The Furniture of Eastern Countries.
CHINESE FURNITURE: Probable source of artistic taste--Sir William
Chambers quoted--Racinet's "Le Costume Historique"--Dutch
influence--The South Kensington and the Duke of Edinburgh
Collections--Processes of making Lacquer--Screens in the Kensington
Museum. JAPANESE FURNITURE: Early History--Sir Rutherford Alcock and
Lord Elgin--The Collection of the Shogun--Famous Collections--Action of
the present Government of Japan--Special characteristics. INDIAN
FURNITURE: Early European influence--Furniture of the Moguls--Racinet's
Work--Bombay Furniture--Ivory Chairs and Table--Specimens in the India
Museum. PERSIAN WOODWORK: Collection of Objets d'Art formed by General
Murdoch Smith, R.E.--Industrial Arts of the Persians--Arab
influence--South Kensington Specimens. SARACENIC WOODWORK: Oriental
customs--Specimens in the South Kensington Museum of Arab Work--M.
d'Aveune's Work.
Chinese and Japanese Furniture.
[Illustration]
We have been unable to discover when the Chinese first began to use State
or domestic furniture. Whether, like the ancient Assyrians and Egyptians,
there was an early civilization which included the arts of joining,
carving, and upholstering, we do not know; most probably there was; and
from the plaster casts which one sees in our Indian Museum, of the
ornamental stone gateways of Sanchi Tope, Bhopal in Central India, it
would appear that in the early part of our Christian era, the carvings in
wood of their neighbours and co-religionists, the Hindoos, represented
figures of men and animals in the woodwork of sacred buildings or palaces;
and the marvellous dexterity in manipulating wood, ivory and stone which
we recognize in the Chinese of to-day, is inherited from their ancestors.
Sir William Chambers travelled in China in the early part of the last
century. It was he who introduced "the Chinese style" into furniture and
decoration, which was adopted by Chippendale and other makers, as will be
noticed in the chapter dealing with that period of English furniture. He
gives us the following description of the furniture he found in "The
Flowery Land."
"The moveables of the saloon consist of chairs, stools, and tables; made
sometimes of rosewood, ebony, or lacquered work, and sometimes of bamboo
only, which is cheap, and, nevertheless, very neat. When the moveables are
of wood, the seats of the stools are often of marble or porcelain, which,
though hard to sit on, are far from unpleasant in a climate where the
summer heats are so excessive. In the corners of the rooms are stands four
or live feet high, on which they set plates of citrons, and other fragrant
fruits, or branches of coral in vases of porcelain, and glass globes
containing goldfish, together with a certain weed somewhat resembling
fennel; on such tables as are intended for ornament only they also place
little landscapes, composed of rocks, shrubs, and a kind of lily that
grows among pebbles covered with water. Sometimes also, they have
artificial landscapes made of ivory, crystal, amber, pearls, and various
stones. I have seen some of these that cost over 300 guineas, but they are
at best mere baubles, and miserable imitations of nature. Besides these
landscapes they adorn their tables with several vases of porcelain, and
little vases of copper, which are held in great esteem. These are
generally of simple and pleasing forms. The Chinese say they were made two
thousand years ago, by some of their celebrated artists, and such as are
real antiques (for there are many counterfeits) they buy at an extravagant
price, giving sometimes no less than £300 sterling for one of them.
"The bedroom is divided from the saloon by a partition of folding doors,
which, when the weather is hot, are in the night thrown open to admit the
air. It is very small, and contains no other furniture than the bed, and
some varnished chests in which they keep their apparel. The beds are very
magnificent; the bedsteads are made much like ours in Europe--of rosewood,
carved, or lacquered work: the curtains are of taffeta or gauze, sometimes
flowered with gold, and commonly either blue or purple. About the top a
slip of white satin, a foot in breadth, runs all round, on which are
painted, in panels, different figures--flower pieces, landscapes, and
conversation pieces, interspersed with moral sentences and fables written
in Indian ink and vermilion."
