A History Of Furniture | by Albert Jacquemart

With chapters on tapestry. oriental embroidery and leather work, bronzes, ivobies and other figures, clocks and time pieces, wrought iron, brass and other metal work, jewellery, gems and enamels, glass and ceramics, oriental lacquer and varnish, etc.,

Title	A History Of Furniture
Author	Albert Jacquemart
Publisher	Reeves And Turner
Year	1907
Copyright	1907, Reeves And Turner
Amazon	A History Of Furniture

Translated From The French by Albert Jacquemart.

Edited By Mrs. Bury Palliser.

With Over 170 Illustrations

TABLE OF EBONY, LAVISHLY DECORATED WITH ORNAMENTS IN ORMOLU By the firm of Roux, exhibited 1867, Paris Exhibition.

Preface: THIS volume is the last work of an accomplished and scientific author, the matured fruits of long study and continuous observation. His son, anxious for his father's fame, has given additional value t...

Introduction: UNTIL within these last few years, those who devoted themselves to researches after old furniture, antiquities, Venetian glass, painted or lustrous potteries, were looked upon as eccentric or mad. We ...

Chapter I. Historical Furniture: In treating of furniture, we must begin by defining the value of the word according to the different periods to which it is applied. In its natural and general meaning, furniture (French mobilier) r...

Historical Furniture. Part 2: The fifteenth century could certainly add nothing to luxury such as this; at the utmost articles suitable for the furniture of an oratory, or a study, such as chairs, benches, desks and pries-dieu, ar...

Historical Furniture. Part 3: The furniture of this period of transition, which is occasionally sombre from the abuse of ebony, has already a degree of pomp announcing the century of Louis XIV.; and when we say furniture, we do no...

Chapter II. Eclectic Furniture: These difficulties need not discourage those who desire to borrow from the past the objects which surround them; if, from the severity of its exigencies, history should escape them, they can make use ...

Chapter III. Different Kinds of Furniture: The furniture of the Middle Ages must be divided under two different heads; the most important examples are evidently those for religious use. Where indeed should the greatest splendour of art be exhi...

Sec. I. - Furniture Of Sculptured Wood: What we have said previously of the uses of primitive furniture, renders it needless to insist on the fact that the greater part was of oak; nothing less than this solid material, put together by the ...

Sec. I. - Furniture Of Sculptured Wood. Part 2: What confirms us in our opinion that it is a marriage coffer, is another painted specimen belonging to the Cernuschi collection, in which this title declares itself; in this, applique ornaments of ant...

Sec. I. - Furniture Of Sculptured Wood. Part 3: The dressoir or etagere differed little from the buffet; large pieces of gold plate and other sumptuous articles were exposed there, the number of shelves was fixed by etiquette, according to the rank...

Carved Wood Furniture Of the East: Our labour would, however, be incomplete if we omitted to mention one important series : that of the carved wood furniture of the East - the land that has no furniture. We will begin with China, where...

Sec. 2. - Furniture Incrusted With Pique: What the Italians call tarsia, marquetry work, should be, if we may accept Garzoni's definition in his Piazza Universale, the same thing as the work designated by Pliny, under the name of cerostrot...

Pique in The East: It was from the East, as we before remarked, that the inlaid work called pique became introduced among us; it is to be found of very ancient date, and it has remained in favour up to the present day, ...

Sec. 3. - Ebony Furniture Encrusted With Ivory, Or Carved: At what period ebony came to be used in cabinet work is a point which remains to be decided, but which is of little importance; oak and walnut satisfied the wants of sculpture, and gave a suitable gro...

Sec. 4. - Furniture Incrusted With Stones: The Renaissance did not limit its aim to mere elegance of form, and the scientific construction of furniture; as soon as its cabinet makers had ornamented their console tables and cabinets of architec...

Incrusted Furniture of The East: The Orientals, like ourselves, have had their incrusted furniture, but their system has nothing in common with the mosaics of Florence. Almost always applied upon excessively hard wood, the stones for...

Sec. 5. - Furniture Ornamented With Chased Brass: To take from ebony its natural gloomy appearance, and give it that brilliancy we like to see combined with ornament, it sufficed to relieve it by applications of chased bronze coated over with that wa...

