The enduring image of mid-Victorian style is a sombre drawing room with red flock wallpaper, heavy curtains and table covers trimmed with braids and fringes, thickly upholstered seating, and ornaments and knick-knacks jostling on the mantelpiece, on tables and on display shelves. In fact the clutter gathered gradually after 1850, but it was well established by the 1860s.

Mid-Victorian style is often dismissed as lack of style. Certainly it had no single vision, but embraced many visions with eclectic enthusiasm. Yet the numerous unrelated elements making up its cluttered effect were deliberately put together and the result was a recognisable look. It expressed what the newly rich chose to buy, and was the first style to reflect the taste of the broad middle band of society, not its small upper set. (more…)

Two mid-Victorian fashions rejected the smothering cosiness. One was inspired by France, where nostalgia for the furniture of Louis XVI had produced a mishmash of pre-Revolutionary styles with a sprinkling of the brass or ormolu used in the Empire style.

In Britain this vogue was imitated, and rooms decorated with white and gold paper held delicate French-style furniture decked with veneers and marquetry of woods such as satinwood, amboyna and purpleheart. Pottery manufacturers, notably Minton and Coalport, produced close copies of Sèvres, while the Worcester Royal Porcelain Company produced high-quality ‘Limoges ware’. (more…)