 |  | | Fig. 1.—Front of Oak Coffer with wrought iron bands.French, 2nd half of 13th century. | Fig. 2.—English Oak Chest, dated 1637. |
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 |  | | Fig. 3.—Italian (Florentine) Coffer of Wood with gilt arabesquestucco ornament, about 1480. | Fig. 4.—Italian “Cassone” or Marriage Coffer, 13th century.Carved and gilt wood with painted front and ends. |
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 |  | | Fig. 5.—Walnut Table with expanding leaves. Swiss, 17th century. | Fig. 6.—Oak Gate-Legged Table. English,17th century. |
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 |  | | Fig. 7.—Writing Table. French, end of Louis XV. period.Riesener marquetry, ormolu mounts and Sèvres plaques. | Fig. 8.—Painted Satin-Wood Tables, in the style of Sheraton,about 1790. | | (The above are in the Victoria and Albert Museum, except Fig. 8, which were in the Bethnal Green Exhibition, 1892.) |
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Plate III.
 |  | | 1. CARVED OAK SIDEBOARD. English, 17th century. Victoria and AlbertMuseum. | 2. CARVED OAK COURT CUPBOARD. English, early 17thcentury. Victoria and Albert Museum. |
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 |  | | 3. EBONY CARVED CABINET. The interiordecorated with inlaid ivory and colouredwoods; French or Dutch, middle of 17thcentury. Victoria and Albert Museum. | 4. VENEERED CHEST OF DRAWERS. About1690. Lent to Bethnal Green Exhibition bySir Spencer Ponsonby-Fane, G.C.B. |
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 |  | | 5. EBONY ARMOIRE. With tortoise-shellpanels inlaid with brass and othermetals, and ormolu mountings. Designedby Bérain, and executed by AndréBoulle. French, Louis XIV. period.Victoria and Albert Museum. | 6. GLASS-FRONTED BOOKCASE AND CABINET. Ofmahogany. In the style of Sheraton, about 1790. Lentto the Bethnal Green Exhibition by the late Vincent J. Robinson,C.I.E. |
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Plate IV.
 |  | | 1. COMMODE OF PINE. With marquetry of brass, ebony, tortoise-shell,mother-of-pearl, ivory, and green-stained bone. “Boulle” work withdesigns in the style of Bérain. French, late period of Louis XIV. | 2. COMMODE. With panels of Japanese lacquer and ormolu mountings,in the style of Caffieri. French, Louis XV. period. |
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 |  | | 3. TABLE OF KING AND TULIP WOODS. With ormolu mountings.Louis XV. period. | 4. ESCRITOIRE À TOILETTE. Formerly belonging to Marie Antoinette.Of tulip and sycamore woods inlaid with other coloured woods, ormolumounts. Louis XV. period. |
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 |  | | 5. FOUR-POST BEDSTEAD. Of oak inlaidwith bog-oak and holly, from the “Inlaid Room”at Sizergh Castle, Westmorland. Latter half ofsixteenth century. | 6. CARVED AND GILT BEDSTEAD. Withblue silk damask coverings and hangings.French, late 18th century. Louis XVI. period. | | From the Victoria and Albert Museum, S. Kensington. |
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Plate V.
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| Photo, Mansell & Co. |
| THE “BUREAU DU ROI,” MADE FOR LOUIS XV., NOW IN THE LOUVRE. For description, see Desk. |
A decided, if not always intelligent, effort to devise a new style in furniture began during the last few years of the 19th century, which gained the name of “l’art nouveau.” Its pioneers professed to be free from all old traditions and to seek inspiration from nature alone. Happily nature is less forbidding than many of these interpretations of it, and much of the “new art” is a remarkable exemplification of the impossibility of altogether ignoring traditional forms. The style was not long in degenerating into extreme extravagance. Perhaps the most striking consequence of this effort has been, especially in England, the revival of the use of oak. Lightly polished, or waxed, the cheap foreign oaks often produce very agreeable results, especially when there is applied to them a simple inlay of boxwood and stained holly, or a modern form of pewter. The simplicity of these English forms is in remarkable contrast to the tortured and ungainly outlines of continental seekers after a conscious and unpleasing “originality.”
Until a very recent period the most famous collections of historic furniture were to be found in such French museums as the Louvre, Cluny and the Garde Meuble. Now, however, they are rivalled, if not surpassed, by the magnificent collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum at South Kensington, and the Wallace collection at Hertford House, London. The latter, in conjunction with the Jones bequest at South Kensington, forms the finest of all gatherings of French furniture of the great periods, notwithstanding that in the Bureau du Roi the Louvre possesses the most magnificent individual example in existence. In America there are a number of admirable collections representative of the graceful and homely “colonial furniture” made in England and the United States during the Queen Anne and Georgian periods.
See also the separate articles in this work on particular forms of furniture. The literature of the subject has become very extensive, and it is needless to multiply here the references to books. Perrot and Chipiez, in their great Histoire de l’art dans l’antiquité (1882 et seq.) deal with ancient times, and A. de Champeaux, in Le Meuble (1885), with the middle ages and later period; English furniture is admirably treated by Percy Macquoid in his History of English Furniture (1905); and Lady Dilke’s French Furniture in the 18th Century (1901), and Luke Vincent Lockwood’s Colonial Furniture in America (1901), should also be consulted.