From old paintings and engravings which date from about the fourteenth or
fifteenth century one gathers an idea of such furniture as existed in
China and Japan in earlier times. In one of these, which is reproduced in
Racinet's "Le Costume Historique," there is a Chinese princess reclining
on a sofa which has a frame of black wood visible, and slightly
ornamented; it is upholstered with rich embroidery, for which these
artistic people seem to have been famous from a very early period. A
servant stands by her side to hand her the pipe of opium with which the
monotony of the day was varied--one arm rests on a small wooden table or
stand which is placed on the sofa, and which holds a flower vase and a
pipe stand.
On another old painting two figures are seated on mats playing a game
which resembles draughts, the pieces being moved about on a little table
with black and white squares like a modern chessboard, with shaped feet to
raise it a convenient height for the players: on the floor stand cups of
tea ready to hand. Such pictures are generally ascribed to the fifteenth
century, the period of the great Ming dynasty, which appears to have been
the time of an improved culture and taste in China.
From this time and a century later (the sixteenth) also date those
beautiful cabinets of lacquered wood enriched with ivory, mother of pearl,
with silver and even with gold, which have been brought to England
occasionally; but genuine specimens of this, and of the seventeenth
century, are very scarce and extremely valuable.
The older Chinese furniture which one sees generally in Europe dates from
the eighteenth century, and was made to order and imported by the Dutch;
this explains the curious combination to be found of Oriental and European
designs; thus, there are screens with views of Amsterdam and other cities
copied from paintings sent out for the purpose, while the frames of the
panels are of carved rosewood of the fretted bamboo pattern characteristic
of the Chinese. Elaborate bedsteads, tables and cabinets were also made,
with panels of ash stained a dark color and ornamented with hunting
scenes, in which the men and horses are of ivory, or sometimes with ivory
faces and limbs, the clothes being chiefly in a brown colored wood.
In a beautiful table in the South Kensington Museum, which is said to have
been made in Cochin-China, mother of pearl is largely used and produces a
rich effect.
The furniture brought back by the Duke of Edinburgh from China and Japan
is of the usual character imported, and the remarks hereafter made on
Indian or Bombay furniture apply equally to this adaptation of Chinese
detail to European designs.
The most highly prized work of China and Japan in the way of decorative
furniture is the beautiful lacquer work, and in the notice on French
furniture of the eighteenth century, in a subsequent chapter, we shall see
that the process was adopted in Holland, France and England with more or
less success.
It is worth while, however, to allude to it here a little more fully.
The process as practised in China is thus described by M. Jacquemart:--
"The wood when smoothly planed is covered with a sheet of thin paper or
silk gauze, over which is spread a thick coating made of powdered red
sandstone and buffalo's gall. This is allowed to dry, after which it is
polished and rubbed with wax, or else receives a wash of gum water,
holding chalk in solution. The varnish is laid on with a flat brush, and
the article is placed in a damp drying room, whence it passes into the
hands of a workman, who moistens and again polishes it with a piece of
very fine grained soft clay slate, or with the stalks of the horse-tail or
shave grass. It then receives a second coating of lacquer, and when dry is
once more polished. These operations are repeated until the surface
becomes perfectly smooth and lustrous. There are never applied less than
three coatings and seldom more than eighteen, though some old Chinese and
some Japan ware are said to have received upwards of twenty. As regards
China, this seems quite exceptional, for there is in the Louvre a piece
with the legend 'lou-tinsg,' i.e. six coatings, implying that even so
many are unusual enough to be worthy of special mention."
There is as much difference between different kinds and qualities of lac
as between different classes of marquctcrie.
The most highly prized is the LACQUER ON GOLD GROUND, and the specimens of
this which first reached Europe during the time of Louis XV., were
presentation pieces from the Japanese Princes to some of the Dutch
officials.
Gold ground lacquer is rarely found in furniture, and only as a rule in
some of those charming little boxes, in which the luminous effect of the
lac is heightened by the introduction of silver foliage on a minute scale,
or of tiny landscape work and figures charmingly treated, partly with dull
gold and partly highly burnished. Small placques of this beautiful ware
were used for some of the choicest pieces of Gouthière's elegant furniture
made for Marie Antoinette.