Sec. 6. - Furniture Overlaid With Tortoise-Shell And Metal: Of all sovereigns Louis XIV. is certainly the monarch who best knew how to surround the majesty of royalty with the most dazzling splendour. He required sumptuous edifices for his habitation, and if V...

Sec. 7. - Furniture In Marquetry Of Various Woods: How was it that in the fifteenth century the Italian intarsiatori conceived the idea of depicting ornaments and even landscapes in coloured woods? It was because they had seen the ancients paint wi...

Sec. 7. - Furniture In Marquetry Of Various Woods. Continued: But here we have Louis XIV. and Boule, and wood becomes incrusted with tortoise-shell and brilliant metals, so as to place itself on an equality with the splendour of the palaces; furniture is still o...

Sec. 8 - Furniture Panelled With Plaques Of Porcelain: We again repeat that no classification exists which is not defective; between the end of the reign of Louis XV. and the beginning of that of Louis XVI. there is certainly no marked transition; the sob...

Sec. 9. - Furniture Lacquered Or Varnished: A distinction must be established here between European furniture, properly so called, that manufactured in Europe with Oriental elements, and furniture of Oriental origin. At the time when China and...

Lacquered Furniture of The East: It is not our intention to examine here the marvellous lacquers of every description which have come to us from the East; we shall return to them later on, and speak at present of the special object o...

Sec. 10. - Furniture In Gilt Or Painted Wood: In the rapid review we have just made of the principal descriptions of furniture, we have been obliged to neglect certain things, which it would have been difficult to classify regularly in general ca...

Hangings Tissues: WHETHER from a civil or religious point of view, the most ancient decoration of edifices and interiors consists in hangings, the accompaniment of statues, paintings, and mosaics. However far we go bac...

Chapter I. Tapestry: WE will not here attempt to go back through centuries in order to find out what may have been those ancient Oriental or Egyptian carpets of which we have said some words; we will rather carry our inve...

Tapestry. Part 2: At the time of the marriage of Anne of Bretagne with Charles VIII., the chateau of Ambroise was furnished for them; Andre Denisot and Guillaumc Mesnagier, working weavers of Tours, worked there: the l...

Tapestry. Part 3: We abandon these different establishments at the moment when they are about to be united with the Gobelins; we shall resume under this head the history of our national tapestry, and of the persons who...

Tapestry in Arras: We must first mention this celebrated manufactory, which furnished all the countries of Europe with its splendid productions, and even gave its name in Italy to tapestry work. Arazzo is still the term...

Tapestry in Paris: In the tax lists under Philippe le Bel, in 1292, we find twenty-four tapestry weavers already inscribed. We have mentioned Colin Rataille in the fourteenth century; then in 1412 we see Antoine Semectr...

Tapestry in Lille: This important city becomes one of the most interesting subjects for study with regard to the arts, since M. Jules Houdoy has elucidated its history. With his well-known intelligent patience, he has r...

Tapestry in Brussels: But we hasten to enter upon the history of Brussels, that important centre towards which all the admiration given to what was called Flemish tapestries, should converge. What we may be able to say o...

Tapestry in Brussels. Continued: Besides these marks, there are others of which mention was made in the edict of Charles the Fifth; first, there are the arms and emblems adopted by the manufacturing towns, then the signatures, and fi...

Tapestry in Audenarde: The first foundation-charter of the corporation of tapestry-weavers of this town is dated the nth June, 1441; nevertheless M. Pinchard does not appear to have found traces of any names or documents be...

Tapestry in Tournay: M. Houdoy discovers the first notice of this manufactory in 1448, in a payment made to Robert Davy and Jehan de l'Ortye, marchans houvriers de tapisserie; it is for eight pieces of high-warp tapestr...

The Gobelins: Let us now return to the establishments of the city of Paris under the reign of Louis XIII. After having travelled from the Trinite to the Jesuits, from the Jesuits to the palais des Tournelles, then ...

The Gobelins. Part 2: Under the direction of Charles Lebrun, from 1663 until his death in 1690, the manufacture, which employed about 250 workmen, executed nineteen high-warp pieces of tapestry, measuring 4,110 square ells...

The Gobelins. Part 3: We have dwelt at length on these details as we shall have to refer to them more than once, the tapestry of the visit to the Gobelins preserving the likeness of many works which have entirely disappear...

