Furniture - American [cont.]

The chair backs, characteristically, are square or squarish with banister backs or openwork splats combined with banisters. Chair legs are straight and tapered; sometimes square, sometimes round. When round they are often reeded. Sofas having now come into widespread use, many were made from 1795 to 1825 in the Sheraton style. Their legs resemble the chair legs. Their backs are often a horizontal D shape, but usually they have rectangular backs with narrow arms in line with the legs and connected to the legs by columnar supports, often in the form of an elongated vase. Back rail, arms, supports, legs, all are often reeded, but at times the back rail bears, instead, a bit of cameo carving. The distinctive feature of Sheraton dining, card and Pembroke tables is that the legs are generally round and reeded or, if supporting a pedestal or platform, splay-curved. Chests of drawers [bureaux] may be distinguished by reeded or ringed corner-column supports ending in round, tapering feet. These columns stand out from the body of the bureau, the top corners of which are cut almost circular in order to cover the columns. Tambour desks, moderate-size bookcases, china cabinets, and occasional furniture were increasingly [p. 138] in demand. Sheraton himself designed no mirrors. His name, however, is given to the type of mirror that was most favoured during his vogue in the United States [1795-1820]. The characteristics are a vertical rectangle with thin columns projecting at the sides and on overhanging cornice ornamented with a row of balls or acorns. The columns often carry delicate reeding. Between the cornice and the glass is generally found a quaint painting or an applied decoration, often of a patriotic nature.

An authority, Lockwood, has pointed out as a special feature of American Sheraton cabinet furniture, that 'it is almost devoid of mouldings', the bareness of the straight edges often'being relieved by inlay' or some slight ornament. Inlay became much more used than hitherto, though still far less than in English Sheraton. This tendency towards embellishment was increased by the use of discreet carving such as cameo cutting on chairs and sofas, reeding, fluting, and the use of applied classical swags, festoons, and rosettes or paterae: also, the painting or stenciling of certain articles such as occasional chairs, and by exceptionally decorative, even fanciful, veneering. [p. 139]

Directory. Early in the nineteenth century [c. 1805-25] American furniture was to a certain extent inspired by the French classical Directoire mode. Whether this influence came direct from France or, indirectly, through England, is not quite clear. In any event, in American Furniture the Directory influence is limited mostly to chairs and sofas. It is marked by concave, 'sabre-shaped' curves. The stiles of the side chair are sabre-curved; the stiles turn forward as seat rails which repeat the concave curves; these curves are repeated again in the sabre-shaped front legs' and again, at least somewhat, in the concave-curved rear legs. The back may contain a crossbar or a splat of either lyre or vase from. Every line and outline of the chair is curved except the seat. Add curving arms to this form and you have the Directory armchair, which sometimes, as in a library chair, is partly upholstered. Directory sofas are in the shape of a broad, squat lyre which rests on short, sabre-curved legs, the upper outward curves of the 'lyre' transformed into outrolling arms. The wood of these chairs and sofas is mostly mahogany. As to decoration, [p. 139] reeding is sometimes added, or a little carving, such as cameo-cut leaves, wheat ears, or 'sheaves of lightning'. The master of the Directory style in America was Duncan Phyfe, whose finely harmonious proportions and curving rhythms have been fully praised. Aronson, for example, said: 'There is little in any furniture, American or European, to excel in beauty or technique the grace of these interpretations.' [p. 140]

Empire. When the war of 1812 between England and the United States was ended [1814] few Americans were in the mood to follow the classical Regency furniture style then the vogue in England. They turned, instead, to NapoleonÍs classical style - French Empire - for which they had cared little until then. This style was marked in America, as in France, by largish, bulky furniture in cube or rectangular forms, which gained a showy effect from sumptuous veneers of mahogany or rosewood. As usual, the Americans interpreted the style with much freedom, leaving out most of the Roman and Egyptian motifs so dear to Napoleon. There were no gilded bronze mountings as in France, only a little brass ornamentation, and few, if any, Egyptian sphinxes or Roman allegorical figures and military symbols, such as fasces and laurel wreaths. In brief, the adaptation followed the traditional American tendency to be simple and inornate.

