FURNITURE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
As the eighteenth century draws on, we arrive at furniture of which
examples are more readily to be met with, and we are reminded of
houses and rooms more or less unaltered which have come under general
observation.
The fashions were led in France. Boule work grew into bigger and more
imposing structures as the manufacture passed into the hands of a
greater number of workmen. Commodes or large presses were made with
edgings and mounts, in the form of "egg and tongue" and other classic
or renaissance mouldings. The tops were formed into one or three
pedestals, to hold clocks and candelabra. Other changes were
introduced to carry out the taste for gilding which then prevailed,
and the broken shell-shaped woodwork, popularly known as Louis quinze
work, began to be adopted for the frames of large glasses and the
mouldings of room panels. The panels grew tall, were arched or shaped
at the top, and occupied the wall space from the dado to the moulded
and painted ceilings, in narrow panels. The fantastic forms of curve,
emblems of the affected manners of the day, called Rococo from the
words _rocaille coquille_, rock and shell curves, were well calculated
to show off the lustre of gilding. The gold was admirably laid on,
thick and very pure, and both in bronze gilding and in the woodwork,
maintains its lustre to the present time. The severe classical
grandeur of the old roll mouldings of fireplace jambs, wall and door
panels, of the former reign gave way everywhere to this lighter work.
Much early eighteenth century furniture was bombé, or rolled about in
curious curves or undulations of surface, partly to display the skill
of the cabinet-makers, and partly to show off the marquetry, which
formed its only decoration. Another step was the introduction of
mechanical applications and contrivances. The tops of tables lift off,
and the action causes other portions to rise, to open, and so on.
It is to be remembered that bedrooms were often used as boudoirs or
studies, and that furniture which could shut private papers up without
requiring that they should be put away into drawers was convenient
in such rooms. As the century advanced, it became customary to form
a sort of alcove at the end of bedrooms in France. The centre portion
contained the bed, hidden by curtains, the spaces between it and the
two walls were shut in with doors, and formed dressing closets, which
could be used while the rest of the room was shut off. The bedroom
then became a reception room and was thrown open with other receiving
rooms of the house. Bureaux or mechanically shutting tables, writing
desks, and the like, under this arrangement were a necessity for small
rooms.
A school of painters arose in the reign of Louis the fifteenth who
devoted themselves to the decoration of room woodwork and ceilings;
Charles Delafosse, Antoine Coypel, Jean Restout, and many pupils. We
must associate the names of these artists with those of the Le Pautre
family. Jean died before the end of the seventeenth century, but
Pierre took part in the later works of the Louvre and of Versailles
under Jules Hardouin Mansard, "surintendant des bastiments." Juste
Aurèle Meissonnier did still more to make this showy work popular. He
designed all sorts of room furniture and woodwork. It is amongst the
published works of these artists that we must seek the eighteenth
century designs of French fashion. Painted panels were inserted
into the wood ceilings, over the tops of looking-glasses, and
_dessus-portes_ or the short panels between the tops of doors and the
line of cornice. These are generally in chiaro scuro, or light and
shade only, and represent families of cupids. Nymphs and fauns,
shepherdesses, and the supposed inhabitants of a fanciful Arcadia,
formed the general subjects of room decorations.
A process belonging to the same reign should be noticed, called after
the inventor, Vernis-Martin, a carriage painter, born about the year
1706. By carriage painter we must understand a painter of heraldic
ornaments, flower borders, &c. His varnish is a fine transparent lac
polish, probably derived from Japan through missionaries, who had
resided there before the occurrence of the great massacres which
closed Japan to all but the Dutch traders. The work which we commonly
associate with his name is generally found on furniture such as tables
or book cases, as well as on needle cases, snuff boxes, fans, and
étuis, on a gold ground. The gold is waved or striated by some of
those ingenious processes still in use amongst the Japanese, by which
the paste or preparation on which their gold is laid is worked
over while still soft. One or two carriages beautifully painted in
vernis-martin are kept in the hotel de Cluny at Paris. Although it is
popularly held that Martin declared his secret should die with him,
and that he kept his word, yet it is certain that he left imitators
and pupils who painted and enamelled in his manner furniture of
various kinds. In Sir R. Wallace's collection there are two pieces,
coloured green and varnished, one a table and the other a cabinet
or bookcase, of vernis-martin work. There is on these no ornament
excepting the varnish and the gold mounts that are added at the edges.
