The Baroque Era - The Netherlands - 2

The precise origin of the kind of colonial handmade furniture is often difficult to decide, especially when more than one European power was in occupation. Simultaneously with, or closely following upon, another, as in the case of Ceylon, first colonized by the Portuguese who were not expelled by the Dutch until 1658, and who left their mark on local interpretations of European requirements long after their departure.

Towards the end of the 17th century a taste for woods more colourful than ebony began to exert itself in the Netherlands. This was fostered by the influence of the Baroque style, especially the French version of it which was given an added bonus when, following the exodus of the Huguenots in 1685, many highly skilled craftsmen, some of them Dutch or Flemish by origin, came to the Low Countries. Included among these was Daniel Marot who became chief designer to William, Prince of Orange, and worked on the interior decoration and furnishing of the royal palace at Het Loo. His style, as demonstrated in his published designs, was a personal interpretation of the Louis XIV manner, with a strong emphasis on luxuriously upholstered beds, chairs and stools. The chairs have high, rather narrow backs, either padded or elaborately fretted and carved with scroll patterns. These seats may be stuffed and upholstered, as is the case with today's reproduction furniture techniques, or caned to receive squab cushions. The legs are either vertical and turned - often to a distinctive shape having a bold protuberance like an upturned cup near the top - or have a hook-like scroll which anticipates the S-shaped curve of the fully developed cabriole leg, which was soon to emerge.

Like many other chairs, stools and tables of the period, particularly Dutch ones, Marot's designs frequently employ stretchers of X or H shape joining the legs to give added strength as well as providing a decorative feature. Some of the grander versions of his style were gilded, but walnut was now the principle wood for fashionable fitted and non fitted furniture in Holland, used both in veneers and in the solid. When William of Orange went to rule England jointly with his wife Mary, Marot followed his master to work there, returning to Holland in 1698. He was especially clever in his use of draped fabrics to create opulent effects, particularly on a type of bed with no posts at the foot but with flounced testers, cantilevered from the wall and suspended from the ceiling.

The Baroque Era - The Netherlands - 1

The long struggle for the independence of the Netherlands was won in 1609, when the seven northern provinces formed a republic. The Dutch East India Company had already been established in 1602. These two events occurring in the first decade of the 17th century helped to create the climate for a long period of successful free enterprise at home and abroad, in which the Dutch and Flemish handmade furniture industry fully shared.

From around 1650, carcase pieces, especially various kinds of cupboards with doors, developed flat panels free of carving, the emphasis being placed on finely-figured exotic woods, which became available through the activities of the East India Company and were used either in the solid or as veneers. Carving was often employed to decorate the arched framework of doors and panels, and often follows the soft, meaty manner known as auricular.
This treatment is common on the tall cupboards with rounded arches on doors and end panels made in the north, especially in the province of Holland. Arched doors with plain panels occur also on the two-stage cupboards popular in Zeeland at about the same time, but on these, the carving echoes the earlier Renaissance style of Mannerist figures and animal masks. Pieces of this type, together with chests-of-drawers with decoration composed of geometrically arranged mouldings, almost always stood on boldly turned 'bun' feet, which, like other non fitted furniture, were made of oak but were often stained and polished black to imitate ebony. Ebony or 'ebonized' pearwood was also used for mouldings. beadings and narrow strips of veneer employed to emphasize the line of a piece, giving it a dramatic, dignified but slightly mournful appearance. Ebonized mouldings were often chiselled on their surface to produce a ripped effect which reflected light in subtle ways.

Ebony played an even more important role in the cabinets-on-stands for which Antwerp in the south continued to be famous,very different from the reproduction furniture methods of today, combining the dark veneers with contrasting materials - ivory, silver, tortoiseshell and painted plaques. From around 1660, completed pieces of ebony furniture, particularly chairs, were imported from Dutch colonies in the East Indies and Ceylon. They are usually worked in solid wood rather than in veneers, and display remarkable skill in fashioning this hard material into legs and spindles of twist shape, as well as in carving the cresting rails of chairs with much the same patterns of masks and foliage as are found on Dutch silver of the period. Chairs of this kind had seats of woven cane - the first to appear in Europe.

...to be continued.

The Baroque Era - France - 5

In 1685 the king issued an order requiring all furniture arrival in the royal palaces to be entered in a day book (Journal du Garde-Meubles), which was maintained more or less consistently until the outbreak of the Revolution, and provides a mass of information about the pieces and their makers. Sadly, not all the handmade furniture itself has survived. All that is known to exist from the output of Cucci, for example, is a pair of ebony cabinets made around 1681 to 1683 for Versailles and now at Alnwick Castle in England. Most of his work was sold in the 18th century and broken up, to be cannibalized by other cabinet-makers - not an uncommon practice.