While many of the chairs combined motifs borrowed from other periods -for example, sabre-curved stiles and side rails from the Directory together with reeded or ringed-and-collared straight round front legs from Sheraton - the characteristic American Empire chair has a downward-sloping, loop-like top rail, a vase-shaped splat with a hood fitted between it and the top rail; concave-curved front legs, often with projecting knees, and raked or sabre-curved rear legs. American Empire sofas also show motifs from other periods such as Directory 'roll over' arms. But as a rule the whole conception and construction of the sofa is more massive, and the squat-lyre-form outline curves tend to become swan-neck or cornucopia curves, a tendency emphasized by carving them to resemble swan necks or cornucopias. The legs of these sofas are scrolls or, later, winged legs with animal feet [representing the Egyptian griffin]. Animal feet, with or without wings, are found on bureaux, wardrobes, sideboards, pier tables, etc. In many American Empire bureaux [chests of drawers] the top drawer overhangs the lower drawers, and overhang is supported by columns, some plain, some variously ornamented with ring turnings, reeding, or carving, such as quilted or 'pineapple' designs. The columns and overhang also appear on American Empire desks, secretaries, and sideboards. In some cases, probably late examples, vertically elongated scroll supports are used instead of columns. Another feature often found on American Empire cabinet pieces is the treatment of the top drawer as a broad, convex-curved 'torus' moulding. Frequently the sides of such cabinet pieces are panelled. A type of chair and sofa not previously mentioned now made its appearance: the ancient Roman curule seat, formed by joining two half-circles back to back, X-shaped. Other singular forms such as sleigh-shaped beds and 'Grecian' sofas became popular. A new development in mirror frames also appeared. The columns at the sides became larger and heavier yet were used decoratively rather than structurally. Instead of delicate reeding, they carried broadly carved leafage, spirals, or rings; and sometimes the columns were partly gilded and partly painted black. In brief, they lose their architectural character and, consequently, are no longer wall mirrors but, rather, looking glasses to hang on a wall.

The handles in the Early Empire period were, characteristically, projecting round brass knobs often stamped with the American eagle, the head of Washington, or some other patriotic motif. The characteristic Late Empire handle was a ring pull hanging from the mouth of a brass lion's head. The tawny gleam of brass was in happy accord with the glowing red mahogany or rosewood in rich 'crotch-grained' veneers. Seldom has veneering been used with more brilliant effect. The forms of the furniture grew stiffer, colder, and more austere, but the surfacing grew more resplendent. Despite the fact that the style was in the hands of master cabinet makers, eminent among them Duncan Phyfe, the taste of the day was deteriorating. By 1830 American Empire had fallen from bad to worse, the forms becoming bulky, the proportions coarse, the rhythms heavy. Phyfe himself called it 'butcher furniture'. The decline continued until about 1840, when Americans began to turn from it and take up a new furniture style, the early Victorian. [p. 140]

Cabinet Makers [see the top of this page for access to the list of American Cabinet Makers]

American Victorian Furniture. The American Victorian Style, in existence from 1840 until about 1910, displays strong English influence, as the name implies. Designs and design books were simultaneously published in London and New York. Basically the Victorian is an eclectic style. Many different sources were used for inspiration, with innovations introduced in construction and proportion. Most of the misunderstanding of this style comes from the fact that its originality is not accepted as anything more than lack of ability at imitating. Actually, the Victorian designers tried to remain close to their models but also wanted to create practical furniture, and they changed the scale and some of the details to suit the rooms for which the furniture was intended.

The style has been referred to by Carl Meeks as one of 'Picturesque Eclecticism'. The emphasis is on visual elements. Covering and screening new types of construction with traditional motifs is general.

New designs were always based on previous periods. At times the sources were close at hand in the various eighteenth-c. styles, but occasionally the more exotic and distant models, such as Jacobean and Near Eastern, were employed.

Very important to the development of furniture production was the partial industrialization that [p. 143] became typical of the craft in the United States. The large workshop with the bare beginnings of mass production and specialization, gradually became common in the centre where furniture was made. This was responsible, in part, for some of the changes in what might be considered traditional forms.