Aventurine lacquer closely imitates in color the sparkling mineral from
which it takes its name, and a less highly finished preparation is used as
a lining for the small drawers of cabinets. Another lacquer has a black
ground, on which landscapes delicately traced in gold stand out in
charming relief. Such pieces were used by Riesener and mounted by
Gouthière in some of the most costly furniture made for Marie Antoinette;
some specimens are in the Louvre. It is this kind of lacquer, in varying
qualities, that is usually found in cabinets, folding screens, coffers,
tables, etagéres, and other ornamental articles of furniture. Enriched
with inlay of mother of pearl, the effect of which is in some cases
heightened and rendered more effective by some transparent coloring on its
reverse side, as in the case of a bird's plumage or of those beautiful
blossoms which both Chinese and Japanese artists can represent so
faithfully.
A very remarkable screen in Chinese lacquer of later date is in the South
Kensington Museum; it is composed of twelve folds each ten feet high, and
measuring when fully extended twenty-one feet. This screen is very
beautifully decorated on both sides with incised and raised ornaments
painted and gilt on black ground, with a rich border ornamented with
representations of sacred symbols and various other objects. The price
paid for it was £1,000. There are also in the Museum some very rich chairs
of modern Chinese work, in brown wood, probably teak, very elaborately
inlaid with mother-of-pearl; they were exhibited in Paris in 1867.
Of the very early history of Japanese industrial arts we know but little.
We have no record of the kind of furniture which Marco Polo found when he
travelled in Japan in the thirteenth century, and until the Jesuit
missionaries obtained a footing in the sixteenth century and sent home
specimens of native work, there was probably very little of Japanese
manufacture which found its way to Europe. The beautiful lacquer work of
Japan, which dates from the end of the sixteenth and the following
century, leads us to suppose that a long period of probation must have
occurred before the Arts, which were probably learned from the Chinese,
could have been so thoroughly mastered.
Of furniture, with the exception of the cabinets, chests, and boxes, large
and small, of this famous lac, there appears to have been little. Until
the Japanese developed a taste for copying European customs and manners,
the habit seems to have been to sit on mats and to use small tables raised
a few inches from the ground. Even the bedrooms contained no bedsteads,
but a light mattress served for bed and bedstead.
The process of lacquering has already been described, and in the chapter
on French furniture of the eighteenth century it will be seen how
specimens of this decorative material reached France by way of Holland,
and were mounted into the "_meubles de luxe_" of that time. With this
exception, and that of the famous collection of porcelain in the Japan
Palace at Dresden, probably but little of the art products of this
artistic people had been exported until the country was opened up by the
expedition of Lord Elgin and Commodore Perry, in 1858-9, and subsequently
by the antiquarian knowledge and research of Sir Rutherford Alcock, who
has contributed so much to our knowledge of Japanese industrial art;
indeed it is scarcely too much to say, that so far as England is
concerned, he was the first to introduce the products of the Empire of
Japan.
[Illustration: Japanese Cabinet of Red Chased Lacquer Work. XVII to XVIII
Century.]
The Revolution, and the break up of the feudal system which had existed in
that country for some eight hundred years, ended by placing the Mikado on
the throne. There was a sale in Paris, in 1867, of the famous collection
of the Shôgun, who had sent his treasures there to raise funds for the
civil war in which he was then engaged with the Daimio. This was followed
by the exportation of other fine native productions to Paris and London;
but the supply of old and really fine specimens has, since about 1874,
almost ceased, and, in default, the European markets have become flooded
with articles of cheap and inferior workmanship, exported to meet the
modern demand. The present Government of Japan, anxious to recover many of
the masterpieces which were produced in the best time, under the
patronage of the native princes of the old _régime_, have established a
museum at Tokio, where many examples of fine lacquer work, which had been
sent to Europe for sale, have been placed after repurchase, to serve as
examples for native artists to copy, and to assist in the restoration of
the ancient reputation of Japan.
