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.