The Age Of Rococo - Spain, Portugal and Latin America - 1

Spain was torn by the wars of the Spanish Succession from 1700 - 1713. Philip V was a Bourbon, married first to Maria Louisa of Savoy then, following her death in 1714, to Isabella Farnese, daughter of the Duke of Parma. Isabella was a very strong-minded woman who encouraged her husband to break his ties with France. In spite of this, it was the French version of Rococo that influenced Spain most during the first half of the 18th century. A good example of this is La Granja Palace at Segovia, which Philip began to build in 1721, to remind him of versailles.

Armchairs were based on the Louis XV fauteuil, but with an interesting difference. An example is a suite of chairs and settees designed for the Royal Palace at Madrid by a Neapolitan, Gasparini, which are veneered in rosewood with ebony inlay, whereas French seat furniture of the period was hardly ever veneered. Other chairs display English influence. Considerable quantities of English handmade furniture were imported into Spain and Portugal in the first half of the 18th century, and Spanish craftsmen copied the Queen Anne and early Georgian versions of the cabriole leg and the mid Georgian 'ribbon' back. A wholly Spanish flavour was often provided however, by painting these chairs black and picking out the carving in gold.

Gilding was also used lavishly on ornate console tables and the frames of the mirrors above them, the glass for which was produced in a factory at San Iidefonso set up by the king in 1736. at around the same time, commodes resembling French Provincial ones came to be made. Early examples were not veneered or mounted in gilt bronze, but made in the solid  and decorated with carving, which was picked out in gilt - presumably to create the effect of bronze mounts. In France they would have been regarded as rustic but in Spain they represented sophisticated taste. Truly rustic pieces were based on much earlier models of chairs, chests and tables, and were made colourful with a coat of paint in imitation of Italian lacca.

Portugal was strongly under English influence during the first half of the 18th century, following the signing of the Treaty of Methuen in 1703 which, in return for preferential rates of duty on Portuguese wines exported to England, the Portuguese undertook to import quantities of goods of English manufacture - woollens in particular.
During the reign of John V (1706 - 1750), many pieces of fitted and non fitted furniture found their way from London to Lisbon. Bureau-cabinets decorated in red japanning were a particular favourite. The Portuguese themselves were good at imitating the oriental lacquer which their East India Company imported. They also had a warehouse in Paris where they sold oriental, Portuguese and probably English lacquer too, with ver confusing results for the modern furniture historian to unravel. The main influence however, was oriental rather than English.