The Age Of Rococo - England - Part 8

The 'big' look of mahogany was equally at home in the library, a room without which no great home was complete in George II's day. Giant library tables sported elaborate mouldings, carved pendants of flowers, and lion masks, often combined with architectural columns. The owl, symbol of learning, was a popular motif. These tables had a profusion of cupboards and drawers and almost without exception those found in Palladian homes were part of the integral design of bookshelves and other internal fixtures of the library.

In the overall design were included small kneehole desks which had moved on from plain Queen Anne styles to accommodate the architectural trimmings of the new fashions, and small tables bearing three drawers in the frieze. The latter were used by ladies who, in their private apartments, had kneehole varieties of the dressing table in figured walnut and mahogany, lavishly equipped with fittings to hold beauty aids and all the accoutrements and preparations necessary to maintain the elaborate hair styles of the day.

Occasional tables, also became a receptacle for the trend towards ponderous decoration. Square centre tables were richly carved on all sides and the lion and the human masks were freely used on their legs. Again, gilt and gesso were much used and the marble quarries of Italy did a roaring trade with the British importers.

In chests of drawers walnut found a longer lease of life than in other types of handmade furniture, and we find the wood in widespread use until the middle of the century. Notably, chests escaped the more outrageous excesses of the Baroque fever, although in the double form as tallboys they were sometimes given the 'architectural' treatment of dominant cornices and broken pediments. So too, were china cabinets which, through the heyday of Kent's influence, were hardly distinguishable from non fitted furniture, such as bookcases. It is often difficult to tell for which purpose a cabinet was intended, both having a glazed upper stage and a pronounced architectural character.
In the 1740s, when the Rococo influence introduced carved floral ornaments and other more feminine refinements, the china cabinet slimmed down to a more individualistic and recognizable piece of drawing room furniture.

Throughout the whole of the second quarter of the century demand was strong for cabinets, and many other pieces of furniture, decorated in lacquer or, more likely, the home-based japanning.