James George Joseph Penderel-Brodhurst

“ The spacious palaces which arose in his time needed rich embellishment, and Boulle, who had not only inherited the rather flamboyant Italian traditions of the late Renaissance, but had ébénisterie in his blood, arose, as some such man invariably does arise, to gratify tastes in which personal pride and love of art were not unequally intermingled. ”

“ Indeed “ Sheraton,” like “ Chippendale,” has come to indicate a style rather than a personal attribution. But the volume and the beauty of the designs in his books is such that, when every allowance has been made for adaptation, there remains a mass of beautiful work which cannot be denied to him. In later life his very adaptability was his undoing. The public, always ready to take its mobiliary fashions from France, demanded Empire furniture, and Sheraton may have been, or have believed himself to be, compelled to give them what they wanted. ”

“ Of really ancient furniture there are very few surviving examples, partly by reason of the perishable materials of which it was usually constructed; and partly because, however great may have been the splendour of Egypt, however consummate the taste of Greece, however luxurious the life of Rome, the number of household appliances was very limited. The chair, the couch, the table, the bed, were virtually the entire furniture of early peoples, whatever the degree of their civilization, and so they remained until the close of what are known in European history as the middle ages. ”

“ Those of Italy and Flanders are often of great magnificence and of real artistic skill, though like all other furniture their style was often grievously debased, and their details incongruous and bizarre. ”

“ The French styles of the century, which began with excessive flamboyance, closed before the Revolution with a chaste perfection of detail which is perhaps more delightful than anything that has ever been done in furniture. ”

“ His extravagant creations in that sphere—far worse than anything that was designed in France—had much to do with the development of a fashion of English Empire which finally ruined British furniture design. He rioted in sphinxes and lions and fabulous beasts, he evolved forms that were dull and cumbrous, and added to their heaviness by brass mounts atonce massive and uninspired. ”

“ All greatness is the product of its opportunities, and the elder Boulle was made by the happy circumstances of his time. He was born into a France which was just entering upon the most brilliant period of sumptuary magnificence which any nation has known in modern times. ”

“ We owe it perhaps to the fact that France, as the neighbour of Italy, was touched more immediately by the Renaissance than England that the reign of heaviness came earlier to an end in that country than on the other side of the Channel. But there is a heaviness which is pleasing as well as one which is forbidding, and much of the furniture made in England any time after the middle of the 17th century was highly attractive. ”

“ The truth is that this wonderful work, with its engraved or inlaid designs of Bérain, its myriads of tiny pieces of ivory and copper, ebony and tortoise-shell, all kept together with glue and tiny chased nails, and applied very often to a rather soft, white wood, is not meet to withstand the ravages of time and the variations of the atmosphere. Alternate heat and humidity are even greater enemies of inlaid furniture than time and wear—such delicate things are rarely much used, and are protected from ordinary chances of deterioration. ”

“ From being splendid, or at least massive, and exceedingly sparse and costly, it gradually became light, plentiful and cheap. In the ancient civilizations, as in the periods when our own was slowly growing, household plenishings, save in the rudest and most elementary forms, were the privilege of the great—no person of mean degree could have obtained, or would have dared to use if he could, what is now the commonest object in every house, the chair (q.v.) . Sparse examples of the furniture of Egypt, Nineveh, Greece and Rome are to be found in museums ”

“ As the Renaissance became general these early forms gave place to larger, more elaborate and more architectural efforts, until the cabinet became one of the most sumptuous of household adornments. It was natural that the countries which were earliest and most deeply touched by the Renaissance should excel in the designing of these noble and costly pieces of furniture. The cabinets of Italy, France and the Netherlands were especially rich and monumental. ”

“ Robert Adam—with, there is reason to suspect, some help from his brother James—has left as deep and enduring a mark upon English furniture as upon English architecture. Down to his time carving was the dominant characteristic of the mobiliary art, but thenceforward the wood-worker declined in importance. French influence disposed Robert Adam to the development of painted furniture with inlays of beautiful exotic woods, and many of his designs, especially for sideboards, are extremely attractive, mainly by reason of their austere simplicity. ”

“ For the remaining years of Robert’s life the practice of the firm was the most extensive in the country; his position was unquestioned, and when he died in 1792 he was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey almost as a matter of course.
The art of Robert Adam was extraordinarily many-sided and prolific, and it is difficult to give a condensed appreciation of it. As an architect he was strongly under Roman and Italian influences, and his style and aims were exotic rather than native. ”

“ Upon the resignation or dissolution of a ministry, the sovereign exercises the undoubted prerogative of selecting the person who may be thought by him most fit to form a new cabinet. In several instances the statesmen selected by the crown have found themselves unable to accomplish the task confided to them. But in more favourable cases the minister chosen for this supreme office by the crown has the power of distributing all the political offices of the government as may seem best to himself, subject only to the ultimate approval of the sovereign. ”

“ During the long empire-strewn centuries which intervened between the lapse of Egypt and the obliteration of Babylon, the extinction of Greece and the dismemberment of Rome and the great awakening of the Renaissance, household comfort developed but little. The Ptolemies were as well lodged as the Plantagenets, and peoples who spent their lives in the open air, going to bed in the early hours of darkness, and rising as soon as it was light, needed but little household furniture.
Indoor life and the growth of sedentary habits exercised a powerful influence upon the development of furniture. ”