The Gobelins. Part 4: We will explain: it has been seen that, in the fifteenth century, the tapestry weavers placed the colours in juxtaposition, in whole tints solely united by means of hatchings, and thus obtained powerf...

The Savonnerie: At the time when Henri IV. founded the manufactory of carpets in the Flemish style he sought to encourage the imitation of the tapis de Turquie, querins (of Cairo) et persiens et autres, de nouvelle...

Tapestry in Beauvais: Two years after the foundation of the Gobelins, that is in 1664, Colbert founded a royal manufactory at Beauvais; low-warp looms were specially used there, and if some very remarkable tapestries have ...

Tapestry in Aubusson: This is a manufactory established in the department of the Creuse, the origin of which is both ancient and uncertain; but dating from the seventeenth century, the registers of the archives have afford...

Felletin Or Feuilletin Tapestry: Ten years after the foundation of Aubusson, the Council of State, by decrees of the 13th February and the 20th November, 1742, regulated the establishment of a manufactory on the same principle as the...

Tapestry in Italy: How is it that Italy, that land of the arts, which always takes the first rank in works of intelligence, should here follow in the last? It is because history, as far as relates to tapestry, is, for h...

Tapestry in Milan: We are surprised at finding no mention made of the manufactory this town must have possessed from the fifteenth century: Francisque Michel discovered in a manuscript of the National Library (fonds de ...

Tapestry in Rome: According to documents collected by M. Muntz in the archives of the Barberini palace, the cardinal of that name sought to introduce the manufacture of Arazzi into Rome in the year 1632, and caused inf...

Uncertain Schools of Tapestry: Besides the establishments we have here passed in review, many others will doubtless yet be discovered. On the other hand, as we have already remarked as regards Italy, there are many works about the ...

Oriental Tapestries: It would be difficult to say what was originally the nature of the oriental tapestries. It was scarcely before the introduction of Islamism, that the marvellous art of the Asiatic people was displayed...

Chapter II. Embroidery: We need not here repeat what has already been said upon the antiquity of the embroiderer's art, an art in which the Phrygian women had attained such perfection, that embroidered stuffs came to be know...

Embroidery. Part 2: The excellence of this English work was maintained as time went on, a proof of which is found in an anecdote related by Matthew of Paris. About the same time (1246), he tells us, the Lord Pope, ...

Embroidery. Part 3: But we prefer to send the curious to objects that they can see, such as Isabeau of Bavaria's Book of hours, in the National Library, classed under No. 1190, and the embroidered canvas cover of which r...

Embroidery. Part 4: Florence Florence also had its old embroiderers, and in an inventory of the jewels belonging to Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy (1420), there is noticed une grande chappe de brodeure d'or, de l'ou...

Embroidery. Part 5: But though the names of embroiderers in the sixteenth century are rare, a few may here still be quoted, in addition to those already mentioned : - 1502. Jehan of Brussels. - Jehan Perrault, of Aniboi...

Embroidery. Part 6: No kind of encouragement was wanting to embroidery; L'Hermineau, embroiderer to the king, was lodged in the Louvre, and the book of Abraham de Pradel informs us that the other embroiderers working for...

Embroidery. Part 7: In these embroideries there are some more prominent parts that require a special embellishment. This is effected by means of bullion, lama, spangles, even pearls and precious stones are sometimes adde...

Embroidery in the East: Embroidery in the East unquestionably preceded the practice of figured patterns in the textiles. This cannot be doubted when we remember that the greater part of the methods and types adopted in the W...

Embroidery in the East. Part 2: A type apparently peculiar to Persia is that in which the chain-stitch fixes and sets off a true mosaic in cloth of diverse colours. Here it is a chamois cloth bordered with arabesques, in which rich ...

Chapter III. Tissues - Stuffs: The weaving of textiles dates from the remotest ages of the world, and even now we are struck with amazement at the perfection of the works produced by the hands of the ancient Egyptian craftsmen. Wit...

Tissues - Stuffs. Continued: This date, answering to the year 1133 of the Christian era, coincides with the middle of the reign of Roger II. and the inscription speaks clearly of a factory prosperous and enlarged, not by Greek ...

Fabrics in Paris: The French economist Barthelemi de Laffemas, whose writings had contributed not a little to encourage Henry IV. in his favourable dispositions towards the national industries, mentions the existence i...

