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Thomas Sheraton (1751-1806) was the last of the famous cabinet-makers of the 18th century. In 1790 he published his first collection of "Designs for Furniture," and this was followed by numerous other publications of a similar class

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Permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

English Corner Cabinet 1725-30; black lacquer with Chinese scenes in gilt

Latins. It differed from the Classic art in absorbing Oriental motifs and combining them with Greek in a manner that has ever since had world admiration. With centuries of luxury and prolific art production nothing remains of her furniture except several chairs or "thrones," supposed to be of Byzantine origin. The Iconoclasts did more to destroy the city's art work than all the devastation of the passing centuries. The so-called "chair of Saint Peter" in the basilica of that saint in Rome belongs probably to a date between the 4th and 6th centuries. Its arcaded back and other details show mixed styles of Classic Greek, Asiatic Greek and Persian. Another supposed Byzantine chair is in San Marco, Venice. In the later days of Byzantium furniture became luxurious and was ornamented with gold, silver and precious stones. There is a seat in the British Museum with a high back which may be of Byzantine make. The so-called Saint Maximinian's chair, at Ravenna, of this period, is of wood overlaid with plaques of ivory carved with scenes from the life of Joseph, but some of the workmanship, at least, is certainly of later date. From manuscripts we learn that beds of this period were of old Roman form. The former custom of reclining at meals ceased and guests sat at table.

Romanesque. This style is sometimes termed "Romano-Byzantine" and "Italo-Byzantine." It has been called the debased Classic during the settlement of the Northern barbarians. It grew up in western Europe when Italy and Oriental Europe were flourishing in the Byzantine style. Its furniture is really Byzantine but shows less ornamentation.

Bibliography. Baumeister, A., 'Denkmäler des klassischen Altertums (Leipzig 1888); id., 'Altgriechischen Möbelstil (in Kunst und Gewerbe, Nuremberg 1885); Champeaux, A. de, 'Le Meuble' (Paris 1885); Foley, E., The Book of Decorative Furniture' (London and New York 1911); Litchfield, F., Illustrated History of Furniture (London 1907); Pollen, J. H., Ancient and Modern Furniture and Woodwork' (London 1908); Viollet-le-Duc, E. E., Dictionnaire du Mobilier français, de l'Époque carlovingienne à la Renaissance' (Paris 1871-75).

CLEMENT W. COUMBE.

FURNITURE, Mediæval. Much of the few pieces of furniture used by the nations not reached by Byzantine or Romanesque influences was without decoration and consisted of bare boards fastened together. But under Gothic influence the pieces of utility began, in the northern countries, to receive some artistic attention. The wealthy alone owned anything outside of chests and settles. The bahut (chest) of the nobility was used as a piece of furniture when not traveling. It acted as a seat, a bed, and often as a table, and when change of place was at hand the bedding, hangings of leather or arras were packed into the bahut. The chest was also known as a huche, and the chest makers or carpenters were called huchiers. Continuous warfare subjected Europeans to very frequent and hurried change of abode and the court and nobles had little use for the comforts afforded by much furniture. In early medieval times the Church alone, with its altars, choir-stalls and patriarchal chairs, possessed permanent, substantial fur

niture. In the absence of actual specimens we have to fall back on illuminations in old MSS. and the inventories attached to old wills, for information as to the household equipment. By the 11th century we find dressoirs, cup bordes (on trestles); and the armoire takes an early place with the faldestool. The bedstead was built into the wall. Even the luxuriousness of the French was one more of show than of comfort right into the 15th century. And, while we read of beautifully carved wainscoting and ceilings, these rooms held but few chairs, mostly hassocks (carreaux) or cushions, carved bench, perhaps, while the magnificent bahuts, architecturally constructed and decorated, hold immense services of the precious metals to be displayed on state occasions (their silver and gold services representing their only realizable wealth). When a medium of exchange was needed this precious metal was melted down for payment.

EUROPEAN FURNITURE.