By 1840 many manufacturers in American cities were known to employ from forty to one hundred men, most of whom were unskilled workers. Furniture designs were created by the shop owner, and a minimal number of skilled men were required to follow the designs. The larger shops produced inexpensive furniture that could be shipped easily. John of Cincinnati supplied many small Mississippi river towns with stylish furniture. The furniture of Hennesy of Boston was available in many smaller towns along the seacoast.

We can get some idea of the Victorian conception of styles from the writing of the American Architect, A. J . Downing. In Cottage Residences, published in New York in 1842, he implies the use of more than one furniture style when he says: 'A person of correct architectural taste will . . . confer on each apartment by expression of purpose, a kind of individuality. Thus in a complete cottage-villa, the hall will be grave and simple in character, a few plain seats its principal furniture; the library sober and dignified . . .; the drawing room lively or brilliant, adorned with pictures . . . '

He continues in the same vein in another book, The Architecture of Country Houses, one edition of which was published in 1861 [others earlier]: 'Furniture in correct taste is characterized by its being designed in accordance with certain recognized styles and intended to accord with apartments in the same style.' Downing goes on to describe the various styles he includes Grecian [or French] Gothic, Elizabethan, Romanesque, and a version of the Renaissance style. Each has its place. The idea of using the different styles was criticized later by Charles Eastlake, an English architect who was influential in America. In 1872 he said, 'In the early part of the present century a fashionable conceit prevailed of fitting up separate apartments in large mansions each after a style of its own. Thus we had Gothic halls, Elizabethan chambers, Louis-Quatorze drawing rooms, etc. . . .'

These various styles of the Victorian period were used at about the same time, but fashion determined when they were replaced and none lasted throughout the period.

The earliest significant style was a continuation of American Empire. This furniture was heavy in proportion and differed from the earlier models only in a few details. The wavy moulding was a border introduced late: medallions and other small details of applied carving in leaf or floral motifs reduced the simplicity and classicism characteristic of earlier furniture. In the Victorian versions drawers rarely have borders of moulding, but rather are flush with the front surface. Marble tops for small tables and bedroom chests are common. Bracket feet are a frequent support for heavy case pieces. On tall legs turning as well as heavy carving was employed. Popular as finer woods were mahogany, black walnut, and rosewood. Simpler, less expensive pieces were made of maple, butternut, or other hard woods, which are often stained quite dark in red or brown. Veneers in prominent grains were used on case pieces as well as on the skirts of sofas or chairs.

In general, there were few new forms developed. Among the new were such peculiarities as the Lazy Susan and the ottoman: however, the wardrobe and the bookcase, which were known only infrequently before, were better known in the Victorian period.

With the factory replacing the craftsman's workshop, techniques requiring less skill developed. Machine sawing and planing were used with hand-fitting and finishing. The lines were planned by someone higher in rank than the man who operated the saw or did the finishing. The larger-scale operations made competition a more important factor than ever before, with price more important than workmanship.

A Baltimore cabinet maker, John Hall, published a book of furniture designs in 1840. One of the objectives of his book he describes by saying. 'Throughout the whole of the designs in this work, particular attention has been bestowed in an economical arrangement to save labour, which being an important point, is presumed will render the collection exceedingly useful to the cabinetmaker.' The designs are Grecian, he says in his commentary and '. . . the style of the United States is blended with European taste . . . ' This is the style that A. J. Downing refers to as Greek, modern, and French and 'the furniture most generally used in private houses'. Contemporary cartoons and illustrations confirm his remark by usually including this kind of furniture. A popular womanÍs magazine of the time, Godey's Lady's Book, consistently presented suggestions for furniture in the style from the late 1840s to the 1860s which was called 'cottage furniture'.