Although there are thousands of pieces of fitted and non fitted furniture in existence which go by the name of 'Boulle' because they are decorated in the style he made famous, the vast majority are of a much later date, the technique being continued both in France and elsewhere during the 18th and 19th centuries. A few pieces can be attributed fairly confidently to Boulle himself but the only fully documented examples are two commodes made for the king in around 1708 to 1709. The commode of bombe (blown out, swollen) form, which was to become so important a feature of Continental furniture in the 18th century, was at least partly invented by Boulle.
He retired in 1718 but a fire destroyed his workshops, stock and collection of art, ruining him financially and forcing him to return to work.

Louis XIV issued another order in 1685, revoking the Edict of Nantes and thereby withdrawing protection from the Huguenots. This had a profound effect on the arts and crafts in Europe. Thousands of French protestants sought refuge abroad. Among those to flee were Pierre Golle and his brother Adrian, also a skilled cabinet-maker, who returned to Holland. Their nephew, Daniel Marot (1663 - 1752), who probably worked for Boulle, was Paris-born but also left for the Netherlands. These were just a few of the most distinguished craftsmen of their time to leave France hurriedly, after lending their talents to the creation of the Louis XIV style. France's loss was the rest of Europe's gain.

The Baroque Era - France - 4

Mazarin is immortalized in the history of handmade furniture by having a particular type of desk named after him. The bureau Mazarin is a writing table composed of two pedestals, each with three drawers one above the other and four legs to each section, with a kneehole between them and a flat top over them. it is usually decorated with arabesques of brass inlaid into a ground of tortoiseshell veneer in the style known as 'Boulle'. Ironically, this type of desk does not seem to have been invented in Mazarin's lifetime - all examples known appear to date from after his death - and his name only came to be attached to it in the 19th century.

Following Mazarin's death in 1661, Louis XIV assumed personal power for the first time at the age of 23, and set about creating at Versailles a palace which would symbolize the greatness of France and its king. He was aided in this by his minister, Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619 - 1683), a patron of the arts who presided over the first exhibition of paintings by living artists in 1673. Colbert appointed Charles Le Brun (1619 - 1690) to the post of first director of the royal factory, the Manufacture des Gobelins, in 1663. Le Brun had trained as an artist in Rome where he had cultivated a High Baroque style modified and disciplined by classical principles. It was this splendid but rather solemn version of the Baroque which is known today as the Louis XIV style.

A capable designer himself, especially of tapestries, Le Brun's real genius lay in his ability to organize the creations of others into a magnificent, harmonious whole that unashamedly acknowledged foreign contributions but emerged first as a national and then as an international style, imitated and emulated even in the countries that had supplied the initial ingredients. Versailles was finally made ready for the court in 1682, when the king took up residence. Colbert died in the following year and Le Brun fell from royal favour.
Louis' chief designer of fitted and non fitted furniture was Jean Le Pautre (1618 - 1682), who left over 2,000 engraved designs that included beds with canopies (which gave maximum opportunity to the upholsterer), console tables and other gilt furniture that employ a full range of Baroque imagery.
His earlier work is heavy with sculptural figures and nymphs trapped in jungles of foliage. His later designs are less oppressive and anticipate the lighter style of Jean Berain pere (1637 - 1711), whose son (also Jean) adopted his fathers style, one which frequently exhibits a sense of humour not quite in tune with Versailles at its most grandiloquent. He took over from Le Brun and in 1690 moved into an apartment in the Louvre, near that of Andre-Charles Boulle (1642 - 1732), the maitre-ebeniste famous metal marquetry in a ground of tortoiseshell veneer.
By making up a pack of alternating sheets of brass and tortoiseshell and sawing a pattern into them all simultaneously, it was possible to inlay pieces of brass into the spaces cut into the tortoiseshell ('Boullework') and pieces of shell into the spaces cut in the brass ('counter-Boulle').
Recent research casts doubt on whether Boulle himself adopted the ingeniously economic method. It seems far more likely that he started from scratch for each type.