Italian Furniture.- The Gothic style never gained a full hold in Italy, for, as Dr. Semper says: "Already by the 12th century the Renaissance era was opened in furniture, especially in Italy." Most of these Gothic pieces are found in the church furnishings, as closets, with Gothic façades, and were used in chapels, choirs, sacristies, etc. For a short period in the 14th century Gothic architectural motifs were used in structural parts as niches, pillars, balustrades, etc. When (1453) Mohammedans captured Constantinople, the Greek artists, fleeing to the west, brought back the grand Classic traditions and the Renaissance blossomed forth. A favored method of decoration was painting and the craftsmen's guild of Saint Luke, in Elorence (1349), admitted artists as members. Woodcarving advanced in artistic merit, but the greater fondness in the 15th century was still for painted panels for the great wall cupboards (credences) and coffers (cassoni), and even chairs and bedsteads. The tendency was toward depictions of Biblical subjects, history or fable. The Florentine artist, Dello, did much fine painting on woodwork. Along with this fondness for painted furniture there was an increasing fondness for the marquetry work (called intarsia), which, starting with geometric inlays, of black and white woods, had advanced, by the 15th century, to historical and landscape representations in stained woods with very realistic effects. Giovanni da Verona is said to have invented the staining of half-tones with oils and acids. Giulio Majano and Benedetto da Majano, Guido Servellino, Domenico di Marietto, Baccio Cellini, Girolamo della Cecca were noted in that period. In the 16th century great Italian marquetry artists were the family of Bartolommeo de Pola, and the ecclesiastics Giovanni, Raffaello and Damiano. Venice became the most active centre and her marquetry work was in demand all over Europe. The trecento, quattrocento and cinquecento styles of decoration were each well represented in their periods by the furniture makers of Italy. The credence or dresser developed into a true sideboard, losing its open shelves. The cabinet grew out of the press or closet. Tables were soon most ornately carved. Bureaus of drawers came into being in the Renaissance. The heavy

Gothic bedstead became a light frame with slender posts (columns) supporting a canopy of tapestry or brocade, and the high headboard showed magnificently carved designs such

as

the owner's heraldic bearings. Lovely screens were in use in stamped leather or with painted decoration. The cassone (marriage chest) became more and more ornate, receiving beautiful decoration in gesso relief, gilding, intarsia and wood carving. An artist noted for such work was Andrea di Cosimo. The 17th century saw the development of bookcases and writing desks as part of the furniture of the wealthy. These were formerly only seen in the great libraries or used by Church dignitaries. The true couch belongs to this period -a piece of furniture for day comfort entirely apart from the bed.

French Furniture.- The Gothic style ruled supreme in the designs of French furniture up to the 16th century; that is to say Gothic architectural motifs and outlines formed the constructive parts. In the 16th century Italian influence sets in and we find Venetian marquetry arabesques adorning the furniture. Francis I, through his campaign in Italy, brought the Renaissance style to France and we find great carved work in caryatids, grotesques and sculptured human heads protruding from medallions in miniature garrets, heavy garlands of fruits. Mythological and allegorical subjects appear on the marquetry panels. Architectural pediments crown the furniture, the "broken" pediment often having its statue in the open space. Under Louis XIII all decoration as well as the furniture itself is characteristically heavy, including the columns, cartouches, garlands, balustrades, furniture feet. The motifs are Renaissance but the lightsome and open work is gone, all is opaque and sombre.

Panels are sometimes octagonal. The cabinetwork begins to show the influence of the Flemish ébénist (cabinet-maker), for the king had sent artisans to the Netherlands and they had brought back the Flemish Renaissance technique. The queen was Spanish and she introduced Moorish traditions (mosaic incrustations of mother-of-pearl, ivory, etc.). The chaise à vertugadin was armless to allow ladies to sit with their immense spreading farthingales. Chairs had often straight medallionbacks; armchairs were of wood entirely; settles, generally bare, had leather or cane seats. The Louis XIII cabinet is typically heavy; it. succeeded the dresser and had channeled pilasters to break the front surface; statues in niches were in the upper tier, the swinging doors were paneled. The queen's Spanish goldsmiths made some furniture pieces of solid silver.

