Anybody who knows antiques and the reproductions that follow them knows that familiarizing yourself with various furniture periods can be a big help. That's why we decided to offer our readers a few useful summaries of the major furniture periods of England, starting with one of the first. This post is the 4th in a series of 7, continued from a discussion of Queen Anne furniture.
Such was the rich, compelling character of Georgian period art and design that most English reproduction office furniture today is modeled directly after Georgian style examples. In fact, our office furniture collection owes virtually all of its designs and many of its construction techniques to the efforts of the master craftsmen of the Georgian and Victorian periods.
The Georgian period, so named after the first four King Georges, lasted from about 1714 to 1820. A few of the period’s most influential furniture designers were Thomas Sheraton and George Hepplewhite (whose first name is coincidental). Contemporary furniture styles included the French Régence, Directoire and the internationally adopted Empire style (known in German-speaking nations as Biedermeier style and in England as Regency).
Furniture of the Georgian period was characterized by a simple elegance that was markedly different from ornate Empire styles as well as from previous, more lavish styles such as in the Jacobean (1600-1630) and Queen Anne (1700-1715) periods. For instance, rather than the exquisite carvings that characterized Jacobean furniture or the frequent use of cabriole legs in Queen Anne furniture, Georgian furniture saw more conservative, imposing designs that reflected the English return to neoclassical art and design. In this sense, it was more in keeping with Empire furniture styles, but differentiated from them in its simpler English adaptation to contemporary tastes, which for the most part opted for conservative stateliness in place of opulence.
Examples of distinct characteristics of Georgian furniture would include a general absence of intricate carvings as well as the use of turned or square-tapered legs instead of cabriole or French style. Even so, Georgian cabinetmakers employed a great deal of knowledge that was developed in other periods and styles, including the classic gateleg table design that finds its origin in the Jacobean period. Ornamental inlays were preserved, the most common among them being crossbanding, although other inlays such as the classic “fan” inlay were sometimes used.
The most common woods used by English furniture craftsmen during the Georgian period, as in other styles and periods, were oak, walnut and mahogany. The use of solid oak remained standard throughout the Georgian period, while mahogany became more popular near the end of the period, and solid walnut pieces all but disappeared from Georgian furniture. In place of solid walnut and mahogany, craftsmen often used solid oak with thick mahogany and walnut veneers, which in many cases produced a more refined appearance than otherwise. Unlike contemporary conceptualizations of veneer work, the use of veneers in old times was recognized as skilled and elegant; the term did not acquire the generally pejorative sense until the 20th century, when mass-production furniture manufacturers used thinner veneers or wood substitutes like plastic or composite materials.
Among common Georgian furniture designs and techniques were the classic two-over-three drawer dresser, satinwood and yew wood crossbanding, shaped bracket feet, leather paneling with gold tooling, solid brass hardware, oval and swan-neck style pulls, and astragal glass moulding. Many of these concepts and techniques carried over into the Victorian and Edwardian periods, and continue to be used by contemporary reproduction craftsmen today.
More than Georgian techniques were recycled, however: many Victorian tables and other pieces (particularly demi-lune tables) were either marriages of Georgian and Victorian furniture pieces, or re-used materials and pieces from the Georgian period. One convention in English furniture history has been to combine a top and a bottom half as in, for instance, a secretary bookcase or a dresser with a hutch.
2011 English Classics
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