The most beautiful objects that bear his name are the small wares,
such as fans, needle books, or snuff boxes.
Later in the century we meet with other French names, Riesener, David,
and Gouthière, who gained great reputation, the two first as makers of
marquetry, and the latter as a founder and chaser of metal furniture
mounts, such as edgings and lock scutcheons.
The history of French furniture is in general the history of that of
other nations. The art of wood carving was still maintained in Italy
and applied, as in the instance of this distaff, to utensils of all
kinds. In England we had, about the middle of the century, a school of
carvers, gilders, and ornamenters following the extravagant style of
the French. The most prominent name is that of Thomas Chippendale,
who worked from the middle till towards the end of the century. He was
descended from a family of carvers, and inherited the skill which
had been general in his craft since the days of Gibbons. We find much
rococo carving on bed testers, round fireplaces, over doors, &c., in
our English houses built during the reign of Anne and the two first
Georges. Other pieces of furniture, such as carved tables, wardrobe
cabinets, chair backs or dinner trays, go by Chippendale's name. They
are in mahogany, and follow the architectural moulding lines often
seen in the works of Sir William Chambers and the brothers Adam.
[Illustration]
Among the room decorations of the century we may notice the shelves
for holding Chinese porcelain and imitations of Chinese designs in
delft pottery, a taste imported by William the third and the members
of his court who had lived in Holland. The chimney pieces at
Hampton court and elsewhere are provided with woodwork to hold these
ornaments. Hogarth paints them in his interiors, and the rage for
purchasing such objects at sales became a popular subject of ridicule.
To the early eighteenth century belongs a class of furniture of which
the decorations consisted of panels of old Chinese and Japanese lac
work; fitted, as the marquetry of the day was, with rich gilt metal
mounts. In England it was the fashion to imitate the Japan work, and
such old furniture is occasionally met with: black, with raised figure
decorations of Chinese character done in gold dust.
A great change is observable in the French furniture, panel carving
and such decorations from the period of Louis the sixteenth. Several
causes at the time combined to give art of this kind a new as well as
a healthier direction. Amongst these we may mention the discoveries
made at Herculaneum and Pompeii. It is needless to say that the
peculiar cause of the destruction of both those towns had preserved
in them perfect memorials, in many forms, of the social life of
antiquity. Decorations, utensils and furniture of all kinds that were
made of metal, and had resisted the action of damp and time, were
recovered in fair condition. One result, both in France and England,
was a return to a better feeling for classical style.
Room decorations and furniture soon reached the highest point of
elegance which French renaissance art of a sumptuous kind has touched
since the sixteenth century. The panelling of rooms, usually in
oak and painted white, was designed in severe lines with straight
mouldings and pilasters. The pilasters were decorated with
well-designed carved work, small, close, and splendidly gilt. The
quills that fill the fluted columns still seen round so many interiors
were cut into beads or other subdivisions with much care. Fine
arabesque work in the style of the "loggie" of Raphael was partly
carved in relief, partly drawn and painted, or gilt, with gold of a
yellow or of a green hue; the green being largely alloyed with silver.
An example of the best work of this kind may be referred to in the
beautiful room brought from Paris and now preserved, reconstructed, at
South Kensington. The houses built for members of the brilliant court
of queen Marie Antoinette were filled with admirable work in this
manner, or in the severer but still delicate carved panelling in wood
plainly painted. The royal factories of the Gobelins and of Sèvres
turned out also their most beautiful productions to decorate rooms,
furniture, and table service. In the former of these, tapestries were
made for wall hangings, for chair backs, seats, and sofas. Rich silks
from the looms of Lyons, and from those of Lucca, Genoa, and Venice
were also employed for this kind of furniture both in France and
Flanders, Germany, Italy, and Spain, as well as in our own country. In
all these matters France led the fashions.
During this brilliant period, from 1774 to 1790, we meet with the
names of several artists employed for painting the panelling of
rooms, the lunettes over chimney fronts, and the panels of ceilings.
Fragonard, Natoire, Boucher (the director of the Academy) are among
the foremost of these. Their history perhaps belongs rather to that of
painters than of our present subject; but they are too much mixed up
with eighteenth century furniture not to find mention even in a sketch
like the present.
