Furniture Design Ideas

(PRIOR TO, AND EARLY, “VICTORIAN”) Having fresh in our memory the standard attained by the British furnisher and decorator during the reign of the Georges, it is difficult to write in terms of moderation of English furniture as it was during the latter part of the first half of the nineteenth century—the early Victorian period— […]

supports—they can scarcely be called legs—of the two first named certainly bring to mind the tree trunk, but it is the tree trunk adapted to a specific purpose, and not as found in its natural state in the woodland or forest glade. In connection with these plates I must explain that it is quite impossible […]

palette and brush through the medium of marquetry. It is not for me to enlarge here upon the possibilities and limita­tions of inlay as a means of decoration, but I may point out that, broadly speaking, it was never devised, nor intended, for the interpretation of schemes in which minute detail pre­dominates, nor for the […]

of the important fact that the very nature of the materials selected renders the consummation of the idea excessively difficult, and, moreover, costly almost beyond calculation. When all is said and done, and the task is finally accom­plished, the result is, in many respects, far from everything that could be desired. However fine the conception […]

they are amid their own proper surroundings, in the field, garden, meadow, and woodland ; clothing the hills, and filling the valleys with verdure ; were never intended, and are absolutely unfitted, for the performance of the thousand-and-one duties associated with the furnishings of the modern home. Primitive man might be, indeed had to be, […]

These reminiscences will serve to remind the reader of the fact that the times were not remarkable for lofty aspira­tions of earnest endeavour; but in everything the satisfaction of the senses was placed before the cultivation of the intellect, though the intellect was, of course, cultivated in so far as it could be brought to […]

THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY INTRODUCTORY The task of tracing, identifying, arranging in chrono­logical order, and placing on record the scattered frag­ments now available of the history of such English furniture and woodwork as was designed and manu­factured prior to the commencement of the seventeenth century, is, for many reasons, beset with difficulties; indeed, it is greatly […]

ІТ is not the pretension of this work, as will be understood when its dimensions are remarked, to provide a complete and exhaustive history of furniture, but simply to convey a knowledge of those national types that are still to be met with, in original form, in the auction sale-rooms, the dealers’ shops, the country […]

The following pages have been written with two distinct aims in view. In the first place, it has been my endeavour to treat my subject in such a vein as to render the text interesting to those who may wish to acquire sufficiently accurate knowledge of old English and some French furni­ture in order that […]