There is in the South Kensington Museum a very beautiful Japanese chest of
lacquer work made about the beginning of the seventeenth century, the best
time for Japanese art; it formerly belonged to Napoleon I. and was
purchased at the Hamilton Palace Sale for £722: it is some 3 ft. 3 in.
long and 2 ft. 1 in. high, and was intended originally as a receptacle for
sacred Buddhist books. There are, most delicately worked on to its
surface, views of the interior of one of the Imperial Palaces of Japan,
and a hunting scene. Mother-of-pearl, gold, silver, and aventurine, are
all used in the enrichment of this beautiful specimen of inlaid work, and
the lock plate is a representative example of the best kind of metal work
as applied to this purpose.
H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh has several fine specimens of Chinese and
Japanese lacquer work in his collection, about the arrangement of which
the writer had the honour of advising his Royal Highness, when it arrived
some years ago at Clarence House. The earliest specimen is a reading desk,
presented by the Mikado, with a slope for a book much resembling an
ordinary bookrest, but charmingly decorated with lacquer in landscape
subjects on the flat surfaces, while the smaller parts are diapered with
flowers and quatrefoils in relief of lac and gold. This is of the
sixteenth century. The collections of the Earl of Elgin and Kincardine,
Sir Rutherford Alcock, K.C.B., Mr. Salting, Viscount Gough, and other
well-known amateurs, contain some excellent examples of the best periods
of Japanese Art work of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
The grotesque carving of the wonderful dragons and marvellous monsters
introduced into furniture made by the Chinese and Japanese, and especially
in the ornamental woodwork of the Old Temples, is thoroughly peculiar to
these masters of elaborate design and skilful manipulation: and the low
rate of remuneration, compared with our European notions of wages, enables
work to be produced that would be impracticable under any other
conditions. In comparing the decorative work on Chinese and Japanese
furniture, it may be said that more eccentricity is effected by the latter
than by the former in their designs and general decorative work. The
Japanese joiner is unsurpassed, and much of the lattice work, admirable in
design and workmanship, is so quaint and intricate that only by close
examination can it be distinguished from finely cut fret work.
Indian Furniture.
European influence upon Indian art and manufactures has been of long
duration; it was first exercised by the Portuguese and Dutch in the early
days of the United East India Company, afterwards by the French, who
established a trading company there in 1664, and since then by the
English, the first charter of the old East India Company dating as far
back as 1600. Thus European taste dominated almost everything of an
ornamental character until it became difficult to find a decorative
article the design of which did not in some way or other shew the
predominance of European influence over native conception. Therefore it
becomes important to ascertain what kind of furniture, limited as it was,
existed in India during the period of the Mogul Empire, which lasted from
1505 to 1739, when the invasion of the Persians under Kouli Khan destroyed
the power of the Moguls; the country formerly subject to them was then
divided amongst sundry petty princes.
The thrones and State chairs used by the Moguls were rich with elaborate
gilding; the legs or supports were sometimes of turned wood, with some of
the members carved; the chair was formed like an hour glass, or rather
like two bowls reversed, with the upper part extended to form a higher
back to the seat. In M. Racinet's sumptuous work, "Le Costume Historique,"
published in Paris in 20 volumes (1876), there are reproduced some old
miniatures from the collection of M. Ambroise Didot. These represent--with
all the advantages of the most highly finished printing in gold, silver,
and colours--portraits of these native sovereigns seated on their State
chairs, with the umbrella, as a sign of royalty. The panels and ornaments
of the thrones are picked out with patterns of flowers, sometimes detached
blossoms, sometimes the whole plant; the colors are generally bright red
and green, while the ground of a panel or the back of a chair is in
silver, with arabesque tracery, the rest of the chair being entirely gilt.
The couches are rectangular, with four turned and carved supports, some
eight or ten inches high, and also gilt. With the exception of small
tables, which could be carried into the room by slaves, and used for the
light refreshments customary to the country, there was no other furniture.
The ladies of the harem are represented as being seated on sumptuous
carpets, and the walls are highly decorated with gold and silver and
color, which seems very well suited to the arched openings, carved and
gilt doors, and brilliant costumes of the occupants of these Indian
palaces.
After the break up of the Mogul power, the influence of Holland, France,
and England brought about a mixture of taste and design which, with the
concurrent alterations in manners and customs, gradually led to the
production of what is now known as the "Bombay furniture." The patient,
minute carving of Indian design applied to utterly uncongenial Portuguese
or French shapes of chairs and sofas, or to the familiar round or oval
table, carved almost beyond recognition, are instances of this style. One
sees these occasionally in the house of an Anglo-Indian, who has employed
native workmen to make some of this furniture for him, the European chairs
and tables being given as models, while the details of the ornament have
been left to native taste.