Berain's designs included arabesques, grotesques and the increasingly popular chinoiseries. Colbert had founded the Compagnie des Indes in 1664, which now imported oriental lacquer, porcelain and other works of art. these almost certainly influenced both the shapes and the decoration of some of Boulle's work, and possibly that of Domenico Cucci (c.1635 - 1704) and Pierre Golle (fl.1670 - 1690), both of whom decorated furniture with rich marquetry in exotic woods, tortoiseshell, metal and lapis lazuli, embellished with gilt bronze mounts which were cast and chiselled. Known in English as 'ormolu mounts', they were first intended as protective pieces on the corners of furniture, reproduction furniture often uses similar mounts, but gradually came to be used for purely decorative purposes as well. Curvilinear shapes began to replace rectilinear forms, and vertical legs slowly gave way to scrolled outlines.

.....to be continued with the final part five from France tomorrow

The Baroque Era - France - 3

Chairs, too, were being made in sets. The backs were low, square and upholstered to match the seats. The legs were turned, either spirally or to baluster or bobbin profiles. It was an age that showed an increasing awareness of comfort, and some of the armchairs have backs that are slightly pitched. The arms themselves begin to take on an agreeable curve and the seats are well padded. Though still imposing, such chairs are no longer 'seats of estate' only, but make some concession to the idea of relaxation. Such ideas were not only confined to court circles. Much Louis XIII handmade furniture is clearly not very sophisticated and doubtless originated in country districts. As such, it is the earliest group in the great tradition of French Provincial furniture to have survived in any quantity, and to be suitable for use in the less pretentious modern home.

The two-part cabinet or armoire-a-deux-corps continued to be made but was gradually superseded by a full-length cupboard or armoire in the usually accepted sense. The earlier examples of the latter show a reluctance on the designers part to break with tradition. The doors are in fact full length, but each is divided into an upper and lower section by a rail, giving an appearance of four small doors, each one decorated with multiple mouldings forming an octagonal or diamond shaped frame around a central panel. The stiles, or vertical corner posts of the frame, are ornamented with columns of turnery sometimes in the round, but more often with one flat side glued to the frame.
This method of decoration, which was extensively used in many countries, is known as split turnery. It was achieved by lightly glueing together two lengths of wood , with a paper divider between them. The resulting package was turned on the lathe to the desired pattern and then split open again down the middle, providing two identical pieces, each decorated on one face and flat on the other, ready to be attached to a frame.
This technique was a favourite form of decoration on fitted and non fitted furniture constructed in the solid, and occasionally on pieces partly or wholly veneered.

It is to be found on early commodes, which, by the mid 17th century were gradually replacing the coffre or lidded chest in popularity. They have survived in large numbers in France and elsewhere, and are still found to be as convenient and useful as when they were first made.
Richelieu died in December of 1642, and was replaced by his protege Mazarin. Louis XIII also died in May of the following year, leave a five-year-old son as heir to the throne. Once again, France was to be ruled, nominally at least, by a queen mother in the person of Anne, but in reality by Jules Mazarin (1602-1661), an Italian by birth, a Frenchman by adoption and a cosmopolitan by instinct.
In taste he remained true to his land of origin, and as Anne was very much under his influence, Italianate furniture, now reproduction furniture, and decoration dominated the court during these twenty years.

Native French traditions meant little to Mazarin. In his determination to destroy the last vestiges of feudal power still wielded by the nobles, he seized on every opportunity to demolish a medieval castle. That he was a collector of art and fine furniture, is proved by the inventory of his effects made in 1653. He imported tables with pietre dure tops from Italy, cabinets-on-stands from the Netherlands and Germany; he introduced talented cabinet-makers such as Cucci from Italy and Golle from the Netherlands.

.........to be continued

The Baroque Era - France - 2

Once the basic technique of veneering is mastered, marquetry and parquetry, used in reproduction furniture, decoration become possible. Marquetry can be executed in several ways, but it is essentially the creations of a decorative design by inlaying one veneer onto another. One method is to veneer the solid surface, then to cut out a design and fill the gaps with veneers of contrasting grain or colour. Another way is to glue sheets of contrasting veneers lightly together with sheets of paper between then to form a pack, which is held in a special type of vice. The design is then cut through the entire thickness using a saw, and the individual sheets are separated.
The designs in one wood - say, the darker - can then be fitted into the pattern cut into the lighter and vice versa. Other materials besides wood, such as tortoiseshell, can be used as veneers.

To understand Parquetry it is necessary only to think of a parquet floor. Small squares, rhomboids and other geometric shapes are cut from a variety of contrasting veneers and are assembled, edge to edge, to form a pattern.
Ingenious juxtapositioning can produce remarkable trompe l'oeil effects, making the pattern appear as a pyramid of cubes or a tiled floor seen in perspective.
Veneering has acquired a dubious reputation because it has often been employed to give a showy finish to a shoddy article, but in the hands of a master, it can be raised to a degree of artistry little short of miraculous. This fact was recognised in France early in the 17th century, and the ability to handle veneers - particularly those in the highly fashionable ebony - distinguished the cabinet-maker (ebeniste) from the worker in solid wood, the joiner (menuisier).