Fabrics in Toulouse: Toulouse possessed a factory, the date of the foundation of which has not come to light. But we have seen letters patent of July 20th, 1775, authorising it to take the title of royal manufactory of si...

Fabrics in Toulouse. Continued: We shall pass rapidly over the monuments of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, merely quoting the fragment of the dalmatic worn by the Emperor Henry II. at the solemn ceremonies of the cathedral of B...

Fabrics in The East: If order, one of the first conditions of all serious work, had not obliged us to treat of textiles in the same way as all other products of human industry, we should certainly have commenced this chap...

Chapter IV. Leather And Paper Hangings: WE have already seen cow-hide employed in covering travelling boxes from which custom comes the French bdche or vache, afterwards given to the covering of leather used in securing the luggage on the t...

Leather And Paper Hangings. Continued: But it would almost seem as if these paintings, with all their gold and silver, which sparkled with the play of light on the gaufferings, were found insufficient for the luxury of the seventeenth cent...

Objects Of Art Derived From Statuary. Chapter I. Marble - Stone - Alabaster: In order to sketch a history of monuments sculptured in marble or stone, it would be necessary to go back to remote times, to examine the ruins of temples and palaces, reconstitute extinct civilisatio...

Marble - Stone - Alabaster. Part 2: But Italy, carried away by the movement of the times, had already opened the way. Painting and sculpture had gone hand in hand on the path of progress. Donato or Donatello sculptured in soft relief on...

Marble - Stone - Alabaster. Part 3: The French sculptors entered slowly, and step by step, on the new path, so that it is not till the middle of the sixteenth century, and precisely at the epoch of decline in Italy, that the man who in ...

Chapter II. Bronzes: BRONZE is one of the very first materials that have been employed by human industry. Hesiod in describing the age of bronze Opera et dies, v. 149), says that the arms as well as the metal-work of the ...

Plaquettes - Medallions: But bronze is not limited altogether to the production of statues or bas-reliefs on a large scale. Many of the artists quoted by us further back, are known only by works of very small dimensions. Mode...

Sculptural Art In The East: It was long questioned whether there has ever existed sculptural art in the East, and whether India, China, and Japan could send us anything beyond the grotesque and hideous figures of their monstrous...

Chapter III. Ivories: IVORY also is one of the most valuable materials for the artist. It is easily cut and polished; the tone imparted to it by time is warm and mellow, while its grain enhances the beauty of the workmansh...

Ivories. Part 2: The art of the tenth century, is represented by the authentic Byzantine bas-relief showing Christ crowning the Emperor Otho II. and his wife Theophania. At the feet of the emperor is a figure crouchin...

Ivories. Part 3: This mixture of pique mosaic soon comes into general use, encouraged as it is by the Venetian and Sicilian artists, who were in constant association with Arabian works and even with Arabian artisans. ...

Ivories. Part 4: Coming to the epoch of the Renaissance, the part played by Italy in this movement has already been dwelt upon in our chapter on Bronzes. It need scarcely be said, that in ivory work, also, attempts ha...

Ivories. Part 5: To the Germans was reserved the distinction of having first introduced into ivory carving a polychrome style, which, though condemned by good taste, had an enormous success. Simon Troger of Nuremberg,...

Ivory in The East: There is nothing very wonderful in the fact that the peoples of the remotest parts of Asia employed ivory for the more costly objects of art. With the raw material at hand, there was every inducement ...

Ivory in The East. Part 2: In India, as in Europe, an idea may be formed of the value that workmanship added to the material. Ivory is there found worked into ornaments and amulets, and often forms the carved hilt of poignards ...

Ivory in The East. Part 3: These little trinkets or charms, known as Japanese buttons, are the only ornaments with which the upper classes relieved their severe costume - while there still existed a national costume. Each of th...

Chapter IV. Wood: In the daring task undertaken by us to show Art-lovers the paths open to their research, and the chief points whither history beckons them to safe havens, there is assuredly nothing more arduous than ...

Wood. Part 2: The art of wood-carving has left written records in France going back to a tolerably remote period. In 1379, the inventory of the Treasury of Charles V. mentions Girard d'Orleans as having made for th...

