Furniture

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Gothic Furniture

Gothic architecture involved the use of pointed arches, flying buttresses, and other dramatic innovations to create spectacular spatial effects, but 12th-century furniture design was not influenced by the novel style. The new cathedrals were expressions of affluence, but for their interiors the rich patrons of the church appear to have favored simple, functional oak furniture enriched with tapestries and metalwork. The decorative elements of the Gothic, particularly the pointed arch, were not employed in furniture ornament until about 1400. Then, for more than a century, tracery and arches were carved on the panels of chairs, on chests, and on tables of every size.

In the 15th century a few new forms were introduced. One was a type of sideboard with a small storage area set on tall legs; it had display space on the top of the enclosure as well as on a shelf below it. Cupboards were made with either one or two tiers of storage areas enclosed with doors. Another important storage piece was the armoire, with tall doors enclosing an area of 1.5 m to 2 m (4 ft to 6 ft). Along with such architectural motifs as arches, columns, and foliate patterns appeared decorative carving based on hanging textiles, a motif known as linenfold. As a primarily northern European style, Gothic remained influential in furniture design into the early 16th century. See Gothic Art and Architecture.

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Renaissance Furniture

Renaissance painting, sculpture, and architecture developed in Italy before 1425, but Italian furniture design in the 15th century tended to be simple and functional. See Renaissance Art and Architecture.

H

1

Italy

The first innovation in Italian Renaissance furniture was the cassone, a chest with elaborate carved or stucco decoration and gilt or painted finish; the designs were based on classical prototypes. Cassone forms were inspired to some degree by Roman sarcophagi; some early examples, however, had scenes illustrating the international Gothic romance, Le Roman de la Rose. Interiors in 15th-century paintings, such as those in the Dream of St. Ursula (1490-1495, Accademia, Venice) by Vittore Carpaccio and the Birth of the Virgin (1485-1494, Santa Maria Novella, Florence) by Domenico Ghirlandaio, suggest the restraint of Italian furniture design before the High Renaissance at the end of the 15th century.

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Rich marquetry, imaginative carving, and the use of walnut in place of oak (which had been preferred for earlier work) characterized the more flamboyant efforts of the 1500s. A greater variety of forms and richer ornament were employed than in earlier periods. Portable folding chairs were revived, with seats of tapestry or leather. New solid-backed side chairs were developed that had carved backs and, instead of legs, solid carved panels as supports.

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2

France

Even richer decoration is found on the French furniture of the 1500s that reflected Renaissance influence. The courts of Francis I and his son Henry II employed Italian artists who brought the Renaissance to France. During the reign of Henry II, designs by the architect Jacques du Cerceau were adapted for furniture. His complex juxtapositions of classical motifs were used for decorating carved furniture panels in the new Renaissance taste. The cabinetmaker Hugues Sambin, a major figure, published an influential folio of designs that featured works richly carved in ingenious designs. Distinctive examples reveal a profound understanding of the new classicism.

The impetus of the designers working in the 16th century carried the style into the 17th century. Characteristic tables with thin columnar legs and chairs with paneled backs, first made in the 1560s and 1570s, continued to be made after 1600. In the first decades of the 17th century, changes in design became subtle. During the reign of Louis XIII, from 1610 to 1643, furniture forms followed 16th-century models, but with greater delicacy and with an increased use of rare ebony and rich tortoiseshell veneers instead of carving.

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3

England

English Renaissance design was essentially simpler than that of France. Less elegant carved detail, simpler decoration in turned parts, and flatter, more stylized foliate motifs were characteristic. Oak continued to be the predominant furniture wood in England in the 16th century. As in France, the interest in Renaissance design persisted until about the mid-17th century in England.

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