The Gothic style in Victorian furniture has two aspects. As a variation of the classical, it involves only the use of the pointed arch and related motifs in what is basically the classical style. As a more ambitious innovation, it involves the use of Gothic ornament in a more serious attempt to create a special style. The first approach was used by Chippendale, who included Gothic motifs in his rococo suggestions. Later, Sheraton included Gothic arcades in suggestions of designs, primarily neoclassical. This continued in early Victorian furniture in the Greek style. The other aspect was connected with the Gothic revival in architecture, which, although begun in the eighteenth century, had an important effect on home building after 1830. Suitable to houses in the Gothic style was furniture repeating the motifs. Large bookcases, which seem almost like architectural elements, and hall chairs, high-backed side chairs carved elaborately, are often the most spectacular examples of the style.

Some of the finest examples were designed by architects for use in their buildings. Occasionally spiral-turned columns, seventeenth-c. in inspiration, are combined with elements of earlier inspiration. The characteristic feature of the style is the pointed arch of simple or complicated form used with incised or pierced spandrels and bold raised mouldings. The Gothic style is one favoured for hall decoration and used less frequently in the parlour. Sets of bedroom furniture in the style are known. Tables are extremely rare in this style.

When referring to furniture of various kinds Downing says in The Architecture of Country Houses. 'There is, at the present moment, almost a mania in the cities for expensive French furniture and decorations. [p. 144] The style of royal palaces abroad is imitated in town houses of fifty foot front . . . . ' This style was often called Louis XIV, although it is a combination of various French styles from Louis XIV to Louis XVI.

Revival of rococo style had started in France as a reaction to its classicism which was dominant shortly before the Revolution. With the Restoration came a desire for the good old days and a style related to them. Napoleon's Romanism was as distasteful as his political upsets. From France the revival spread to the rest of the Continent, England, and the United States. In the Victorian home, where each room varied in style to suit its proper mood, the French style was most popular in the parlour, although bedroom furniture in the style is known.

The American Victorian pieces were smaller in proportion than the eighteenth-c. models. The curving lines of the back stiles are often exaggerated so that the back is balloon-shaped. Cabriole legs are restrained in their curve. Console tables with marble tops come in scallop shapes. Curving fronts are typical for case pieces. Carving in rose, grape, or leaf motifs with elaborate details in high relief is seen on chairs and sofas. On other forms this carving is flatter. Elaborate carving was frequently used on cabriole legs.

The curve becomes all important as a contrast to the straitness of the classical. Small boudoir pieces were made in this style as well as whole matching parlour-sets which include a sofa or love seat, gentleman's armchair, lady's chair, four side chairs, an ottoman, and centre table. In a drawing room set there are additional pieces such as an extra sofa, more side chairs, and possibly a matching étagère. There seem to be no dining-room pieces in this style. Introduced in America about 1840, it was important until sometime in the 1870s. One of the most important cabinet makers working in this manner was John Belter of New York. Born in Germany, he opened a shop in the city of New York in 1844 and continued in business until his death in 1863. Belter's work was a distinctive variation of the Louis XV style. He invented a laminating process for curing wood that he used in making the sides of case pieces and chair and sofa backs. He destroyed the means of doing this laminating shortly before his death, so that it was never used later. Solid curving pieces are characteristic of Belter's shop, as is elaborate carving in high relief and balloon-shaped chair backs. Belter's parlour sets are best known, but he also made bedroom furniture.

The Louis XVI style was more specifically popular after 1865 when there was some reaction to the exuberance of the rococo revival evident in the Louis XV-inspired examples. The straight line and the fine detail are opposed to the heavier curing style.

Other revivals of interest occur in the early period, but to no great extent. Downing's suggestions include pieces in what he refers to as the Flemish style, but actually of William and Mary origin.

After 1870 there were several other adaptations of eighteenth-c. models. The Adam and Sheraton styles served as inspiration for dining-room and parlour pieces done with greater faithfulness to the model and less for modern requirements.

The Renaissance style was introduced at the Crystal Palace exhibitions of 1851 [London] and 1853 [New York]. It is a style heavy in proportion and generally straight in line. Decoration is elaborate and frequently inspired by architectural rather than furniture design. The pediment is used to top many of the forms, from chairs to large case pieces. Bold mouldings, raised cartouches, raised and shaped panels, incised linear decoration, and applied carving in garlands and medallions are all characteristic. Occasionally, animal heads and sporting trophies appear on dining-room pieces. The style was used primarily for bedroom, library, and diningroom, but also parlour furniture. This style continued to be important until about 1880.