Wood. Part 3: As we are speaking of France and of the masterpieces of wood carvings, we must not overlook Germain Pilon, prince of sculptors in wood. While admiring the four cardinal virtues intended by him as supp...

Wood in The East: Still more universally than in the West, wood has been employed in Asia for decorating temples and houses. The very finest specimens of Indian art are to be found in those fretted or open work enclosu...

Chapter V. Terra-Cottas: At all periods of the world the plastic clay has been a favourite material of art. Accordingly we see it from the remotest times applied to the decoration of public buildings, as well as to the embell...

Terra-Cottas. Part 2: We shall say nothing of the Etruscan terra cottas, or of the famous tomb preserved in the Louvre, mindful that we are not here dealing with archaeology, and we accordingly pass, without further delay,...

Terra-Cottas. Part 3: Born in 1738 at Nancy, the mother-country of so many artists, Clodion here received a solid education which he completed by a nine years' residence in Rome. How was it that such a long familiarity wit...

Chapter VI. Stucco And The Ceroplastic Art: AMONG the accessory materials of sculpture one of the most important from its antiquity is stucco. Pliny tells us that an artist modelled in stucco a Jupiter, which was considered so beautiful that it...

Stucco And The Ceroplastic Art. Continued: Nor is there anything surprising in the statement that Michael Angelo himself worked in wax, and left us the Descent from the Cross figuring under his name in Munich, such being then the usual custom ...

Objects Of Ornamental Art. Chapter I. Ornamental Bronzes: It is solely with a view to facilitate the study and classification of the numerous subjects treated of in this book, that we have separated the statuettes and bas-reliefs from the ornamental bronzes....

Objects Of Ornamental Art. Chapter I. Ornamental Bronzes. Part 2: We have, elsewhere, alluded to a statuette of Charlemagne, a rude work, but one which yet bears far more strongly the impress of the Roman traditions than of the Byzantine deviation. In the twelfth ce...

Objects Of Ornamental Art. Chapter I. Ornamental Bronzes. Part 3: Shall we speak of these various caskets, some copies from the antique, others flowing in their outlines like marriage-coffers; of the scent-boxes, the writing-desks, the innumerable trifles which abou...

Objects Of Ornamental Art. Chapter I. Ornamental Bronzes. Part 4: Under Louis XV. and the Regency, as we have already stated, a complete transformation took place. With household furniture, we note the commencement of the era of endive and rocailles, contemporaneo...

Oriental Bronzes: The taste for Oriental bronzes is of quite recent date; nor is the time yet remote at which a distinguished professor of archaeology wrote that there was nothing to be found amongst the products of Ch...

Oriental Bronzes. Part 2: To describe, as they deserve, all these forms, and the ingenious subterfuges to which the artists had recourse in order to conceal their conventional harshness under an agreeable guise, we should need...

Oriental Bronzes. Part 3: It is needless, then, to repeat here what we have already said when speaking of the Chinese: fashion has spoken before us, and to the peculiar grace of the bronzes of Japan will soon be added the meri...

Oriental Bronzes. Part 4: There are other cups devoted to the planets; having on them emblematical figures of those, the evil influence of which they are potent to avert; it may be useful here to mention the forms under which ...

Appendix. Clocks And Timepieces: INSTRUMENTS for measuring time are not of very ancient invention. The Greeks and Romans had only a sort of dial, - the gnomon or sundial; and to record the progression of the hours, they made use of t...

Appendix. Clocks And Timepieces. Part 2: In the seventeenth century the clock-manufacture underwent a two-fold change; in the first place that necessitated by the new forms in furniture, and secondly that resulting from the discovery in phys...

Appendix. Clocks And Timepieces. Part 3: Historical allusions are even more frequent. We know how all Europe rang with the fame of the celebrated battle of Fontenoy gained, in 1745, by Marshal Saxe, in the presence of the King and the Dauphi...

Chapter II. Wrought Iron, European And Oriental Arms, Brass Repousse Work, Damascened Metals: THE art of working and casting iron is of very remote antiquity. Theodore of Samos, son of Telecles the younger, who lived between the fifteenth and twenty-second Olympiad (about 850 years B.C.), is b...

