I, who was a great patron of the arts, a tapestry factory flourished at Mortlake on the Thames (it had been set up by James in 1619) and Vandyck was installed in London under royal patronage. Refined lines and well balanced proportions were a keynote of the best fitted and non fitted furniture.
The commonwealth of Oliver Cromwell cannot claim to have produced its own furniture styles, one type of chair on severe lines and with a leather back and seat is sometimes dubbed Cromwellian, but really it owed its origins to the Dutch. In Puritan England, styles merely continued the pattern established under Charles.

 

After the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, furniture styles were guided by the court of Charles II, whose exile overseas had imbued him with exotic tastes. French, Dutch and Italian furniture, which we now try to replicate with current reproduction furniture techniques, mingled with that introduced by his Portuguese queen, Catherine of Braganza.
With the marriage had come the dowry of Bombay and Eastern influences began to show in English furniture in the form of carved ebony chairs, inlaid with ivory. Exquisite leather work became a feature of English chairs, similar in design to those high-backed favourites in Catherine's homeland.

The Baroque Era - England

The reign of the unlucky Stuarts, which began in 1603 with the accession of James I, saw much refinement in English handmade furniture styles. The course of politics and international and national events, as well as foreign religious intolerance and natural and man-provoked disasters all had their influence on art and design in 17th century England. The effects of certain traumatic happenings were obvious and immediate.

The great plague - which in London reached its peak in 1665 - covered Europe with a darkness unknown since the Middle Ages. When the cloud was lifted, a universal reaction showed itself in a spontaneous plunge into gaiety, extravagance and escapism. It was reflected in clothing fashion, living styles, and not least, fitted and non fitted furniture. Shortly after the plague, an event occurred in England which produced a watershed in furniture history.

 

In 1666 the Great Fire of London, although a fearful disaster to those involved, was responsible for long-term beneficial effects. The holocaust destroyed 89 churches and around 13,000 homes. Much of the superb artistry of Inigo Jones was lost. As surveyor or works to Charles I, he had influenced furniture and interior decoration through his love of Italian Classicism and the result had been a chaster style, thrusting out the decorative excesses of the late Elizabethan period. After the fire, many city churches were rebuilt under the genius of Sir Christopher Wren; the London renaissance was responsible for the building of St Paul's Cathedral, as well as many other buildings.

 

A new London grew up on the site of the fire, which, undeniably, had disposed of many rat-infested, disease ridden slums. To a large extent, English furniture faced a rebirth, and the reason for this was simple: London represented the heartland of the country's furniture inventiveness and production; it housed much of the entire stock of the nation's fine furniture and reproduction furniture, no other centre even approaching the capital's importance in this respect. With the destruction of so many homes and the furniture they contained, the fire gave  great impetus to new styles in the escapist aftermath of the plague.

Other people's misfortunes on the continent of Europe had similarly beneficial affects on art and design in 17th century England. A typical example came in 1685 when Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes, which had given Protestants some degree of protection against religious persecution. The event drove thousands of French weavers, cabinet-makers and glass-workers to exile in Holland and England. Silk workers who settled in Spitalfields, London, built a silk and brocade-making industry which enriched the trend in furniture upholstery. Wren eagerly employed the talents of French craftsmen to produce crystal glass chandeliers in palace settings that were to rival the luxuries of versailles.

The Baroque Era - Poland and Russia

In the early 17th century, Danzig (Gdansk), a port on the Baltic, was a thriving town with upwards of 40,000 inhabitants, where the country squires sold their produce and bought luxury goods imported from the West, as well as paintings and engravings produced locally, and various other artefacts that included the typical 'Schapp' or 'Schrank' - a heavily Baroque cupboard with doors having cartouche-shaped panels, drawers below and a characteristic gabled cornice above. This same type of cornice is found on the unusually tall Danzig cabinet-on-stand with twist legs and a third tier above the customary enclosed nest of drawers.
This gables cornice is so closely identified with Danzig that pieces exhibiting it are often attributed to that city when they may well have been made elsewhere, such as Frankfurt.

 

In the south, elements of folk culture were incorporated in more sophisticated handmade furniture. Motifs drawn from nature - birds and flowers - were used for marquetry decoration on other versions of the cabinet-on-stand. The legs are relatively slim and look too slender to support the bulky carcase. There was in fact a structural weakness in this type of article, for the same problem seems to have arisen in cabinets produced in many countries by many different makers, and many stands have had to be heavily restored or entirely replaced.