Factory production inspired spool-turned furniture, a particular type easy to produce for the lower-priced furniture market. In the main, designs were simple and the sizes were right for easy handling in lower-middle-class interiors. This furniture was decorated by turning on a lathe the legs, arms, and supports and obtaining identical units repeated in any of a variety of motifs that include the bobbin, knob, button, sausage, and vase and ring. The lines are generally rectangular and simple. This furniture did not include every form, but rather emphasized beds and tables.

The first seeds of modernism can be traced from the reactions against bad craftsmanship in the Victorian period. As a period of mass production and keen competition, the Victorian period saw the development of truly bad design as well as some very good design that has been misunderstood. By attempting to make things cheaply without simplifying the design and method of production, some makers produced surprisingly unsuccessful results.

One of the first important reactions was the book, Hints on Household Taste, which had an American edition in 1872. The author was the Engish architect, Charles Lock Eastlake, who decried bad craftsmanship and the shams it involved. He sought to inspire simple honest work in solid woods. He disliked shoddy veneer and too elaborate work. His argument was: 'I recommend the re-adoption of no specific type of ancient furniture which is unsuited, whether in detail or general design, to the habits of modern life. It is the spirit and principles of early manufacture which I desire to see revived and not the absolute forms in which they find embodiment.' [p. 145]

Eastlake proposed that craftsmen follow appropriate models that would not be difficult to execute. He disliked the over-ambitious attempts of the 1850s in which the rococo was used to excess. The resultant style was simple and rectangular. Most of what he suggested was to be executed in oak, a durable but inexpensive wood. Carving could be simple, and turnings were to play important role. This style was gradually more and more important on the American scene. Related suggestions follow in ensuing decades, and the oak furniture of the turn of the century by Gustav Stickley is probably basically of the same inspiration.

Attempts to find new and more appropriate sources of design resulted in furniture of exotic inspiration, such as that of the so-called Turkish style, seen in overstuffed pieces for parlour use.

The Victorian period is marked by variety of inspiration, stimulated by the use of different styles to suggest different moods. In the first half of the period the changes from the original to the Victorian interpretation were probably greater. After 1880 there was a more faithful adherence to the lines of the models, al hough the results always differed from the originals. About the same time attempts to make furniture only vaguely connected with earlier styles were evident, and there was also a search for new sources of inspiration.

In the Victorian age mass production was a key factor in the development of the kind of competition which made bad craftsmanship profitable. This resulted from cutting costs without considering the need for simplification in design. [p. 146]

Cast-Iron Furniture
The manufacture of cast-iron furniture in the United States began in the 1840s and continued until the first decade of the twentieth century. The manufacturers were firms making grille work, architectural ornaments, and building fronts. Both indoor and outdoor furniture was produced, although, with few exceptions, the indoor furniture was popular for a much shorter time than the outdoor furniture. Cast-iron furniture for interiors was introduced in the 1850s, a little later than the garden furniture. It was designed as an imitation of wooden furniture in the various Victorian styles and was painted to simulate wood. The exceptions to this characterization were the beds and hat racks in which imaginative forms were developed. These two forms continued to be popular after cast-iron furniture for interiors had become unfashionable.

Garden furniture of cast iron was used for a longer period, and the designs became standardized. The dominant influence was the romantic garden which had come into fashion at the end of the eighteenth century. It was created to appear wild, as if man had not had a hand in it. The furniture was designed to have a rustic look, to appear to be made of unhewn logs, or boughs of trees, vines, or flowers. The various patterns used seem to have been followed by many manufacturers. The same designs appear in early and late examples. The earliest catalogue known to contain an illustration of cast iron garden furniture appeared in the 1840s in Philadelphia, but almost every American city of any size produced it some time during the nineteenth century. Often the mould contained the name of the manufacturer, and the piece can be dated by consulting city directories. [p. 146]