Wrought Iron, European And Oriental Arms, Brass Repousse Work, Damascened Metals. Continued: Germany followed this fashion, and of her artists, Thomas Ruker made a throne embellished with an infinite number of statuettes, which, in 1577, was deemed worthy of presentation by the city of Augsbu...

Arms: MAN had no sooner appeared upon the earth than he felt that his first need was to provide himself with arms to resist his various enemies. Of these the most formidable were his fellow-men, and he was ...

Arms. Part 2: But what have we to tell of the men who were content to hammer and chase iron to produce those masterpieces such as the suits of armour in the Louvre, and so many others which enrich our Museum of Art...

Arms. Part 3: Nothing can be more elegant than these swords, with their light hilts, the pommels of which, truncated or piriform, are covered with wavy lines of ornamentation in silver, inlaid and chased, which are...

Arms in The East: The Orientals, so far in advance of us in the invention of gunpowder, since the Chinese had discovered it 400 years B.C., were nevertheless very far behind it in the manufacture of defensive arms. Per...

Repousse Coppers And Brasses: IT is essential to make a distinction between bronzes properly so-called and works in repousse copper or brass; the latter more nearly approaching the massive wares of the goldsmith than castings, or ...

Damascened Metals: It requires no lengthened research to trace the origin of the special art of decorating metals; in the Middle Ages, and even down to the time of the Renaissance, every piece of Oriental work was descr...

Damascened Metals in The East: THE art of damascening comes to us, as we have remarked, evidently from Eastern nations; we are conversant with the luxury of these various countries, India, Persia, China, and Japan, and know how the...

Chapter III. The Goldsmith's Art: Of all the arts, that of the goldsmith is the one which can with certainty be traced back the farthest in the history of human intelligence. On the day when man determined that one substance was more ...

The Goldsmith's Art. Part 2: Here, then, is a relic which carries us back to a time between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries before the Christian era, and yet evinces an art already brought to perfection ! Masks of mummies ...

The Goldsmith's Art. Part 3: The Vase of Gourdon, a chalice of massive gold with two handles, conformable in type with the gold pieces (tiers de sols) which have been dug up with it, is embellished with coloured glass imitating t...

The Goldsmith's Art. Part 4: We have also here a tenth century plaque in silver repousse, belonging to the treasures of St. Denis, which represents the visits of the holy women to the sepulchre after the Resurrection. This Greek ...

The Goldsmith's Art. Part 5: In the thirteenth century, the Limoges enamels are in full splendour, as we shall see from the cup signed by its maker, Master Alpais, and the town of Limoges where he worked. Here we have a Christ re...

The Goldsmith's Art. Part 6: Before following the foreign schools, before Matteo del Nassaro had mounted his gems, or Benvenuto Cellini had created his vases and jewels, the French artists, notwithstanding the taste of Georges d'...

The Goldsmith's Art. Part 7: The seventeenth century saw Art undergo fresh transformations. Architecture had grown heavy in character; bricks in part took the place of stone, with carved embellishments; dress assumed a fulness of...

The Goldsmith's Art. Part 8: Shells and palmettes, masks and their wreaths, acanthus and stems of foliage, seemed cold and formal to society, who, wearied with the priestly demonstrations of the latter part of the king's reign, w...

The Goldsmith's Art. Part 9: After this rapid sketch, what is most important to the connoisseur is to be able, in case of need, to put the date by the side of any name he may find engraved on articles of gold or silver, until the...

Pewter: Was pewter the substitute for gold and silver plate among the middle classes? The evidences afforded by history might make us think so; we refer not merely to ancient times, when class distinctions we...

The Goldsmith's Art in The East: There is no more interesting pursuit, than to seek among the remains rescued from the shipwreck of ages, for the evidences of the Arts among the Orientals. These grand civilisations, whose monuments s...

Chapter IV. Jewellery: It is scarcely credible that from amid these delicate memorials of personal adornment, antiquity should have afforded us so many examples of her art and good taste. The Egyptians and Greeks, actuated ...

Jewellery. Continued: We shall not stop to dwell on the finger-rings of massive gold, which may have served as signets before the sixteenth century, but as they possess no particular interest as regards the history of occi...

Jewellery in The East: There is nothing more difficult to discover than the probable dates of oriental jewels. Those of Arab origin are few in number, and are either of incredible rudeness or of marvellous perfection, accor...