Other artists such as Delafosse, Lalonde, Cauvet and Salembier
designed arabesques, decorative woodwork, and furniture. The designs
of many of them are still extant: and Cauvet dedicated a book of them
to Monsieur, the king's brother. Four tables with silver-gilt mounts
of his design were made for the queen's house of the Trianon, and
afterwards removed to the favourite residence of the emperor Napoleon
at St. Cloud. Robert and Barthélemy were sculptors and bronze workers
who made mounts for furniture, and engravers. Meissonnier, Oppenord,
Queverdo worked in the same way. Hubert Robert, a painter, helped
Micque in all the decorations of the Trianon.
Two or three cabinet-makers have transmitted a great name, though
little seems to be known of their history. Of these Riesener and David
Roentgen were _ébénistes_, or workers in fine cabinet making. The
designation is taken from the ebony and other exotic woods, which had
come into more general use in Europe from the end of the seventeenth
century subsequently to 1695, when the Dutch settled in Ceylon. The
French obtained ebony from Madagascar, but in very small quantities.
After the settlements at Ceylon we find it introduced into Europe on a
larger scale. There are green and yellow varieties but the black wood
is the most valuable, and Ceylon is the country in which the greatest
quantities are produced. We still find in English houses much old
carved ebony furniture, mainly chairs and cabinets, dating generally
from the early years of the Dutch occupation.
Riesener used tulip (_Liriodendron tulipifera_), rosewood, holly
(_ilex aquifolium_), maple (_acer campestre_), laburnum (_cytisus
Alpinus_), purple wood (_copaifera pubiflora_), &c. Wreaths and
bunches of flowers, exquisitely worked and boldly designed, form
centres of his marquetry panels which are often plain surfaces of
one wood. On the sides, in borders and compartments, we find diaper
patterns in three or four quiet colours. These conventional sides or
corners of diaper work help to give point to the graceful compositions
that form the principal feature in his marquetry. Chests of drawers
and cabinets are sometimes met with in snake wood and other varieties
of brown wood, of which the grain is waved or curled without
marquetry. The name of Riesener is to be found stamped sometimes
on the panel itself, sometimes on the oak lining of the pieces of
furniture made by him.
A number of exceptional examples of Riesener's cabinets are described
in the appendix to the detailed catalogue of furniture in the South
Kensington museum. The best pieces are from the collection now
belonging to Sir Richard Wallace. The most imposing of these is the
rounded bureau or secrétaire, made for Stanislaus, king of Poland.
It is beautifully inlaid on the top, ends, and back with designs
emblematic of the sciences, &c., and with bust heads. The letters S.
R. are put upon a broad band of decoration that runs round the lower
portion of the bureau. A similar piece of furniture with gilt bronze
candle branches by Gouthière, on the sides, is now in the Louvre. Both
are signed.
David Roentgen was born at Niewid near Luneville, in which latter city
he worked as a contemporary of Riesener, but younger by some years
in age. He also made marquetry in lighter woods and of rather a
gayer tone than those of Riesener. Both of them often worked in plain
mahogany, and in such cases trusted for the effectiveness of their
pieces to the excellence of the mounts of chased and gilt metal by
their contemporary, Gouthière. In his light marquetry David used
various white woods. Pear, lime, and light-coloured woods were
occasionally tinted with various shades by burning. This process,
originally effected by hot irons, is better and more delicately
managed by hot sand. Only browns and dark ochrous yellows are obtained
by this means, and the more delicately toned marquetry is without hues
of green or blue. Those tints, however, can be obtained by steeping
the wood in various chemical solutions.
As a maker of gilt bronze furniture mounts Gouthière had a wide
reputation. He belongs to the period of Louis the sixteenth. With
him Riesener and David worked in concert; all their best pieces are
finished with the mounts of Gouthière. Among examples in this country
is the cabinet in the royal collection at Windsor. No signature has
been discovered on this piece, but the exquisite modelling of
the flower borders, the metal mouldings and mounts, and the crown
supported by figures of cupids that surmounts the whole, leave us in
no hesitation as to its authorship.