It is scarcely part of our subject to allude to the same kind of influence
which has spoiled the quaint bizarre effect of native design and
workmanship in silver, in jewellery, in carpets, embroideries, and in
pottery, which was so manifest in the contributions sent to South
Kensington at the Colonial Exhibition, 1886. There are in the Indian
Museum at South Kensington several examples of this Bombay furniture, and
also some of Cingalese manufacture.
In the Jones Collection at South Kensington Museum, there are two carved
ivory chairs and a table, the latter gilded, the former partly gilded,
which are a portion of a set taken from Tippo Sahib at the storming of
Seringapatam. Warren Hastings brought them to England, and they were given
to Queen Charlotte. After her death the set was divided; Lord
Londesborough purchased part of it, and this portion is now on loan at the
Bethnal Green Museum.
The Queen has also amongst her numerous Jubilee presents some very
handsome ivory furniture of Indian workmanship, which may be seen at
Windsor Castle. These, however, as well as the Jones Collection examples,
though thoroughly Indian in character as regards the treatment of scrolls,
flowers, and foliage, shew unmistakcably the influence of French taste in
their general form and contour. Articles, such as boxes, stands for gongs,
etc., are to be found carved in sandal wood, and in _dalburgia,_ or black
wood, with rosewood mouldings; and a peculiar characteristic of this
Indian decoration, sometimes applied to such small articles of furniture,
is the coating of the surface of the wood with red lacquer, the plain
parts taking a high polish while the carved enrichment remains dull. The
effect of this is precisely that of the article being made of red sealing
wax, and frequently the minute pattern of the carved ornament and its
general treatment tend to give an idea of an impression made in the wax by
an elaborately cut die. The casket illustrated on p. 134 is an example of
this treatment. It was exhibited in 1851.
The larger examples of Indian carved woodwork are of teak; the finest and
most characteristic specimens within the writer's knowledge are the two
folding doors which were sent as a present to the Indian Government, and
are in the Indian Museum. They are of seventeenth century work, and are
said to have enclosed a library at Kerowlee. While the door frames are of
teak, with the outer frames carved with bands of foliage in high relief,
the doors themselves are divided into panels of fantastic shapes, and yet
so arranged that there is just sufficient regularity to please the eye.
Some of these panels are carved and enriched with ivory flowers, others
have a rosette of carved ivory in the centre, and pieces of talc with
green and red colour underneath, a decoration also found in some Arabian
work. It is almost impossible to convey by words an adequate description
of these doors; they should be carefully examined as examples of genuine
native design and workmanship. Mr. Pollen has concluded a somewhat
detailed account of them by saying:--"For elegance of shape and
proportion, and the propriety of the composition of the frame and
sub-divisions of these doors, their mouldings and their panel carvings and
ornaments, we can for the present name no other example so instructive.
We are much reminded by this decoration of the pierced lattices at the
S. Marco in Venice."
[Illustration: Casket of Indian Lacquer Work.]
There is in the Indian Museum another remarkable specimen of native
furniture--namely, a chair of the purest beaten gold of octagonal shape,
and formed of two bowls reversed, decorated with acanthus and lotus in
repousée ornament. This is of eighteenth century workmanship, and was
formerly the property of Runjeet Sing. The precious metal is thinly laid
on, according to the Eastern method, the wood underneath the gold taking
all the weight.
There is also a collection of plaster casts of portions of temples and
palaces from a very early period until the present time, several having
been sent over as a loan to the Indian and Colonial Exhibition of 1886,
and afterwards presented by the Commissioners to the Museum.