“ In Scotland, Brittany and Holland the closed bed with sliding or folding shutters has persisted till our own day, and in England—where beds were commonly quite simple in form—the four-poster, with tester and curtains all round, was the usual citizen’s bed till the middle of the 19th century. Many fine examples exist of 17th-century carved oak bedsteads, some of which have found their way into museums. The later forms, in which mahogany was usually the wood employed, are much less architectural in design. ”

“ There is consequently reason to rejoice when a piece of real artistry in furniture finds its final home in a museum, where a degree of warmth is maintained which, however distressing it may be to the visitor, at least preserves the contents from one of the worst enemies of the collector. ”

“ For few famous men have we so little biographical material, and contemporary references to him are sparse. He certainly studied at the university of Edinburgh, and probably received his first instruction in architecture from his father, who gave proofs of his own skill and taste in the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary (now demolished) . His mother was the aunt of Dr W. Robertson, the first English historian of Charles V., and in 1750 we find Robert Adam living with her in Edinburgh, and making one of the brilliant literary coterie which adorned it at that period. ”

“ It is of marble, round, with a high back, and is carved in high relief with figures of saints and scenes from the Gospels—the Annunciation, the Adoration of the Magi, the flight into Egypt and the baptism of Christ. ”

“ The cabinet represented an evolution brought about by the necessities of convenience, and it appealed to so many tastes and needs that it rapidly became universal in the houses of the gentle classes, and in great measure took the impress of the peoples who adopted it. It would appear to have originated in Italy, probably at the very beginning of the 16th century. In its rudimentary form it was little more than an oblong box, with or without feet, small enough to stand upon a table or chair, filled with drawers and closed with doors. ”

“ In the 14th century the woodwork became of less importance, being generally entirely covered by hangings of rich materials. Silk, velvet and even cloth of gold were much used. Inventories from the beginning of the 14th century give details of these hangings lined with fur and richly embroidered. Then it was that the tester bed made its first appearance, the tester being slung from the ceiling or fastened to the walls, a form which developed later into a room within a room, shut in by double curtains, sometimes even so as to exclude all draughts. ”

“ Thenceforward the chair in all countries ceased to attract the artist. The art nouveau school has occasionally produced something of not unpleasing simplicity; but more often its efforts have been frankly ugly or even grotesque. There have been practically no novelties, with the exception perhaps of the basket-chair and such like, which have been made possible by modern command over material. So much, indeed, is the present indebted to the past in this matter that even the revolving chair, now so familiar in offices, has a pedigree of something like four centuries (see also Sedan-chair) . ”

“ Wood, ivory, precious stones, bronze, silver and gold have been used from the most ancient times in the construction or for the decoration of furniture. The kinds of objects required for furniture have varied according to the changes of manners and customs, as well as with reference to the materials at the command of the workman, in different climates and countries. ”

“ There is, however, little indication that Sheraton chafed under the tyranny of “ those twin jailors of the daring heart, low birth and iron fortune. ” “ I can assure the reader,” he writes in one of his books, “ though I am thus employed in racking my invention to design fine and pleasing cabinet-work, I can be well content to sit upon a wooden-bottom chair, provided I can but have common food and raiment wherewith to pass through life in peace.”
His first book on furniture was published in 1791 with the title of The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Drawing Book. ”

“ Yet it is a profoundly interesting style, both by reason of the classical roots from which it sprang and the attempt, which it finally reflected, to establish new ideas in every department of life. Founded upon the wreck of a lingering feudalism it reached back to Rome and Greece, and even to Egypt. If it is rarely charming, it is often impressive by its severity. ”

“ The basis of the cabinet has always been wood, carved, polished or inlaid; but lavish use has been made of ivory, tortoise-shell, and those cut and polished precious stones which the Italians call pietra dura. In the great Flemish period of the 17th century the doors and drawers of cabinets were often painted with classical or mythological scenes. Many French and Florentine cabinets were also painted. In many classes the drawers and pigeon-holes are enclosed by folding doors, carved or inlaid, and often painted on the inner sides. ”

“ More commonly, it is the duty of the prime minister to lay the collective opinion of his colleagues before the sovereign, and take his pleasure on public measures and appointments. The sovereign never presides at a cabinet; and at the meetings of the privy council, where the sovereign does preside, the business is purely formal. ”

“ The accompaniments of a domestic bed (bedding, coverlets, etc.) have naturally varied considerably in different times, and its form and decoration and social associations have considerable historical interest. The Egyptians had high bedsteads which were ascended by steps, with bolsters or pillows, and curtains to hang round. Often there was a head-rest as well, semi-cylindrical and made of stone, wood or metal. Assyrians, Medes and Persians had beds of a similar kind, and frequently decorated their furniture with inlays or appliqués of metal, mother-of-pearl and ivory. ”

“ Mahogany, satinwood and other rich timbers were characteristic of the style of the end of the 18th century; rosewood was most commonly employed for the choicer work of the beginning of the 19th. Bronze mounts were in high favour, although their artistic character varied materially.
Previously to the middle of the 18th century the only cabinet-maker who gained sufficient personal distinction to have had his name preserved was André Charles Boulle; beginning with that period France and England produced many men whose renown is hardly less than that of artists in other media. ”

“ Even the remarkable series of volumes of designs for furniture which he published during the last sixteen years of his life, and upon which his fame depends, were not a commercial success. He was a great artistic genius who lived in chronic poverty. The only trustworthy information we possess regarding his circumstances is found in the Memoirs of Adam Black, who when he first arrived in London lodged a week in his house, only two years before Sheraton's death. ”