Gouthière modelled and chased up similar work for carriages, and
mounts for marble chimney pieces, such as that in the boudoir just
above referred to. The gilding on these mounts is so good and has
been laid on so massively that the metal has in general suffered no
substantial injury down to our own times, and can be restored to its
original lustre by soap and water. Indeed, the fine old work dating
from the two previous reigns by André Boule and other artists, after
the designs of Berain, has suffered little. The boule clocks, with
arched glass panels in front and spreading supports and figure
compositions on the top, have in most cases come down to us clothed
in their original water gilding, easily to be cleaned though looking
black when they have been long left to neglect.
Contemporaneous with Riesener in France was the Italian maker of
marquetry, Maggiolino. In Florence, Venice, Milan, and Genoa, cabinets
and commodes of marquetry were produced. German cabinet-makers
manufactured the same work through the earlier part of the century.
Bombé or curved furniture was also made by the Germans with great, we
may almost say with extravagant, skill. To maintain mouldings on the
angles of these curved and waving surfaces is a feat in workmanship
of difficult attainment, and German cabinet-makers seem to have
taken delight in exhibiting such skill. The quaint work of the minute
carvings in box and other hard woods, admirably carried out during the
times of the immediate pupils of Dürer and the school of well-trained
artists who succeeded him, was no longer to be found. The desolating
wars that swept over this part of Europe during the days of Louis the
fourteenth and Frederick the great seem to have exhausted the country,
and worn out the ancient industry of the cities. Guilds died away, the
men who composed them being required for the exigencies of war, and
the wealth of the inhabitants was so reduced that the leisure to enjoy
and even the means to buy fine productions of art existed no longer.
Few collectors have done greater service to the study of English art
than Horace Walpole; and few have had the opportunities he enjoyed
a century ago, when he was able to fill Strawberry Hill with a
collection of mediæval, renaissance, and later works of art of every
description. A lively passage, alluding to the contract for the roof
and the glazing of King's college chapel, Cambridge, commemorates his
value for these art traditions. "As much," he says, "as we imagine
ourselves arrived at higher perfection in the arts, it would not
be easy for a master of a college to go into St. Margaret's parish,
Southwark, to _bespeak_ such a roof as that of King's college, and a
dozen or two of windows so admirably drawn, and order them to be sent
home by such a day, as if they were bespeaking a chequered pavement."
A certain sort of revival of Gothic design took place in England
about this period: and later in the century feeble attempts at Gothic
woodwork were made here and there; but there was little national taste
in furniture apart from a close imitation of French fashions. A still
greater change was produced by Sir William Chambers, the architect of
modern Somerset house, who wrote a book on civil architecture and room
decorations. Another name connected with furniture has been already
mentioned, that of Thomas Chippendale. He published his book of
designs in 1764, containing complete sides of rooms, looking-glass
frames, chimney fronts, &c. He and his contemporaries designed tables,
cabinets and moveable furniture of every description, including
carriages, on which, indeed, furniture designers of all periods were
employed. Chippendale and his sons or assistants produced frames and
cornices for gilding so different from his well-made wardrobes, &c.,
that there must have been more than one of the family engaged
in superintending these dissimilar kinds of objects. He is a
representative maker. The son has been sometimes credited with
the mahogany woodwork of which delicacy and exactness are the
characteristics. Satin wood came into fashion in England during the
last half of the century. Both Cipriani and Angelica Kauffmann painted
medallions, cameo ornaments and borders on table tops and fronts,
harpsichord cases, &c., made of satin wood or coloured in the manner
of the vernis-martin work. The former decorated Carlton house.
Mathias Lock, with whom was associated a cabinet maker named Copeland,
also published designs of furniture of every kind. A semi-classic
Pompeian or Roman arabesque feeling runs through the ornamentation of
these pieces of furniture. They are light in make, often elegant, and
more or less follow the taste prevailing in France and Italy. Gillow,
the founder of a respectable existing firm, belongs to this period;
but, as yet, nothing has come to light regarding his early history
or apprenticeship. Another name connected both with furniture and
decorative arts of all kinds was that of Robert Adam; he was of Scotch
extraction and had travelled in Italy; and his brother John built
many private houses; for example, the Adelphi and Portland place.
Furniture, carriages, sedan chairs, and plate were amongst the objects
for which Robert, perhaps both the brothers, gave designs. Classical
capitals, mouldings and niches, circles and lunettes, with shell
flutings and light garlands, were favourite features in their façade
ornaments. The sideboards, bust terms (or pedestals), urn-shaped knife
boxes; the chairs, commodes, &c., were all designed to accord with the
architectural decorations. Polished-steel fire-grates belong to this
period, and we believe to the authorship of the brothers Adam.