Russian fitted and non fitted furniture of the Baroque period inevitably tends to have a provincial flavour. Most of it was made by country craftsmen bound for life, unless freed by their masters, to the estates on which they worked. These labourers drew their inspiration partly from their own folk culture and partly from French imports. The result was a palace style that, however carefully executed, tends to look out of proportion and clumsy when seen out of context but no doubt suited the buildings for which it was intended.
Owing to their dispersal following the Russian Revolution, such pieces appear on the market from time to time but often go unrecognised for what they actually are, and it is not unknown for them to have been dismissed as 19th century copies of French or Italian period pieces.

The Baroque Era - Spain, Portugal and their Colonies in America and India - 2

The 17th century was not an especially prosperous period for Portugal but independence from Spain with the accession of the Duke of Braganza as King John IV (1640 - 1656), and the recovery of Brazil from the Dutch in 1654, all contributed to a raising of national morale which expressed itself in the arts, including fitted and non fitted furniture-making.

The chair with the medallion-shaped back which was copied in Spain developed on very similar lines at home. The feet were usually turned rather than scrolled but added interest was provided by the front stretcher, which was wide, arched and pierced with a design of interlaced curves. It was covered in embossed leather nailed to a frame of native oak or walnut, or sometimes jacaranda, a very hard material related to rosewood and imported from Brazil.
The legs on tables and related objects were turned with very bold protuberances refined by multiple rings. Drawer-fronts and lock-plates on doors were in fretted and engraved brass. All these distinctive features were displayed on the 'contador', the Portuguese version of the cabinet-on-stand.

 

A two-stage cupboard, with a pair of doors top and bottom, showed Dutch influence, especially in the treatment of mouldings, which were rippled on their surface. The effect is known in Portuguese as 'tremidos'. Unlike Spain, where cupboards were rapidly ousting the traditional chest, in Portugal it remained popular at least until the end of the 17th century.

Portugal produced several distinctive types of bed, of which the most impressive was the 'cama de bilros' - a posted bed with an open framework, on which the turner clearly delighted to exercise his skills. The posts and the framework are all turned with twist and bobbin patterns, but in a way which lightens the otherwise excessive heaviness of much Baroque turnery.

In the north of both Spain and Portugal but particularly in the Portuguese province of Minho, there was a prosperous industry in richly carved handmade furniture, mainly chestnut, which survived as a form of folk culture, catering for local needs and preserving traditional styles long after they had ceased to be fashionable in more sophisticated areas.

Portuguese craftsmen settled in Brazil and catered for their countrymen in occupation there. Apart from the influence of the earlier Dutch occupation, Brazilian furniture remains fairly close to the original Portuguese types.
Colonization in the Orient, however, resulted in a strange grafting of the decorative techniques of India, particularly Goa, on to basically European shapes. A typical example of the Indo-Portuguese style is a 'contador' or cabinet of small drawers, profusely inlaid with bone or ivory, and mounted on a stand with mermaid supports. This type of article was made for Portuguese residents in the colonies and also for export to Lisbon.

The Spanish colonies in South and Central America produced a curious mixture of Spanish and native traditions. At Cuzco in Peru, the centre of the ancient Inca civilization, furniture was made for both church and domestic use, and displays several features of construction which differentiate it from its Spanish equivalents.
Dovetails are exposed to form a pattern on the surface, which is never veneered. Tenons project through mortises and their ends are left exposed. Although elaborate turning was practised, the lathe cannot always have been readily available and some bulbous projections were made by splicing pieces of wood together and smoothing them into a rounded shape. Leatherwork is often embossed with coats-of-arms, including royal ones, but these can be most misleading. The badge of Charles V of Spain even appears occasionally on chairs made 200 years after his reign ended in 1556.

The Baroque Era - Spain, Portugal and their Colonies in America and India - 1

At its most extravagant, Spanish Baroque seems to be trying to rival and outdo even the more extreme interpretations found in the rest of Europe. The style employed architectural features and the human figure in the emotional, eccentric style known as Churrigueresque, after the chief practitioner of this fantastic manner, Don Jose Churriguera (d.1725). It was as if the style was a last defiant gesture by a dying empire. During the reigns of Philip III (1596 - 1621), Philip IV (1621 - 1665) and Charles II (1665 - 1700), Spain was growing both poorer and politically weaker. Nevertheless Spanish society seemed determined to keep up appearances, and as always, handmade furniture was one of the main props in the drama.

