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M.
Markley Antiques is recognized as a leading authority in the U.S. on French
Gothic Revival and Renaissance Revival furniture. This has allowed us to offer the widest array of pieces to buyers who prize these styles and to procure the
most interesting and unique items as they become available in Europe. Because enthusiasm in the U.S. for Gothic
Revival has outpaced the publication of scholarly materials, we have dedicated
our website to expanding and enhancing the resources available in English on the
19th century revival in France of
Gothic and Renaissance design.
In this endeavor, we express our gratitude to Mr. Christopher Wilk,
Keeper of Furniture, Textiles and Fashion at the Victoria & Albert Museum
in London, for his invaluable insights and suggestions.
Much
has already been published about the Gothic Revival in England - a movement
encompassing the late 18th century and the first half of the 19th century. Not only did it include architecture and
furniture, but also literature, painting and poetry. To its adherents, it was superior to all other styles, not only
artistically but morally. It embodied
what it meant to be English, although contemporary critics noted that Gothic
architecture originated in France and was exported to England at a time when
the country's Plantagenet rulers still preferred to speak French. Nevertheless, the Gothic Revival was firmly entrenched within the
broader Romantic movement as part of a yearning for distant historical times of
myth and legend while promoting personal emotional expression over encroaching
industrialization and dehumanization. Neo-Classicism, with
its emphasis on the rational and on the remote pagan civilizations of ancient
Greece and Rome was swept aside by a rising tide of interest in individualism,
nationalism, Christian religious fervor and love of nature, all wrapped up as
Gothic Revival.
As with
other design movements, the 19th century revival of interest in the Middle Ages
was shaped by political, social and economic events. The French Revolution caused huge disruptions in the hereditary
aristocracy along with dispersal and destruction of family fortunes, including
furniture. The subsequent years of
Napoleon's conquests in Europe wrought havoc on furniture and its owners across
the Continent. With Wellington's
victory came waves of British would-be collectors,
like locusts devouring a crop of wheat, buying furniture at fire-sale
prices and even chartering their own ships to haul it home from the
Continent. This harvest of chattels
even involved the destruction of buildings, especially Gothic churches, whose
architectural elements were considered fair game for enthusiasts wishing to add
a Gothic flavor to new construction.
While
such wholesale transfers of wealth from one country to another are rare, in the
case of French furniture in England, it can be argued that preservation and
admiration were fortunate byproducts.
As Clive Wainwright demonstrates in his fascinating book, The Romantic
Interior,1 collecting was no longer limited to the nobility but trickled down to
the merchant class and the upwardly mobile.
Such literary luminaries as Sir Walter Scott and Horace Walpole adored
the Gothic style and collected passionately to create the romance of the Middle
Ages in their homes without sacrificing modern conveniences for the primitive
standard of living and technology in Medieval times. Collectors became patrons and protectors, studiously cataloguing
their collections and opening their homes to visitors.
During
the early 19th century, France too was swamped by waves of enthusiasm for
earlier styles, not only Gothic but also Renaissance and Louis XIII
- referred to collectively by design historians as the haute époque (Middle Ages and Renaissance). As in England, the Gothic Revival in France
was closely associated with literature, especially the works of Victor Hugo,2
but without adopting a moral stance. It
enjoyed the indulgence of royalty as the Duchesse de Berry embraced and
encouraged what was called the Troubadour Style or Cathedral Style of Gothic
Revival on exhibit at French industrial and trade fairs in the early 19th
century.3 The shift in tastes from
Empire, with its elaborate polishing and ormolu, to Gothic Revival with its
more massive and architectural look, also reflects the importance of individual
collectors and the expansion of the ranks of the bourgeoisie seeking to
validate nascent wealth with timeless furniture.
As
political stability returned intermittently to France, the Gothic Revival
became enmeshed within a movement by leading intellectuals and artists to conserve
the country's artistic heritage. In
1830, a government department was established to preserve and protect national
treasures including the medieval city of Carcassonne and to restore buildings
such as Notre Dame de Paris under the supervision of Eugène
Viollet-le-Duc. Even the King of
France, Louis Philippe (reigned 1830-1848), indulged his passion for earlier
times by making his residence in the castle at Pau a showcase of Gothic
Revival.4
The key
stylistic elements of the Gothic Period are the pointed arch, the linen-fold
panel (plis de serviette or plis de parchemin), spires and columns (including
fluted and twisted), tracery resembling
windows in cathedrals (fenestrage), vegetation (vines, grapes, sunflowers,
etc.) and fantastic animal and human figures (especially hunt motifs and
mythical beasts such as griffins). They
are also reflected in and perhaps "crossed over" from ornamentation
in the books of hours, music manuscripts and illuminations of that period. Combined in virtuosic exuberance and
reflected in various media, they are pleasing to the eye and captivating to the
mind as they invite contemplation and celebration of each detail as well as the
overall effect.
Particularly
toward the end of the Middle Ages, furniture is characterized by the
elaborate detail and exquisite ornamentation found in the paintings of that
time period. The highly ornate nature of this decoration led, no doubt, to
reaction in the form of the clean, rectilinear decoration of the Florentine
Renaissance as brought to Paris by the artisans accompanying Catherine de'
Medici when she crossed the Alps from Italy to marry France's future King Henri II.
But the shift from Gothic
to Renaissance art and architecture
was not a sudden one. Despite
what we were taught in high
school about European history
skipping from the ancient Romans to
the Medici, someone did not
just flip a switch in Tuscany
and cause Gothic art to
go into decline. Rather,
the two artistic movements coexisted
and, as seen in our collection,
furniture designers readily
combined elements from both
when they celebrated the revival
of these styles in the 19th
century.