A careful observation of the ornamental details of these casts leads us to
the conclusion that the Byzantine style which was dominant throughout the
more civilized portion of Asia during the power of the Romans, had
survived the great changes of the Middle Ages. As native work became
subject more or less to the influence of the Indo-Chinese carvers of
deities on the one side, and of the European notions of the Portuguese
pioneers of discovery on the other, a fashion of decorative woodwork was
arrived at which can scarcely be dignified by the name of a style, and
which it is difficult to describe. Dr. Birdwood, in his work on Indian
Art, points out that, about a hundred years ago, Indian designs were
affected by the immigration of Persian designers and workmen. The result
of this influence is to be seen in the examples in the Museum, a short
notice of which will conclude these remarks on Indian work.
The copy in shishem wood of a carved window at Amritzar, in the Punjaub,
with its overhanging cornice, ornamental arches, supported by pillars, and
the whole surface covered with small details of ornament, is a good
example of the sixteenth and seventeenth century work. The various façades
of dwelling-houses in teak wood, carved, and still bearing the remains of
paint with which part of the carving was picked out, represent the work of
the contemporary carvers of Ahmedabad, famous for its woodwork.
Portions of a lacquer work screen, similar in appearance to embossed gilt
leather, with the pattern in gold, on a ground of black or red, and the
singular Cashmere work, called "mirror mosaic," give us a good idea of the
Indian decoration of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This
effective decoration is produced by little pieces of looking-glass being
introduced into the small geometrical patterns of the panels; these, when
joined together, form a very rich ceiling.
The bedstead of King Theebaw, brought from Mandalay, is an example of this
mixture of glass and wood, which can be made extremely effective. The
wood is carved and gilt to represent the gold setting of numerous precious
stones, which are counterfeited by small pieces of looking-glass and
variously-coloured pieces of transparent glass.
Some of the Prince of Wales' presents, namely, chairs, with carved lions
forming arms; tables of shishem wood, inlaid with ebony and ivory, shew
the European influence we have alluded to.
Amongst the modern ornamental articles in the Museum are many boxes, pen
trays, writing cases, and even photograph albums of wood and ivory mosaic
work, the inlaid patterns being produced by placing together strips of tin
wire, sandal wood, ebony, and of ivory, white, or stained green: these
bound into a rod, either triangular or hexagonal, are cut into small
sections, and then inlaid into the surface of the article to be decorated.
Papier maché and lacquer work are also frequently found in small articles
of furniture; and the collection of drawings by native artists attests the
high skill in design and execution attained by Indian craftsmen.
Persia.
The Persians have from time immemorial been an artistic people, and their
style of Art throughout successive conquests and generations has varied
but little.
Major-General Murdoch Smith, R.E., the present Director of the branch of
the South Kensington Museum in Edinburgh, who resided for some years in
Persia, and had the assistance when there of M. Richard (a well-known
French antiquarian), made a collection of _objets d'art_ some years ago
for the Science and Art Department, which is now in the Kensington Museum,
but it contains comparatively little that can be actually termed
furniture; and it is extremely difficult to meet with important specimens
of ornamental wordwork of native workmanship. Those in the Museum, and in
other collections, are generally small ornamental articles. The chief
reason of this is, doubtless, that little timber is to be found in Persia,
except in the Caspian provinces, where, as Mr. Benjamin has told us in
"Persia and the Persians," wood is abundant; and the Persian architect,
taking advantage of his opportunity, has designed his houses with wooden
piazzas--not found elsewhere--and with "beams, lintels, and eaves
quaintly, sometimes elegantly, carved, and tinted with brilliant hues."
Another feature of the decorative woodwork in this part of Persia is that
produced by the large latticed windows, which are well adapted to the
climate.
[Illustration: Door of Carved Sandal Wood, from Travancore. India Museum,
South Kensington. Period: Probably Late XVIII. Century.]
In the manufacture of textile fabrics--notably, their famous carpets of
Yezd and Ispahan, and their embroidered cloths in hammered and engraved
metal work, and formerly in beautiful pottery and porcelain--they have
excelled: and examples will be found in the South Kensington Museum. It is
difficult to find a representative specimen of Persian furniture except a
box or a stool; and the illustration of a brass incense burner is,
therefore, given to mark the method of design, which was adopted in a
modified form by the Persians from their Arab conquerors.
[Illustration: Incense Burner of Engraved Brass. (_In the South Kensington
Museum_).]