 

At a time when few could afford it, the writing-cabinet or 'vargueno' came into wider use - a symbol, now, not so much of nobility as of respectability. It's interior facade of colonnaded intricacy became as essay in miniature of the Churrigueresque, with little twisted columns and elaborate marquetry on the drawer-fronts.
The 'papileira', having no writing leaf to conceal the facade, followed closely on the heels of the cabinets of Cologne and Antwerp, but added a fretted gallery of gilded metal to the top, and adopted the fashionable twist legs for the stand.

Twist legs, or less elaborately turned ones, were also a feature of long, narrow tables, and other non fitted furniture which appeared in addition to, but not entirely in place of, those with trestle ends and iron braces. The new type had drawers in the frieze, carved with roundels or later foliage, and usually fitted with iron ring handles. A boldly projecting moulding extended around the frieze on its bottom edge. This type of table occurs in varying qualities. The best are of walnut or chestnut, but cheaper versions, which continued to be made for the peasantry for at least another century, were in pine. Simple chairs with no upholstery, the cross-rails of the back shaped and finished with a little carving, were similarly produced from this time onwards in large numbers.

 

Even the traditional 'monks chair' (sillon de fraileros) was given a new look by being fitted out with the ubiquitous twist legs. In the second half of the 17th century, a Portuguese type of chair became popular in Spain. It had a Moorish medallion-shaped back which, like the seat, was covered in embossed leather, as is a lot of today's reproduction furniture. The legs were turned and on Spanish examples, the foot was often scrolled and fluted. It was transmitted to other countries, notably England, where it is still knows as a 'Spanish' or 'Braganza' foot.

The Baroque Era - Germany, Austria, Scandinavia and Switzerland - 3

For grand handmade furniture, the workshops of Geneva and Berne adopted the Louis XIV style, but some interesting middle-class pieces were made in walnut, particularly a composite buffet (Aufsatzbufett) of asymmetrical form. The design varied. but in principle it consisted of a low cupboard of sideboard height with two doors. Above this was another cupboard, raised at the front on turned columns with the panelled back behind the open space between  the upper and lower stages. To one side only of this main structure was attached a narrower unit of similar construction which was often fitted with a pewter bowl and water cistern in the open space, for washing utensils.
Fine examples carved in Renaissance style were still being made in the mid 17th century, and versions in painted pine continued to be produced until the early 19th century, still retaining the asymmetrical shape.

 

In Scandinavia, German princes had come to rule over Norway, Denmark and, from 1654, Sweden, Inevitably, a strong German influence was exercised over much, though not all, of the furniture. In the main, it follows North German and Netherlands styles, until around 1675 when Sweden began to adopt the Louis XIV manner. Again, it is to the folk culture of the peasantry that one must look for native inventiveness. 

Cupboards, chairs ans simple trestle tables with X-shaped supports, mainly in pine and sometimes painted, sometimes scrubbed to a brilliant cleanliness, often display a love of intricate shapes both in outline and fretted designs. Chip-carving of roundels sometimes occurs on primitive chests.

 

The traditional painting on Norwegian fitted and non fitted furniture is known as 'rosemaling. Flowers, animals and birds were tha main ingredients, but a fresh approach taken by succeeding generations kept this form of folk culture alive and well.

It was once a Norwegian custom for the house and principal items of furniture to be built at the same time. The process began with the careful selection of pine trees in the spring, then in late summer or autumn they were felled and allowed to season for four years before construction began. Characteristic Norwegian pieces included the 'klappbord', an ingeniously contrived table, folding flat against the wall when not in use, and the 'bandestol'. a three legged chair with a semicircular seat, its arms often terminating in dragons heads - not unlike the prows of Viking ships.

 

A popular type of cupboard in Denmark, known as a 'pillar cupboard', had an upper stage supported by columns and stood on a platform in the corner of the room with a bench or form at its side. These pieces are often dated, but it was the custom to repaint the article and alter the date when it was handed on to another generation.