The key
stylistic elements of the Renaissance are the rounded arch and other
architectural elements such as columns, rectilinear designs mimicking perspective in painting,
elaborate and broad mouldings, contrasting types of wood or marble inlays,
animals such as lions, salamanders and porcupines, Roman armorial symbols and
the acanthus leaf. An emphasis on
symmetry and overall balance also characterize furniture of this period along
with a sense of the individual owner whose taste it mirrors. Grotesques and mythological allusions
reflect the influence of the ceramics or faïence known as Urbinoware whose
brightly colored pieces swept into France from Italy (to be adopted and
further developed by ceramic manufacturers such as Gien and
Blois
in the 19th
century). Elaborate interpretations of
Renaissance design owe their origins to books of engravings circulated and
adapted widely throughout the Renaissance for furniture design.
For
us, one of the most perplexing
aspects of Renaissance design
in France was the use of
what appear to be motifs from
the native cultures of Central
and South America including
figures with elaborate feather
headdresses, earrings and costumes.
These were especially
popular in the hand-carved decoration
of cabinets and armoires from
the 16th century. The
mystery was solved when we read
in the New York Times of an
exhibit at the Grand Palais
in Paris in the spring of 2005
of artifacts of Brazilian
Indians.
Alan Riding detailed in
the article how the French were
captivated by 50 Indians brought
to France in 1550 and housed
in a reconstructed Indian village
in Normandy for the entertainment
of royalty.5
From this exposure to
New World culture, it is no
surprise that French designers,
always alert to what is new
and stylish, would choose to
include these motifs in their
furniture.
The
French revival of Gothic style in the 19th century, as interpreted in furniture, is clearly
distinguishable from the Gothic Revival in England. At
the risk of generalizing, English Gothic furniture has a more delicate and
refined look and finish. It is a
re-interpretation of earlier styles to suit 19th century tastes and lifestyles
rather than a faithful recreation of old pieces of furniture. French Gothic furniture, on the other hand,
appears more massive and solid, faithfully replicating the pieces from the
haute époque on view in many French museums and collections in the 19th
century. For Gothic pieces
incorporating tracery or fenestrage, the material of choice was oak as it was
for Medieval artisans. Renaissance and
Louis XIII style pieces from the 19th century tend to be of walnut, whose fine
grain permitted highly intricate carving such as that created by 15th and 16th
century craftsmen. An emphasis on
architectural elements including arches, columns, pediments and trestles
characterized the 19th century revival with an emphasis on construction from
solid wood, in contrast to 18th century construction techniques involving
inlays, marquetry and veneers.
During
the revivals of Gothic and Renaissance styles, views about what was an antique were
fluid. The passion for furniture in the
Gothic style led to "marriages" of old elements with new. If a suitable ancient piece could not be
found, collectors were not averse to designing or commissioning new pieces in
the old style and incorporating them into rooms which were a mixture of old and
new, albeit united by the Gothic theme.
In
reviving the styles of the Middle Ages, French furniture designers did not
adhere slavishly to the categories or styles of the distant past but designed
furniture in forms that did not exist previously, such as the occasional table, the
armchair and various display pieces such as the sellette or column. But the desire to create one-of-a-kind
pieces of commanding proportions influenced the designs of 19th century craftsmen
just as it had their haute époque forbears.
When
seeking to recreate the past, some mistaken assumptions were made and persist
to this day. Both English and French
furniture makers and antiques dealers in the 19th century believed that pieces
dating from the Middle Ages and Renaissance were dark, whether arising from
centuries of paste wax mixed with smoke, or just from fashion preferences and
use of stains. As scholars now know,
furniture made in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance was not stained and the
natural beauty of the wood was admired.6
Nevertheless, 19th century dealers and collectors persisted in their
desire for darkly colored furniture and interiors evoking the darkness and
mystery of earlier times while convinced that such interiors should protect
them from intrusions of light and the outside world.7
Enthusiasm
for Gothic and Renaissance style furniture persisted beyond the end of the 19th
century thanks to popular publications in color, such as Racinet's L'Ornement
Polychrome,8 from which designers and manufacturers could derive elements to
include in their products. Renaissance elements such as rounded
arches, columns, vegetation and masques led to a delightful mélange, commonly
referred to as Henri II style, popular in France by the close of the 19th
century and up to World War II.
The
Château des Bois CollectionTM evokes the spirit of Europe's master designers
and cabinetmakers whose scrupulous attention to detail and use of the finest materials
speak to us across the centuries as we welcome these pieces into today's homes
and businesses. Despite wars,
pestilence and other attacks on furniture and the people who owned it,
those examples that survive are an ongoing tribute to their makers'
genius.
For
more about the stylistic origins
of specific categories of furniture,
click on these links: armoires,
cabinets,
chairs,
chests,
fireplaces,
tables.
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1Wainwright,
Clive, The
Romantic Interior (Yale
University Press, New Haven,
1989).
2Charles,
Corinne, Visions d'Intérieurs,
du Meuble au Décor (Paris-Musées,
2003).
3Rousseau,
Francis, Le Grand Livre des Meubles (Copyright Studio, Paris, 1999).
4Charles,
supra, at 23.
5France's
New Look at Brazil's Indians
by Alan Riding, New York Times,
April 26, 2005.
6Wainwright,
supra, at 59.
7Charles,
supra, at 56.
8Racinet,
August, Full-Color Picture
Sourcebook of Historic Ornament
(Dover Publications, New York,
1989).
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