WE cannot overestimate the vast import of the influence exerted by the Brothers Adam upon English furniture. They introduced marked differences of form and structure. The changes due to their inspiration were more radical, more sudden, and of wider prevalence than any that had hitherto taken place. When the curvilinear element appeared - the most significant single occurrence so far chronicled in furniture annals - it made at first a modest and inconspicuous showing towards the end of the Carolean period, became distinctly frequent in the reign of William and Mary and was paramount in the days of Queen Anne and thereafter.

The Adam influence arose at a time when this curvilinear style, with which its ideals were wholly at variance, had for a long while enjoyed high favour and to a great extent it supplanted that style. Moreover, the inspiration for most of the furniture made thenceforward till the end of the eighteenth century may be directly traced to the style of design for which the Adelphi 1 were responsible. Prior to this revolution in design - for in effect it was such - whatever traces of classic or of Renaissance feeling had been present in English furniture had come there through French, German, or Flemish media, and had naturally lost some of their purity of line and distinction of character in this process of filtration.

1 This Greek word, signifying brothers, was adopted by the four Adan brothers as a trademark.

Key Plate IX. Adam Style, C. 1762-1795

Materials Usually Mahogany and Satinwood See Text Pages 184-200

Fig. 1. Oval Wheel-back, Square Tapered Legs, Block Feet, Stretchers.

Fig. 2. Upholstered Oval Back, Single-Curve Arm Supports, Round Tapered Legs.

Fig. 3. Painted Oval Wheel-back, Square Tapered Legs, Spade Feet, Saltire Stretchers.

Fig. 4. Sideboard Table with Pedestals. Characteristic Adam Details of Ornament.

Fig. 5. Semicircular Console Cabinet, Carved Mahogany, Square Tapered Legs, Spade Feet.

The Brothers Adam, on the contrary, went directly to the fountain head, both for general inspiration and accurate detail, and brought into English mobiliary art a powerful infusion of classicism, mostly of the Italian type, pure and untainted by transmission through any intervening channels. In the pronounced return to a classic spirit in furniture design it should be borne in mind that the Adams anticipated the work of the French designers of the reign of Louis XVI. To understand just why the classic element in the style called after their name was so direct and vital it will be necessary to rehearse a little of the personal history of the Brothers Adam.

Before entering upon a brief biographical sketch of the Adelphi, however, the reader must be reminded that they were architects and designers and not makers of furniture. When we speak of Adam furniture, therefore, we mean furniture that was made directly from their designs. So great was their influence upon the design of the latter half of the eighteenth century, both architectural and mobiliary, that one is tempted, and almost persuaded, to speak of the "Adam Period" instead of the "Adam Style." The forms and motifs they introduced, as previously stated, dominated, or at least furnished, the inspiration for nearly everything that was designed in England, either in architecture or furniture during the remainder of the century.

Robert and James Adam doubtless inherited much of their architectural bent from their father, who held the appointment of King's Mason in Edinburgh and achieved some fame as the designer of Hopetoun House and also of the Royal Infirmary. The brothers John and "William were also architects, but it was Robert, the second son, and his younger brother James, who made the name of Adam famous, and it is with them alone that we are concerned.

Robert was born in 1728 at Kirkcaldy and after completing his course of education at the University of Edinburgh he went, when twenty-two years of age, to continue his architectural studies in Italy. He afterwards went into Dalmatia to explore and examine the ruins at Spalatro of the Emperor Diocletian's Palace. This work he did with the utmost care and precision and employed assistants to help him in making sketches and taking accurate measurements of the ruins. The result of these labours he published in 1764 in a large volume dedicated to King George III, illustrated with his own paintings, plans and explanations of the ruins, along with admirable engravings by Bartolozzi.

He was afterwards appointed Architect to the King but subsequently resigned that post when he entered Parliament. His brother James then succeeded to the honour he had relinquished. About 1768 the Brothers began the series of real estate and building operations which brought them great wealth as well as fame, though, as canny and provident Scots, they had never been troubled by the limitation of penury and had always, it seems, had abundant means to pursue their bent. Of course they executed many other important architectural commissions besides those in which they engaged as matters of personal investment.

In 1773 they began to publish engravings of their architectural work, but the undertaking was not completed until the appearance of a posthumous third volume in 1822. The title of this most valuable and illuminating set is the "Works in Architecture of Robert and James Adam, Esquires." Despite the title, the volumes were not wholly devoted to architecture, for there were sixty-four plates given to designs for sconces, bookcases, mirrors, tables, console cabinets, chairs, lamps, clocks and other articles of furniture.

PLATE XXI. ADAM SIDEBOARD TABLE WITH PEDESTALS AND KNIFE URNS (Mahogany) By Courtesy of Messrs. Hale and Kilburn, Philadelphia.

One great reason for the success achieved by the Brothers Adam was that they deemed no detail too trivial or unimportant to receive their personal attention and care. They felt it both their duty and privilege not only to design houses but to supervise their interior decoration, and they did not regard a commission as completed until they had designed all the furniture, supervised its making and witnessed its placing in the positions they had planned for it. The same care and thought they devoted to the building of a palace they would likewise bestow upon the pattern to be worked on the cushions of a chairback and seat or arms or upon the design for a work-bag.

With such pains taken, it is natural to expect such exquisitely designed work as we find, work that shows how they lived up to the words of their preface by seizing upon "the beautiful spirit of antiquity" and transferring "it with novelty and variety through all" their numerous undertakings. What they did for architecture they also did for furniture design. They banished ponderosity and substituted lightness and grace. The characteristic features of furniture form and ornament according to the Adam style will naturally receive consideration in a subsequent portion of this chapter, but it will be quite in order to say at this point, by way of general criticism, that almost without exception the furniture of Adam design is distinguished by beautiful and refined proportion and by the "clever selection and application of cultured ornament." 2

The actual makers of Adam furniture were Chippendale, Hepplewhite and various other of their prominent and capable contemporaries in the cabinet- and chair-making craft. While Chippendale, who executed many Adam commissions according to designs furnished him by the Adelphi, never forsook nor modified his own patterns for any of their inspiration, Hepplewhite and the others were very profoundly influenced, as we shall see when we come to the Hepplewhite chapter.

In some respects the makers influenced the designers and modified their patterns, for neither Robert nor James Adam was himself a craftsman and so did not thoroughly understand the nature of the wood nor the manner of working it. Consequently they not infrequently designed details impossible of execution, and it was then that practical craftsmen like Chippendale and Hepplewhite were obliged to suggest and make alterations.

In their furniture the Brothers Adam used many of the lighter woods, such as satinwood, amboyna, hare-wood and various others that had not hitherto been employed, or employed only to a limited extent for purposes of inlay or the like. Nevertheless, much of their furniture was executed in mahogany, which was deservedly entrenched strongly in popular favour.

Such eminent artists as Zucchi and Pergolesi, whom they had brought from Italy, and Angelica Kauffmann lent valuable assistance to the Adelphi by painting their panels and their finer satinwood furniture. The plaques of Wedgwood were also occasionally introduced as an embellishment in some of the finer cabinet-work. In short, there was no exquisite resource of decorative art that Robert and James Adam did not apply to the making of beautiful furniture, and posterity owes them a debt of gratitude for the heritage of grace and beauty they left behind them.

2 Clouston.