Tortoise-Shell, Pique, And Pose D'Or: We have not here to consider tortoise-shell as a material, for we have already seen it employed in the manufacture of veneered furniture. This was the only form in which the ancients used it, and Plin...

Boxes And Snuff-Boxes: Need we explain why we have separated these boxes from the productions of the goldsmiths and the jewellers? These small relics of a special and clearly-defined period, have a character of their own: o...

Pure Goldsmith's Work: We class under this head the true works of the goldsmith, that is, those wherein chased gold of various tints is the prominent feature. Nothing is more graceful than these borders of ribbons, and wrea...

Enamelled Gold: The enamelled boxes are of two kinds: there are some in which the gold ground is seme with appliques of gold cut out according to the outlines of a given design, and ornamented with paintings in opaqu...

Gold-Work With Miniatures: In this class the importance and number of the paintings inserted on the lid compel us to subordinate the principal to the accessory. Often the most superb miniature is set in a simple tortoise-shell ...

Vernis Martin: We shall not repeat what we have said before (p. 72) of this family of clever varnishers : they could not but seize upon a branch of industry so lucrative as the manufacture of boxes, and they marked ...

Boxes of various kinds: Under this head we shall include articles in all sorts of material: soft and hard porcelains, Dresden enamels, Japanese lacquer, carved ivory, ecailles fondues, etc. Were we to divide them all into as...

Chapter V. Gems: In the art world this expression has a far wider bearing than in strict scientific language. It answers very nearly to the term stones of the old works on natural history, works which merely disting...

Gems. Part 2: Prase Prase , an agate quartz, called also chrysoprase, is of an apple-green colour, passing rarely to a deep green; and more or less translucent, its fracture is dull and even. Basalt Basalt , a c...

Gems. Part 3: Hence we can do no more than contribute towards such a study, by here reproducing the names that, after careful inquiry, the most distinguished writers on the subject have associated with genuine and ...

Gems. Part 4: But how shall we choose with any confidence amidst this galaxy of artists full of fire and genius? How assert any special supremacy in favour of Milan, Venice, or Florence? To contrast these schools o...

Gems. Part 5: In the foregoing list the reader will have noticed the name of Valerio Belli, of Vicenza, who engraved more particularly on rock crystal, and executed the famous casket by Clement VII., presented to F...

Gems. Part 6: But gem engraving dates in France no further back than the last years of the sixteenth century, that is to say, at a time when the art was already declining beyond the Alps. Julien de Fontenay, surnam...

Jade: Jade , a beautiful material, whose physical characters have not yet been determined, though this stone was known to the remotest antiquity, and employed in the extreme East. It scratches glass, emits ...

Plasma: Plasma , a deep green agate quartz, with irregular, whitish-yellow spots. This variety, though known to and worked by the ancients, has never been found except in the clearings of the ruins at Rome. S...

Jasper: Jasper is distinguished from the other agate quartzes by its complete opacity, even at its edges; it is regarded as an agate quartz combined with a ferruginous clay, which gives it its peculiar colour...

Porphyry: The rock bearing this name is so called from its purple colour. It is composed of a paste of red or reddish petrosilex, enclosing crystals of feldspar. It was extensively employed by the ancients. Th...

The Emerald: The Emerald , silica combined with alumina and glucine, scratches quartz with difficulty. Under this term are comprised the emerald properly so called and the aquamarine. When of a pure green hue, wit...

Quartz Or Rock Crystal: The term quartz is applied to all silicious minerals, such as rock crystal, agate, silex, and jasper, which are infusible under the blow-pipe, insoluble in acids, and scratch glass. But it is more gen...

Amethyst, Or Violet Quartz: The finest specimens have a pure tinge, uniformly diffused throughout the whole mass. The most highly prized come from Brazil, but they are found also in Germany, in the Sierras of Murcia in Spain, an...

Ruby: Ruby or spinel, a combination of alumina and magnesia, scratches quartz, is scratched by corundum, and is usually of a more or less vivid red; lapidaries distinguish two varieties - the spinel ruby, o...

Opal: The OPAL is a resinous quartz, which owes its beauty to its imperfections. Its milky and slightly bluish and semi-transparent ground is coloured by all the hues of the rainbow, resulting from fissures...

