Heavy handed Decor

Cosy family life remained the aim of mid- Victorians. This still demanded comfortable furnishings such as deep-buttoned chairs, ottomans and chesterfield sofas, but now everything had a heavier look, showed more wood — along the top of seat backs, for example — and bore fancy carving or fretwork. The front legs of the graceful balloon-back chairs were elaborated into carved cabrioles. (more…)

Setting aside a room of one’s house for books was an idea that developed slowly from the later 17th century onward. Before that, people had few books and these were usually kept in the closet or cabinet. There were outstanding exceptions, however, such as the celebrated diarist Samuel Pepys, who had a library lined with bookcases built especially to hold his collection of books. (more…)

Dinner consisted of a soup, fish, fricassee of chicken, cutlets, veal, hare, vegetables of all kinds, tart, melon, pineapple, grapes, peaches, nectarines with wine in proportion. Six servants wait upon us, a gentleman-inwaiting and a fat old housekeeper hovering round the door. Four hours later the door opens and in is pushed a supper of the same proportions.’ So the Countess of Granville recorded in 18 o a meal served just to her husband and herself. Food and drink were central to luxurious living and the wealthy offered guests dozens of dishes at dinner. (more…)

Rococo STY LE was the height of fashion in the 1740s and 50s, but few purely Rococo rooms have survived in Britain. Perhaps it was too difficult to make a pleasing scheme of such profuse ornament with its swirling flowers and scrolls, asymmetric forms and figures caught in the instant of movement. Nevertheless, householders — especially in London — eager to be in tune with the latest trends, included Rococo features in some of their rooms. (more…)

Although hand skills continued, science and technology were advancing on all fronts. Pottery and porcelain were soon to prove a field for industrialisation. While British factories could not yet match Meissen and Sevres, attractive and popular pieces were made. Highly decorated soft-paste porcelain figures were still made by Chelsea (for tables, mantelshelves and cabinets), now with coloured and gilded scrolls instead of the earlier mounds forming the base. Tiny figures known as ‘toys’ were made to hold scent, needles and bonbons. Earthenware figures and Toby jugs were made in the Staffordshire potteries to appeal to a mass market. (more…)

Silver, Ceramics and Glass

The Palladian, Rococo, Chinoiserie and Gothic styles inspired other craftsmen besides furniture-makers. The best silversmiths of the age, such as Paul de Lamerie, worked in all these styles. A salver might have restrained, Classical-style borders and a candlestick might represent a Classical column, while a basin and ewer might bear the shells and garlands of the Rococo. One dish might be engraved with Oriental figures and another be heavily chased with Gothic traceries. (more…)

While their homeland was Oliver Crom well’s Commonwealth, Royalists who had taken refuge in France experienced the French style of life. One of its features, which they copied on returning home after 166o, was the arrangement of rooms. The public, formal core of a house was the hall or vestibule and the main reception room, often called the salon (saloon) or great parlour. The private suite of rooms had its own slightly less formal reception room — the withdrawing room — which was an antechamber to the bedrooms. (more…)

Soft Touches

Carpets on the floor and curtains at the windows were rare through Elizabethan and Jacobean times — but carpeting and curtaining were profusely used for other purposes. Fine woollen fabrics, or silks and velvets from China and Italy were hung around the bed, while cushions and table coverings were often of harder-wearing turkeywork — wool knotted into a backing like Turkish rugs.

Many soft furnishings were made by the ladies of the house who worked pillowcases and bed coverlets, cushions and book covers, purses and bodices. Trellises set with flowers and animals wound across their fabrics. The needlewomen could use pattern books of motifs, pricking along the lines, then pressing powder through the holes onto the fabric. (more…)

Button-making was an important industry in its own right. By the 1770s it is recorded that over 80 master button-makers, producing all types of buttons, were working in Birmingham where button-making had been prolific for over 100 years. Sheffield plate was ideal for this purpose and had been used for button-making since it was discovered by Thomas Boulsover circa 1742. By the 1780s Birmingham button-makers produced large quantities of buttons and included among their numbers Matthew Boulton’s Button Company which was started in 1782. Sheffield plate had gained for itself such a good reputation as a substance for button-making that an Act was passed in 1796 which regulated the quality of metals used for buttons. (more…)

From approximately the earlier years of the 1770s separate parts of a vessel such as spouts or lids were stamped out using a drop-hammer. The piece of Sheffield plate would be placed upon a striking block which had a die sunk with a model of the required shape. Then the hammer, the face of which was raised with the same shape as the sunken die, was manipulated from above by a rope between two vertical rods and, as it struck the block, the Sheffield plate was stamped into shape. The parts would then be soldered to the vessel. The introduction of harder steels made possible more sharply-defined pieces and during the Regency period entire units were produced in this manner. Die-stamping was a very important technique, advances in it contributing greatly to mass-production methods in both silver and Sheffield plate. By the last decade of the eighteenth century larger, flat pieces such as trays were being produced in this manner, suitably ornamented as already described. (more…)