This method of design has one or two special characteristics which are
worth noticing. One of these was the teaching of Mahomet forbidding animal
representation in design--a rule which in later work has been relaxed;
another was the introduction of mathematics into Persia by the Saracens,
which led to the adoption of geometrical patterns in design; and a third,
the development of "Caligraphy" into a fine art, which has resulted in the
introduction of a text, or motto, into so many of the Persian designs of
decorative work. The combination of these three characteristics have given
us the "Arabesque" form of ornament, which, in artistic nomenclature,
occurs so frequently.
The general method of decorating woodwork is similar to that of India, and
consists in either inlaying brown wood (generally teak) with ivory or
pearl in geometrical patterns, or in covering the wooden box, or
manuscript case, with a coating of lacquer, somewhat similar to the
Chinese or Japanese preparations. On this groundwork some good miniature
painting was executed, the colours being, as a rule, red, green, and gold,
with black lines to give force to the design.
The author of "Persia and the Persians," already quoted, had, during his
residence in the country, as American Minister, great opportunities of
observation, and in his chapter entitled "A Glance at the Arts of Persia,"
has said a good deal of this mosaic work. Referring to the scarcity of
wood in Persia, he says: "For the above reason one is astonished at the
marvellous ingenuity, skill, and taste developed by the art of inlaid
work, or Mosaic in wood. It would be impossible to exceed the results
achieved by the Persian artizans, especially those of Shiraz, in this
wonderful and difficult art.... Chairs, tables, sofas, boxes, violins,
guitars, canes, picture frames, almost every conceivable object, in fact,
which is made of wood, may be found overlaid with an exquisite casing of
inlaid work, so minute sometimes that thirty-live or forty pieces may be
counted in the space of a square eighth of an inch. I have counted four
hundred and twenty-eight distinct pieces on a square inch of a violin,
which is completely covered by this exquisite detail of geometric
designs, in Mosaic."
Mr. Benjamin--who, it will be noticed, is somewhat too enthusiastic over
this kind of mechanical decoration--also observes that, while the details
will stand the test of a magnifying glass, there is a general breadth in
the design which renders it harmonious and pleasing if looked at from a
distance.
In the South Kensington Museum there are several specimens of Persian
lacquer work, which have very much the appearance of papier maché articles
that used to be so common in England some forty years ago, save that the
decoration is, of course, of Eastern character.
Of seventeenth century work, there is also a fine coffer, richly inlaid
with ivory, of the best description of Persian design and workmanship of
this period, which was about the zenith of Persian Art during the reign of
Shah Abbas. The numerous small articles of what is termed Persian
marqueterie, are inlaid with tin wire and stained ivory, on a ground of
cedar wood, very similar to the same kind of ornamental work already
described in the Indian section of this chapter. These were purchased at
the Paris Exhibition in 1867.
Persian Art of the present day may be said to be in a state of transition,
owing to the introduction and assimilation of European ideas.
Saracenic Woodwork From Cairo and Damascus.
While the changes of fashion in Western, as contrasted with Eastern
countries, are comparatively rapid, the record of two or three centuries
presenting a history of great and well-defined alterations in manners,
customs, and therefore, of furniture, the more conservative Oriental has
been content to reproduce, from generation to generation, the traditions
of his forefathers; and we find that, from the time of the Moorish
conquest and spread of Arabesque design, no radical change in Saracenic
Art occurred until French and English energy and enterprise forced
European fashions into Egypt: as a consequence, the original quaintness
and Orientalism natural to the country, are being gradually replaced by
buildings, decoration, and furniture of European fashion.
The carved pulpit, from a mosque in Cairo, which is in the South
Kensington Museum, was made for Sultan Kaitbeg, 1468-96. The side panels,
of geometrical pattern, though much injured by time and wear, shew signs
of ebony inlaid with ivory, and of painting and gilding; they are good
specimens of the kind of work. The two doors, also from Cairo, the oldest
parts of which are just two hundred years earlier than the pulpit, are
exactly of the same style, and, so far as appearances go, might be just as
well taken for two hundred years later, so conservative was the Saracenic
treatment of decorative woodwork for some four or five centuries.