A cabinet maker named A. Heppelwhite published in 1789 a large set of
designs for every sort of reception room and bedroom furniture. We see
in these the mahogany chairs with pierced strapwork backs, library
and pedestal tables, mechanical desks and bureaux, which continued in
fashion during the early years of this century. Fanciful sashed glass
doors closed in the bookcases; interrupted pediments and pedestals
provided space for busts round the tops of these cases. Fluted legs,
and occasionally lion-headed supports, uphold the tables and chairs.
Knife cases to set on the sideboard, and urn stools for the breakfast
table, are among these designs. Tea chests and tea caddies indicate
that tea was then coming into general use. Thomas Sheraton, another
cabinet-maker, published towards the end of the century an extensive
"Dictionary" of his trade. His designs, like those just mentioned,
embrace beds, sofas, &c. Mechanical dressing and washing tables, very
ingeniously contrived, were among his productions. We meet with these
still; of Spanish mahogany, and admirable workmanship. The structure
of all these pieces was light and strong. Time has had little effect
on wood so well seasoned and on pieces put together in so workmanlike
a manner.
The French revolution put a complete stop to the old arts of domestic
life in France. As in the sixteenth century, so in the eighteenth
the new ideas rushed extravagantly in the direction of republican
antiquity and Roman taste and sentiment. It was under the empire,
after the Italian wars and the Egyptian expedition, that the means and
taste for expenditure upon civil furniture and decorations revived,
with an assumption of classicalism. The art of the time however,
inspired by the hard paintings of David, is but a dry and affected
attempt at a fresh renaissance. In furniture mounts, chairs, &c., of
supposed classical designs, it is known as the art of the "empire."
This country copied the fashion as soon as the return of peace opened
the continent to English travellers. Furniture and room decorations
were designed after classical ideals, and we see chairs and tables
imitating bas-reliefs and the drawings on antique vases. It is
probable that collectors, such as Sir William Hamilton and the members
of the Dilettanti society, sensibly influenced the prevailing style.
James Wyatt the architect, about the end of the last century, rebuilt
or cleared out many of our mediæval churches and houses, and took to
designing what he called Gothic for room decoration and furniture.
Sir Jeffrey Wyatt or Sir Jeffrey Wyattville (as he became) made great
changes at Windsor castle, under George the fourth. Pugin designed
some flimsy Gothic furniture for the same palace. At a later period of
his life, however, he did much, both as a designer and a writer upon
art, to turn attention to the principles on which mediæval designs of
all kinds were based.
We are now, perhaps, returning to renaissance art in furniture, and
it is certain that collections such as those lately exhibited by Sir
Richard Wallace; the Exposition Retrospective in Paris in 1865; the
loan exhibitions of 1862 in London, and that of Gore house at an
earlier period; and above all the great permanent collection at South
Kensington, must contribute to form the public taste.
In the review which we have made of what may be called the household
art of so many ages, it would be difficult to assign an absolute
superiority to the artists of any one generation, considering what
countless beautiful objects have been made for the personal use and
enjoyment of men. The sculptured thrones of ivory and gold, the seats
and couches of bronze overlaid with gold and damascened with the
precious metals, the inlaid chariots, tables, chests, and jewelled
caskets of antiquity; the imagery, the shrines, the stalls, and
roofs of the middle ages; the wood sculpture, tarsia, pietra dura,
damascening and the endless variety of objects produced during the
days of Leonardo, Michel Angelo, and Raphael, down to the carving of
Gibbons, and the splendid work of Boule, Riesener and Gouthière, are
all in various ways excellent.
We must not venture to call one class of productions finer than
another where the differences are so great and such high perfection
has been attained in each. Every style and fashion when at its best
has resulted from the utmost application of mind and time on the part
of trained artists; and the highest art can never be cheap, neither
can any machinery or any help from mechanical assistance become
substitutes for art. Beauty which is created by the hand of man is
not the clever application of mechanical forces or of scientific
inventions, but is brought to light, whether it be a cabinet front or
the Venus of Milo, often with pain, always by the entire devotion of
the labour, the intellect, the experience, the imagination and the
affection, of the artist and the workman.