Few people in any era have the will or the means to refurnish their home in totally contemporary style. Most make do with hand-me-downs and inherited pieces, adding some special purchases which may be chosen to complement what is already there.

The distinctive flavour of this 1890s room is the result of long accumulation. Yet among its traditional furniture is a display cabinet in the style of the forward-looking designer Robert Edis, made in the 1880s and looking somewhat out of place here. This is a middle- class home — comfortable and manageable. A grander home would have separate rooms for different social and domestic functions but in this one the same room is used for writing letters, doing needlework, playing music and entertaining guests to afternoon tea.

 

Unlimited Delight

This home would have at least one servant, perhaps a general maid, to keep it dusted and in good order. And there is plenty to clean and polish and dust, for the room holds a welter of decorative objects on the walls and on every surface. The architectural white marble fireplace has an ornately carved cheval screen and a banner pole screen (both with Berlin woolwork panels) at hand for when the fire is lit, and its mantelshelf is crammed.

Antique Collector MagazinePairs of vases flank the gilt, architectural bracket clock, and matched candelabra with gilt cherubs on Neoclassical pedestals stand at the ends, one almost concealing the pot of peacock feathers. All these are set on a fringed velvet mantel cloth which matches the fringed seat of the balloon-back chair and the braid-trimmed cloth on the heavy-based Jacobethan tea table. Leather-topped oak is used for the Gothic-influenced writing table but the round pedestal table is more elegant in walnut with a brass and cross-banded edge.

 

New Goods for New Money

Comfort is the keynote of Victorian style. Industry and empire had created a well-off middle class with money to spare. They spent it on an unprecedented array of luxury goods. Using new techniques in printing, manufacturers created the much admired richly coloured wallpapers, while power looms permitted the mass production of patterned carpets, curtains and upholstery fabrics that in previous eras only the most well-to-do householders could have the chance of buying.

World trade brought new tropical woods to the furniture manufacturers, coveted ceramics from Japan, occasional furniture from North Africa, and exotic plants. Photography, widely available after 1860, had become a passion and family portrait photographs stand in silver frames on the writing table while others are displayed alongside the collection of painted portraits, silhouettes, still lifes and landscapes on the walls.

In the later part of the 19th century, a younger generation of designers such as William Morris and C.F. A. Voysey sent a fresh breeze rustling through the overstuffed muddle of the Victorian drawing room. Their progressive taste demanded more space and simplicity. But many people remained quite unmoved. Up and down the country, sitting rooms like this passed through the twilight years of the Victorian age in the dim glow of the oil lamp and overhead gasolier, and a few have survived to this day barely changed.

1 Chesterfield sofa draped with shawl

2 Screen with black japanned frame and panels painted in Japanese style

3 Giltwood and tapestry Rococo Revival chair and footstool decorated to match

4 Oak platform (fixed-base) rocking chair

5 Brass-inlaid wooden tea caddy and electr0plate silver teap0t in Rococ style

6 Wax fruits under a glass dome

7 Ebonised Arts and Crafts m0vement display cabinet with inset tiles and painted panels

8 Majolica jardiniere and stand

9 Oil lamp with base in Chinoiserie style

10 Tunbridge ware wood-mosaic trinket box

11 Enamelled glass posy vases

12 Prie-dieu chair with Berlin woolw0rk cover

13 Mahogany and velvet butt0n-back chair

14 John Broadwo0d semi-grand piano

15 Painted papier-mâché spo0nback chair

16 Mother-of-pearl inlaid N. African table

17 William IV balloon-back fringed chair

18 Papier-mâché writing case and leather- bound stationery box

19 Late Regency rosewood bergete chair

20 Walnut-veneered octagonal sewing table

21 Marble-topped giltwood console table

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A Traditional Late Victorian Sitting Room