Pentagonal and hexagonal mosaics of ivory, with little mouldings of ebony
dividing the different panels, the centres of eccentric shapes of ivory or
rosewood carved with minute scrolls, combine to give these elaborate doors
a very rich effect, and remind one of the work still to be seen at the
Alhambra.
The Science and Art Department has been fortunate in securing from the St.
Maurice and Dr. Meymar collections a great many specimens which are well
worth examination. The most remarkable is a complete room brought from a
house in Damascus, which is fitted up in the Oriental style, and gives one
a good idea of an Eastern interior. The walls are painted in colour and
gold; the spaces divided by flat pilasters, and there are recesses, or
cupboards, for the reception of pottery, quaintly formed vessels, and pots
of brass. Oriental carpets, octagonal tables, such as the one which
ornaments the initial letter of this chapter, hookas, incense burners, and
cushions furnish the apartment; while the lattice window is an excellent
representation of the "Mesherabijeh," or lattice work, with which we are
familiar, since so much has been imported by Egyptian travellers. In the
upper panels of the lattice there are inserted pieces of coloured glass,
and, looking outwards towards the light, the effect is very pretty. The
date of this room is 1756, which appears at the foot of an Arabic
inscription, of which a translation is appended to the exhibit. It
commences--"In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate," and
concludes; "Pray, therefore, to Him morning and evening."
[Illustration: Governor's Palace, Manfalut. Shewing a Window of Arab
Lattice Work, similar to that of the Damascus Room in the South Kensington
Museum.]
A number of bosses and panels, detached from their original framework, are
also to be seen, and are good specimens of Saracenic design. A bedstead,
with inlay of ivory and numerous small squares of glass, under which are
paper flowers, is also a good example of native work.
[Illustration: Specimen of Saracenic Panelling of Cedar, Ebony, and Ivory.
(_In the South Kensington Museum._)]
The illustration on p. 142 is of a carved wood door from Cairo, considered
by the South Kensington authorities to be of Syrian work. It shews the
turned spindles, which the Arabs generally introduce into their ornamental
woodwork: and the carving of the vase of flowers is a good specimen of the
kind. The date is about the seventeenth century.
For those who would gain an extended knowledge of Saracenic or Arabian Art
industry, "_L'Art Arabe,"_ by M. Prisse d'Aveunes, should be consulted.
There will be found in this work many carefully-prepared illustrations of
the cushioned seats, the projecting balconies of the lattice work already
alluded to, of octagonal inlaid tables, and such other articles of
furniture as were used by the Arabs. The South Kensington Handbook,
"Persian Art," by Major-General Murdoch Smith, R.E., is also a very handy
and useful work in a small compass.
While discussing Saracenic or Arab furniture, it is worth noticing that
our word "sofa" is of Arab derivation, the word "suffah" meaning "a couch
or place for reclining before the door of Eastern houses." In Skeat's
Dictionary the word is said to have first occurred in the "Guardian," in
the year 1713, and the phrase is quoted from No. 167 of that old
periodical of the day--"He leapt off from the sofa on which he sat."
[Illustration: A Carved Door of Syrian Work. (_South Kensington Museum._)]
From the same source the word "ottoman," which Webster defines as "a
stuffed seat without a back, first used in Turkey," is obviously obtained,
and the modern low-seated upholsterer's chair of to-day is doubtless the
development of a French adaptation of the Eastern cushion or "divan," this
latter word having become applied to the seats which furnished the hall or
council chamber in an Eastern palace, although its original meaning was
probably the council or "court" itself, or the hall in which such was
held.
Thus do the habits and tastes of different nations act and re-act upon
each other. Western peoples have carried eastward their civilisation and
their fashions, influencing Arts and industries, with their restless
energy, and breaking up the crust of Oriental apathy and indolence; and
have brought back in return the ideas gained from an observation of the
associations and accessories of Eastern life, to adapt them to the
requirements and refinements of European luxury.
[Illustration: Shaped Panel of Saracenic Work in Carved Bone or Ivory.]
[Illustration: Boule Armoire. Designed by Le Brun, formerly in the
"Hamilton Palace" Collection and purchased (Wertheimer) for £12,075 the
pair. Period: Louis XIV.]