English Furniture


CRAFTSMANSHIP OF ENGLISH FURNITURE


Emma Crichton-Miller explores a wealth of techniques and histories


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n his 1939 memoir “Wind, Sand and Stars, “recall- ing his adventures as a French pilot over the Saha- ra desert in the 1920s and 30s, the French author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote: “to refine the curve of a piece of furniture, or a ship’s keel, or the fuselage of an airplane, until gradually it partakes of the elemen- tary purity of the curve of a human breast or shoulder, there must be the experimentation of several genera- tions of craftsmen.” While English antique furniture does not always rely on curves for its essential beauty, straight lines often also being a vital design element, there is no getting away from experiment and the gen- erations of craftsmen. It is precisely the combination of humanity and extraordinary skill, reaching back into history, that we recognise whenever we fall for an especially fine piece of antique furniture. Whether we are looking at a beautifully carved dark Jacobean table, with cup and cover bulbous legs, an exquisitely inlaid walnut and fruitwood marquetry William and Mary wall mirror, a George III serpentine sided satinwood bookcase or an elegant Regency rosewood sofa table, what we admire is the meticulous workmanship and what we love is the feeling of the human hand and eye at work to accomplish this marvel.


It has become a truism that no one is interested in antique furniture any more; that, in the words of expe- rienced dealer Mike Golding of Huntington Antiques Ltd in Stow-on-the-Wold, “it is no longer necessary.” Simply to accommodate clothes and kitchen utensils, provide working surfaces, beds and seating, IKEA has it sewn up. It is also true that many of us no longer have the space to accommodate ten foot long tables or vast pedimented book cases. However, to buy and to own even a single piece of antique English furniture is to engage in a quite different conversation from one of pure utility. Every piece of fine antique furniture which survives was once a major investment for its original owner. In fact, as Golding comments further about the very fine examples he has of furniture from


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the 16th to the 19th century, “These are cheaper to- day than they have ever been in history.” Sometimes, as in the exquisite Queen Anne burr walnut bachelor’s chest I encountered in Mackinnon Fine Furniture, it might have been a second son’s only piece of furni- ture, accommodating all his possessions, as he moved between residences. This chest had to speak for its owner. This is why whoever commissioned it invested in the costliest eight quarter veneering on its top, us- ing the then most fashionable material, burr walnut, framed by the most beautiful herringbone inlay. This is why the chest is accoutred with elegant engraved brass handles, and oak-lined drawers. An object that could be made to any level of refinement, here reaches its apogee, because the qualities of its materials and its refined construction would have sung out to anyone who saw it at the time. To own this piece now is to par- ticipate in a history of taste that dates back three hun- dred years. To recognise its beauty is to shake hands with a contemporary of Alexander Pope. The object not only holds your clothes and enhances your own liv- ing space, but leads you back in imagination to a period of rapid cultural, political and economic change, an unleashing of creative energy and of new wealth, after the turmoil of the 17th century, when the finest crafts- men and designers competed to outdo each other in perfection and splendour. To collect English Antique furniture is thus to be- come intimate with history in a particularly physical way. It is also fundamentally to engage in a love affair with wood, because although gilding and lacqueur and japanning have had their place in the history of Eng- lish furniture, it was most often the wood itself that was considered the star of the show. The explosion of English furniture in the 18th century, whilst enabled by a booming economy and a cosmopolitan, fashion- conscious elite, was inspired above all by the new mate- rials that international trade brought to our door. Ma- hogany, rosewood, tulipwood, satinwood, kingwood,


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Autumn 2014


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