Illustrated History of Furniture: From the Earliest to the Present TimeLitchfield, Frederick
History
Illustrated History of Furniture: From the Earliest to the Present Time
Litchfield, Frederick
Furniture -- History
The illustration of Wright and Mansfield's satin-wood cabinet, with
Wedgewood plaques inserted, and with wreaths and swags of marqueteric
inlaid, is in the Adams' style, a class of design of which this firm made
a specialité. Both Wright and Mansfield had been assistants at Jackson and
Graham's, and after a short term in Great Portland Street, they removed to
Bond Street, and carried on a successful business of a high class and
somewhat exclusive character, until their retirement from business a few
years since. This cabinet was exhibited in Paris in 1867, and was
purchased by our South Kensington authorities. Perhaps it is not generally
known that a grant is made to the Department for the purchase of suitable
specimens of furniture and woodwork for the Museum. This expenditure is
made with great care and discrimination. It may be observed here that the
South Kensington Museum, which was founded in 1851, was at this time
playing an important part in the Art education of the country. The
literature of the day also contributed many useful works of instruction
and reference for the designer of furniture and woodwork.[21]
One noticeable feature of modern design in furniture is the revival of
marquetry. Like all mosaic work, to which branch of Industrial Art it
properly belongs, this kind of decoration should be quite subordinate to
the general design; but with the rage for novelty which seized public
attention some forty years ago, it developed into the production of all
kinds of fantastic patterns in different veneers. A kind of minute mosaic
work in wood, which was called "Tunbridge Wells work," became fashionable
for small articles. Within the last ten or fifteen years the reproductions
of what is termed "Chippendale," and also Adam and Sheraton designs in
marqueterie furniture, have been manufactured to an enormous extent.
Partly on account of the difficulty in obtaining the richly-marked and
figured old mahogany and satin-wood of a hundred years ago, which needed
little or no inlay as ornament, and partly to meet the public fancy by
covering up bad construction with veneers of marquetry decoration, a great
deal more inlay has been given to these reproductions than ever appeared
in the original work of the eighteenth century cabinet makers. Simplicity
was sacrificed, and veneers, thus used and abused, came to be a term of
contempt, implying sham or superficial ornament. Dickens, in one of his
novels, has introduced the "Veneer" family, thus stamping the term more
strongly on the popular imagination.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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