Carnelian: Carnelian is a variety of agate quartz, the finest kind being of a cherry-red, with the semi-transparency of that fruit. This tint passes to an orange-yellow, more or less intense, and sometimes diffu...

Diamond: It scratches all substances and cuts glass; simple refraction; surpassingly brilliant, and being pure carbon burns without leaving any residue. In the rough state it nearly always shows a few facets ...

Gems of The East: We all know to what an extremely remote age is traced back the art of gem engraving among the Eastern nations. Side by side with the remarkable works of the Egyptians may be placed the cylinders and c...

Gems of The East. Part 2: We have just remarked that the Arabs had to some extent spared the monuments of the civilisations they had conquered. They even became subject to their influence, thus in many cases we see the Byzanti...

Gems of The East. Part 3: Vitreous quartz is frequently worked in all its spotless purity. But whenever the lapidary happens to light upon a mass in contact with heterogeneous substances, or accidentally discoloured by infiltr...

Chapter VI. Enamels: BY enamel is understood a coloured vitreous substance, which by a properly regulated firing may be applied for decoration on an excipient of metal, clay, or any material capable of enduring a high tem...

Cloisonne And Champleve Enamels: Apart from those of the remote East, all the cloisonne enamels in our public and private collections are of Byzantine origin, and the Greeks seem to have begun to work in this manner so early as the s...

Cloisonne Enamels Of The East: As already stated, it is to the extreme East that undoubtedly belongs the invention of enamelling on metals, and the process originally devised, is that called cloisonne. An unheard-of circumstance w...

Painted Enamels: Painting in enamel was not an instantaneous invention, nor has it taken the place of previous processes with the authority due to discoveries of the first order. The Marquis de Laborde well observes: ...

Venetian Enamels: Here is a special series of painted enamels which claims particular attention. We refer to those produced in Venice, and embellished no longer with subjects and figures, but with arabesques and relief...

Oriental Painted Enamels: It seldom happens that an important discovery, or imitation of foreign processes, fails to bring about a change in the practise of the arts. But when seeking for a motive for the substitution in China...

Chapter VII. Glass And Ceramics: THE Ancients were acquainted with glass, and handled it with a skill unsurpassed either by the marvellous artists of Murano or by modern industry, which has made such strides in this branch, thanks to...

Glass And Ceramics. Part 2: We may also recommend those curious imitations of antiques, on which bas-reliefs light as soap-bubbles were traced round the body of the vases, representing amorini, nymphs, and the richest foliage. ...

Glass And Ceramics. Part 3: The monuments of the sixteenth century have long been collected and classified. At Cluny, and in the Retrospective exhibitions, may have been seen several of those charming pieces rivalling the Veneti...

Glass of The East: And if we turn to the products of the East how much more applicable will be the remark! We have already expressed our belief that from these regions came the secret of ornamental enamelling on glass. ...

Ceramics: We need not here repeat a history we have already elsewhere written under various titles. The reader anxious to study in detail everything connected with this interesting branch of art is therefore re...

Chapter VIII. Oriental Lacquer And Varnish: LACQUER work is an object of toys and snuff-boxes, or an article of furniture, or hardware goods which, by a certain process, has been overlaid with a peculiar kind of varnish, imparting a lasting lus...

Aventurine Lacquer-Work: Aventurine Lacquer-Work , less costly than the foregoing, is met occasionally in large cabinets, coffers, and other articles. A more unfinished preparation serves also as a lining or base for most oth...

Chased Lacquer-Work: Chased Lacquer-Work is a variety of undoubted Japanese origin, although more commonly recognised by the Chinese objects which in Europe are known as Pekin lacquer ware, but on the spot as Ti-Cheoo war...

Salvocat: Salvocat Is there any intermediate process between chased lacquer ware and the other varieties? If so, would this so-called salvocat, be that species, or would the name only indicate a particular co...

Coromandel Lacquer Ware: This is also a term applied universally yet erroneously to a well-known product. The Coromandel coast has long been the chief emporium of Oriental goods. But there are no local manufactures, except of...

Chapter IX. Worked Leather: IN order to understand the importance of certain industries, reference must be made to eastern habits still showing some analogy with the customs of our forefathers. In Japan, where the nobles travel ...

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A History Of Furniture | by Albert Jacquemart

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