Illustrated History of Furniture, fifth ed.: From the Earliest to the Present TimeLitchfield, Frederick
History
Illustrated History of Furniture, fifth ed.: From the Earliest to the Present Time
Litchfield, Frederick
Furniture -- History
The taste for importing old Dutch furniture, also lacquer cabinets
from Japan, not only gave relief to the appearance of a well furnished
apartment of this time, but also brought new ideas to our designers and
workmen. Our collectors, too, were at this time appreciating the Oriental
china, both blue and white, and colored, which had a good market in
Holland, so that with the excellent silversmith's work then obtainable, it
was possible in the time of William and Mary to arrange a room with more
artistic effect than at an earlier period, when the tapestry and panelling
of the the walls, a table, the livery cupboard previously described,
and some three or four chairs, had formed almost the whole furniture of
reception rooms.
The first mention of corner cupboards appears to have been made in an
advertisement of a Dutch joiner in "The Postman" of March 8th, 1711; these
cupboards, with their carved pediments, being part of the modern fittings
of a room of the time of Queen Anne.
The oak presses common to this and earlier times are formed of an upper
and lower part, the former sometimes being three sides of an octagon with
the top supported by columns, while the lower half is straight, and the
whole is carved with incised ornament. These useful articles of furniture,
in the absence of wardrobes, are described in inventories of the time
(1680-1720) as "press cupboards," "great cupboards," "wainscot," and
"joyned cupboards."
The first mention of a "Buerow," as our modern word "Bureau" was then
spelt, is said by Dr. Lyon, in his American book, "The Colonial Furniture
of New England," to have occurred in an advertisement in "The Daily
Post" of January 4th, 1727. The same author quotes Bailey's Dictionarium
Britannicum, published in London, 1736, as defining the word "bureau" as
"a cabinet or chest of drawers, or 'scrutoir' for depositing papers or
accounts."
In the latter half of the eighteenth century these convenient pieces
of furniture came into more general use, and illustrations of them as
designed and made by Chippendale and his contemporaries will be found in
the chapter dealing with that period.
Dr. Lyon also quotes from an American newspaper, "The Boston News Letter"
of April 16th, 1716, an advertisement which was evidently published when
the tall clocks, which we now call "grandfathers' clocks," were a novelty,
and as such were being introduced to the American public. We have already
referred to one of those which is in the South Kensington Museum (date
1700), and no doubt the manufacture of similar clocks became more general
during the first years of the eighteenth century. The advertisement
alluded to runs, "Lately come from London, a parcel of very fine
clocks--they go a week and repeat the hour when pulled" (a string caused
the same action as the pressing of the handle of a repeating watch) "in
Japan cases or walnut."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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