French and English furniture : $b distinctive styles and periods described and illustratedSingleton, Esther
History
French and English furniture : $b distinctive styles and periods described and illustrated
Singleton, Esther
Furniture -- England; Furniture -- France
Specimen card-tables are shown on Plate LIV., Nos. 2 and 3. Pembroke
tables are the most useful of this species of furniture; they may be of
various shapes. The long, square and oval are the most fashionable.
These articles admit of the greatest elegance in the workmanship and
ornaments. The tops “are inlaid, painted or varnished.” A beautiful
example is shown on Plate LV. This table is supplied with a drawer below
the top, the leaves of which fall at the two sides of the drawer.
Heppelwhite made a great variety of other tables, such as “tambour
writing tables,” “night-tables” shaving-tables, and dressing-tables of
all kinds. His dressing-tables were the result of much thought. In them
we see the convenient mechanical and folding arrangements that Sheraton
carried so far in his various devices. In one of Heppelwhite’s
dressing-tables, the drawer is divided into compartments for pins,
combs, essences, etc., and the looking-glass rises from the drawer on
hinges, or it can be made to lie flat. “Rudd’s Dressing Table” also
appears, which Heppelwhite says is “the most complete dressing-table
ever made, possessing every convenience which can be wanted; or
mechanism, or ingenuity supply. It derives its name from a once popular
character, for whom it was reported it was invented.” Here the drawers
can be made to swing around in any desired position, and the
looking-glasses also swing on pins after they are elevated.
Another ladies’ dressing-table is a simple table, the slab of which
lifts up or can be opened out. In the centre of it is the dressing-glass
which can be made to rise and stand. Around it are little compartments
for articles of the toilet. Then he makes also what he calls
dressing-drawers. This is an “ordinary chest-of-drawers, one drawer of
which is fitted up as a dressing-drawer.” Some varieties have serpentine
fronts. Two of his mahogany bason-stands appear as Nos. 1 and 2 on Plate
LV. Hanging-shelves for books or china are made of mahogany and are
suitable for ladies’ rooms.
Commodes are often richly inlaid; some of them indeed are made of
satin-wood and are shaped like half a drum. Chests-of-drawers, double
chests-of-drawers and wardrobes are of the plainest forms and made of
plain mahogany with a simple ring handle or knob.
The long bookcase of the type on Plate XXXIX. Heppelwhite calls library
case. Describing these, he says: “They are usually made of the finest
mahogany; the doors of fine waved or curled wood. May be inlaid on the
panels, etc., with various coloured woods. The ornamental sash bars are
intended to be of metal which, painted of a light colour, or gilt, will
produce a light, pleasing effect.” The dimensions are determined by the
place where it is to stand.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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