Adam, Wedgwood and Sheraton are names that conjure up the delicate Neoclassical style of the late 18th century. It was a style ideal for the factory methods that were starting to nudge at the craftsman’s pre-eminence.

A marked Change in decorative style coincided with the start of George III’s reign in 1760 — not that the devout, industrious 22-year-old king had much to do with the change. He became a cultured and devoted family man with an interest in science, but he was no society leader.

Fashion and style were still set by people of consequence living in quite grand houses, usually in the country. Some of these people were not born to titles or land but gained wealth and position through trade and manufacturing, or marriage — for sons of the gentry readily married merchants’ daughters.

The style that now appealed to the fashion setters was still inspired by the Classical world, but new windows had been opened on that world. Excavations at Herculaneum (from 1748) and Pompeii (from 1758) — two Roman cities near Naples engulfed by the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79—revealed rich interiors, and designers were entranced by the delicate, symmetrical decorative motifs.

Adam‘S Neoclassical Style

Chief creator of the style — the Neoclassical — in Britain was the architect and designer Robert Adam, ambitious son of a leading Scottish architect. He had studied the major known Classical sites during his Grand Tour ( 1750-4), and came back with his own distinctive vision of Classical decoration.

Antique Collector MagazineHis most characteristic design element was chains of Classical motifs such as garlands of flowers and husks, palmettes (palm leaves), anthemions (honeysuckle flowers), round and oval paterae (plaques), urns and cameos. These were painted on pale pastel walls and ceilings or applied as low-relief plaster or papier-mâché. Frequently they were inset with medallions painted in intense colours and depicting landscapes or Classical figures.

In partnership with his younger brother James, Adam employed teams of skilled craftsmen. Some were famous names in their own right, such as the painters Angelica Kauffmann and her husband Antonio Zucchi, and the plasterer Joseph Rose.

The Adam brothers transformed many houses in London, Edinburgh and elsewhere with new facades and coordinated designs for entire rooms or suites. Robert Adam designed furniture, carpets to echo the ceiling decoration, and even upholstery materials.

Inspiration for furniture came from contemporary French design as well as from Classical sources. Typical Adam furniture was decorated with paint, marquetry and mouldings. Pieces generally had a rectangular look — but many chests of drawers after 1775 were given a curved front.

Leading London furniture-makers eagerly followed Adam style, and Chippendale did some of his best designs for Adam rooms. When The Works in Architecture of Robert and James Adam, Esquires, was published in several volumes from 1773 on, architects and craftsmen throughout the country were able to copy the style. However, a great deal of the imitation was inferior. Silverware, pottery, glass and jewellery as well as furniture took up the theme and Adam style was dominant from about 176o to 1785. It was ideal for smaller houses, where the Rococo could be overpowering and had been confined mostly to details such as mirrors.

From Decoration to Form

During the 1780s, a more serious scrutiny of Classical design made the later Adam style seem fussy and superficial. Gothic style and Chinoiserie were also reappraised and the Romantic movement was burgeoning, but the strongest change was away from decoration towards refinement of form.

The change was most eloquently expressed in the furniture designs of George Hepplewhite and Thomas Sheraton.

Their most successful pieces of furniture depended on clear, elegant lines and on the effective use of the colours and patterning of the woods for veneers, stringing and cross- banding. Timbers came from all over the world, among them tulipwood, rosewood and zebrawood from Brazil, thuya from Africa, calamander from Ceylon and blond satinwood from the West Indies.

The fragile look of the typical designs — notably in chairs and the proliferating tables such as Pembroke tables, breakfast tables and card tables — belies a robust structure based on extremely skilful craftsmanship.

Taxing Times for Glass

Throughout the period, craftsmen continued to .make furniture by hand — with help from machinery coming in the 1790s. Glass too was still handmade. The major changes of this period were to make the most of the sparkle of British lead crystal, and to create a new style of chandelier. The ungainly curving glass branches imitating older wooden chandeliers were transformed by the addition of twinkling festoons of cut-glass drops.

After glass was taxed by weight in 1745, cut glass became more expensive and a greater amount of thinner glassware was made to engrave rather than cut. Clear glass, opaque white glass, and blue, green, and purple glass were also enamelled with flowers, birds and figures and highlighted with gilding. Vases, fingerbowls and scent bottles were among the items made in this fashion in Bristol, London, Newcastle, Warrington and Staffordshire.

Cutting was still admired as decoration, however, and drinking glasses, decanters and cruets were deep-cut with triangles and diamonds. When the tax by weight on glass was increased in 1777, cut-glass prices rose again. A flatter style of cutting, producing broad fluting, was used more and deep cutting was used less. Many skilled cutters went to Ireland where glass was not taxed.

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