When Louis XIII was still a boy, a marriage of alliance was arranged between him and Anne of Austria, who later developed an enthusiasm for Italian styles. This was to some extent balanced by the influence on Louis, when he grew up and ruled in his own right, of his prime minister, Cardinal Richelieu, who was a great collector himself and did all he could to encourage the arts in France.
The craft of veneering was at first employed only on the more important piece of prestige handmade furniture, such as the cabinet-on-stand with its elaborately fitted interior. The upper stage was usually veneered, but the stand was a table-like construction mainly in solid wood, with turned legs of columnar form or twist shape. At first the twist had to be carved by hand, until the turners later learned to produce it on the lathe using a jig and tool. Elaborate variations of double and hollow twists were evolved in the course of the 17th century.

Turning of a similar kind was extensively used on non fitted furniture such as tables and chairs of the Louis XIII period. The styles established continued in many country districts, with little change, throughout the 17th century. Dining tables do not play a leading part in the story of French furniture - at least not until the end on the 18th century. The French for long preserved the old tradition of eating at a simple table spread with a cloth. Small rectangular tables began to be made in greater numbers in the first half of the 17th century and were intended for individual meals, as writing tables or simply for displaying personal possessions. They were made of solid wood - oak, walnut and fruitwood - and were mounted on turned legs with stretchers below. Fairly often, the under-edge of the frieze was shaped. Stools and backstools of the chaise-lorraine type were constructed on much the same lines, and it is probable that many were made to match the tables, for it was at this time that furniture began to be made in suites. The trend became more marked during the reign of Louis XIV.

.......to be continued

The Baroque Era - France

France
Earlier in the 17th century France had been inundated with imported handmade furniture and immigrant craftsmen. Following the upheaval caused by the accession of the Bourbon king Henri IV in 1589, efforts were made to revive the flagging spirits of the French. The Edict of Nantes in 1598 guaranteed freedom of worship to the Huguenots (originally a nickname for the Protestants).
Many craftsmen in the furniture and allied trades were Huguenots, and their improved situation created a much healthier atmosphere in which to work. But during the recent troubles their creativity had suffered, and their skills had fallen way behind those of tradesmen in other countries. To correct this, Henri sent a number of cabinet-makers abroad to improve their skills, and in 1608 he set up workshops at the Louvre where other could learn under the tuition of Italian and Flemish masters. Henri was not to see the fruits of these efforts for in 1610 he was assassinated.

The majority of the furniture made in France during Henri's reign had continued in Renaissance traditions, using familiar shapes such as the armoire-a-deux-corps decorated with conventional Mannerist figures set in isolation in the middle of panels.
During the reign of his son, Louis XIII, this was to change gradually in favour of a more fluid style of carving more in keeping with the vigour of Baroque. The new king had not yet come of age and taste at court was dominated by his mother, Marie de' Medici who, in spite of having been born a Florentine, had a preference for Flemish art and encouraged skilled Flemish craftsmen to settle in France.

A weak ruler, her method was to buy political support with money and titles, thus creating a 'nouveau riche' class who set themselves up in fine houses and furnished them in the grand manner, partly with pieces imported from the Netherlands and Italy, but partly with native products.
Marie performed a valuable service by recalling to France from the Netherlands a craftsman, Jean Mace', whose techniques were ultimately to revolutionise French fitted and non fitted furniture making. Mace' had spent two years at Middelburg in Zeeland, where he learned the art of veneering before returning to France around 1620 to take up employment in the workshops of the Louvre, where he remained as a royal cabinet-maker until his death in 1672.

Veneering, though an ancient craft, was new to France. In principle, it consists of glueing a very thin sheet of finely figured wood over a solid foundation. all the sheets cut parallel to each other from the same piece of wood, exhibit nearly identical figurations in the grain. By reversing or twisting and turning them until they match, it is thus possible to create symmetrical patterns that could hardly be achieved if solid timber were used.
Other effects made possible were 'cross-banding' - setting a narrow band of veneer around the outer edge of a panel or table-top with the grain running at right angles to that of the central area; and 'oyster' patterns, contrived by setting cross-cuts of veneer, from the branches of such trees as laburnum, side by side. The veneers on antique furniture were saw-cut by hand, and are much thicker than the modern, knife-cut product.

............To be continued