Louis XIV Style.- The pompousness of the "Grand Monarch" is reflected in the furniture as a prevailing feature till toward the end of his long reign, when the Bérain style of minuteness and delicacy arrived. With Colbert as Controller-General, ruling the decorative arts with his genius and enthusiasm, with the Louvre and Gobelins factories, aided by the Aubusson and Beauvaix furniture tapestries, France produced furniture that astonished the world and was able to discard Italian and Flemish styles for new conceptions. To this reign belong the art products of the genius of such artists as the sculptors Caffieri, Tuby, Anguier;

the engravers Le Clerc, Audran, Rousellet; the cabinet-workers Boulle, Cucci, Oppenord, Poitou, Varin; and designers LePautre and Bérain. The heavy first phase in the Louis Quatorze period is heroic or Roman decorative treatment (trophies of Roman arms, allegorical and mythological figures, cornucopias, cartouches with bulging fields). In the late phase of the period the minute detail decoration of "chinoiseries" by Bérain commence, to continue into the Regence period. Pieces of furniture are broad, heavy, stiff armchairs with capacious backs and massive arms and legs; the couch (lit de duchesse) was introduced, also the screen and fire screen of lacquer. Some pieces of furniture are of solid silver. Rosewood veneer appears late in this reign. Bedsteads have plumes (panaches) at the four corners of the canopies. Stiff, heavy, capacious, but grand, is the type of furniture of "le Roi Soleil."

Regency Style.-The King Louis XV was five years old on the death of Louis XIV, and Louis Philippe of Orleans was made regent. The light, graceful arabesques of Bérain, the drawings of Oppenord, the "singeries" (apegroups) of Gillot were inherited in fresh form from the later years of the former reign. Charles Cressent gave life and exquisite beauty to furniture pieces with his talented sculpture work ornament, in bronze, brass and or-moulu, his delicate tortoise-shell marquetry, inlays of colored woods, etc. Financiers, merchants and the wealthy bourgeoisie were taking prominence in luxurious surroundings. Meissonnier and Thomas Germain brought their genius into this period. In decorative motifs we find the shell (coquille), used often in the Louis Quatorze period, is pierced and more or less conventionalized. Multiplied opposing curves and volutes frame panels and mirrors. It is the beginning of the "rococo" decoration. Chiseled copper and bronze gilt are profusely used in ornamentation of wardrobes, bureaus, chiffoniers and sidetables. Corners of furniture display high relief busts of women. Legs bend to "cabriole" curves; tie-pieces are discarded leaving the legs free. Vernis-Martin (see LACQUERS AND LACQUERWORK) furniture is in vogue. Chairbacks are of rounded outline and concave; chests of drawers acquire styles "à la Régence,» à la Harant," "à la Dauphine."

Louis XV Style.- The fashions in furnishing changed considerably in this reign on account of arranging the dwellings (formerly immense rooms) into small apartments of cozy dimensions. With the arrival of these small comfortable suites of rooms, the furniture becomes of reduced size and takes on bolder curves and "bombé" fronts. The "rococo≫ style with its opposed C's and fantastic shellwork was in full vogue till 1750, when Madame Pompadour converted the court to favor a return to Classic models (first termed á la reine). Cressen's genius was now rivaled by Oëben and, later, by Riesener. Other great cabinet-makers were Duplessis, Hervieux, Bernard, Boudin, Olivier, Joubert, etc. Jacques and Philippe Caffieri (sons of the noted Caffieri of the last reign) did lovely furniture decoration. Gladbach came from Cologne and Gouthière did master work in metal adornment on Riesener and other creations. Boucher painted entrancing cupids. The "Duchesse"

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