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 late 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 Shôgun--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
Tables--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.
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, in Bhopal, 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.
The marvellous dexterity in manipulating wood, ivory and stone which we
recognize in the Chinese of to-day, is probably inherited from their early
ancestors.
Sir William Chambers travelled in China in the early part of the
eighteenth 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 movables 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 movables 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 five 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
the 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 least 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, cups
of tea stand ready at 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 representations of men and horses are of
ivory, or sometimes with ivory faces and limbs, and the clothes chiefly of
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 late 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 marqueterie. The most highly prized is
the LACQUER ON GOLD GROUND, and the first specimens of this work which
reached Europe during the time of Louis XV. were presentation pieces from
the Japanese Princes to some of the Dutch officials. This lacquer on
gold ground 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 with gold highly burnished. Small placques of this beautiful
ware were used for some of the choicest pieces of furniture made for Marie
Antoinette, and mounted by Gouthière.
AVANTURINE lacquer closely imitates in color the sparkling mineral from
which it takes its name, and a less highly finished preparation of it 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 also were used by Riesener and mounted by
Gouthière in some of the most costly furniture made for Marie Antoinette;
specimens of such furniture are in the Louvre. It is this kind of lacquer,
in varying qualities, that is usually found in cabinets, folding screens,
coffers, tables, étagéres, and other ornamental articles. Enriched with
inlay of mother-of-pearl, the effect of which is in some cases heightened
and rendered more effective by 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 these processes, 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, imported 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 3ft. 3in. long
and 2ft. 1in. 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 avanturine, 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.
The late Duke of Saxe-Coburg had 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 to him 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 those 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 ornamentation on Chinese with that of
Japanese furniture, it may be said that more eccentricity is effected by
the latter than by the former in their designs and general decoration. 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 lastly 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 among
sundry petty princes.
The throne 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 ornamented with gold and silver and color,
a style of decoration 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 having been given as models, while the details of the ornament
have been left to native taste. There are in the Indian Museum at South
Kensington several examples of this Bombay furniture, and also some of
Cingalese manufacture.
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.
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.
Queen Victoria had 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 unmistakably the influence of French taste in
their general form and composition. 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 page 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 eve. 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 color 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. This throne was to have been used at the opening of the
Imperial Institute by Queen Victoria, but at the last moment another seat
was selected.
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.
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. Sir George 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 surface, covered with small details of ornament, is a good example of
the sixteenth and seventeenth century work. The 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-colored pieces of transparent glass.
Some of King Edward's (at the time 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 photographic 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 strips, when 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 attest 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 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 antiquary), 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 woodwork of native workmanship. Those in the Museum, and
in other collections, are generally small ornamental articles. The
chief reason for 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. Indian 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 good 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 native 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 due to 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 was the origin of the "Arabesque" form of ornament, which,
in artistic nomenclature, occurs so frequently.
The general method of decorating woodwork is similar to the Indian
method, 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 colors 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,"
he 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 artisans, 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-five 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 those 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.
The changes of fashion in Western, as contrasted with Eastern, countries
are comparatively rapid. In the former, the record of two or three
centuries presents a history of great and well-defined alterations
in manners, customs, and, therefore, in furniture: while 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 just as well be 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, in Granada.
[Illustration: GOVERNOR'S PALACE, MANFALÛT.
Shewing a Window of Arab Lattice Work, similar to that of the Damascus
Room in the South Kensington Museum.]
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 decorated in color and
gold; the spaces are 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 colored 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."
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 fair sample of native work.
[Illustration: SPECIMEN OF SARACENIC PANELLING OF CEDAR, EBONY, AND IVORY.
(_In the South Kensington Museum._)]
The illustration on page 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 its 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 place
or couch 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 civilization
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.]