The Baroque Era - England - Part 7

Carving was restrained, being limited to a minimum amount of decoration on the knee of a leg. Much use was made of improved techniques in veneering. Reliance was placed of wood's natural configuration as decoration; thus, we find widespread favour for burr walnut, a type of veneer displaying attractive patterns produced by sawing transversely through knots and boughs of the original gnarled wood.
Marquetry was less in favour, but it did appear occasionally on chairs and small tables and a tradition developed of importing marquetry cabinets from Holland that was to last throughout the century.

The home produced cabinet, handmade furniture, was mounted at first on a stand with the turned spiral legs of Jacobean days; later, the stand adopted the universal cabriole legs terminating in claw and ball feet (the last feature being often the only place where the carver could show his skills). The cabinet became a natural vehicle for growing experiments in lacquering, although English attempts at this oriental art was generally not very successful. Nevertheless, as trade with the east increased, Chinese and Japanese lacquered cabinets were imported through Holland.

Chairs lost their stretchers completely when the adoption of the cabriole leg made them redundant. Seats had a gently rounded front rail. Legs ended in the claw and ball or club foot. Armchairs had their arms supported by an upright a little way back from the front of the seat because the cabriole leg made it difficult to continue leg and arm support in one flowing movement.
Chairs generally became less tall and had rounded ot hoop-shaped backs in harmonious proportions with the curves of seats and legs. Country chairs, too, were changing. The Windsor chair prospered, most being made in the beech woods found around High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. In Lancashire, Yorkshire and other country areas, typical chairs developed with ladder or upright splat backs. Such chairs were unfashionable in London, but today early 18th century examples vie with the most expensive aristocrats of the international salerooms.

Card playing became fashionable - almost a vice said some. The craze resulted in a flood of Queen Anne card tables of walnut veneer, with folding tops and frequently tills or candles sconces at each corner. A development of the gate leg enabled these tables to be condensed in size, and placed against a wall when not in use - non fitted furniture - their cabriole legs were generally plain, but they became the recipients of more carving when mahogany was introduced later in the century.

...to be continued.