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English Furniture

ENGLISH FURNITURE With the death of Oliver Cromwell and the restoration of the monarchy in England, the age of oak furniture came to an end. The solidity and strange originality of beauty, which in so vivid and virile a manner pervaded the furniture and all art of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, gradually disappeared, giving way to more modern forms of thought, where in furniture the guiding principles consisted of constructional excellence, comfort, and, above all, what was suitable to gayety and the joy of living. English oak furniture of Gothic, Elizabeth, and Jacobean times represented the temperament of those for whom it was made, and in endurance and solidity was typical of the people who lived in those ages. With these words, Percy Macquoid closes Part V. of the first volume of his History of Furniture, The Age of Oak, (Folio. Parts IV., V., and VII. New York: G. P. Putnam`s Sons. Each $2.50 net.) The last chapters of The Age of Oak deal with beds, stools, chairs, couches, cupboards, chests, buffets, tables, and wardrobes. Pictures of examples in England are given, and, like the three previous parts of the work, there are three colored plates in each, showing the present appearance of the article presented. In the third new part before us, the sixth of the history, The Age of Walnut furniture is begun. Mr. Macquoid writes of the period following Sept. 3, 1659: The restoration of the monarchy was accompanied by entirely new forms of thought, for not only were the tastes of the sovereign very strongly tinctured with those of France and Flanders, but the return here of a large number of adherents who had shared his exile in these countries, created a sudden change of fashion in manners in strong contrast to the existing conditions of social England. *** Toward the end of the seventeenth century, the last details and nobility of proportion and furniture disappeared, giving way to the somewhat exaggerated moldings and contrasted curves prompted by the vagaries of the Italian artists Lorenzo Bernini and Francesco Borromini. He inserts here and there extracts from diaries of the period, showing the elaborate furnishings of the rooms, of which there were more than was the fashion or was thought to be necessary up to the death of the Protector. Pictures are given of elaborately carved chairs furnished with heavily embroidered cushions, and beds and tables, all made of walnut and with extravagant designs. The elaborateness of the furniture was saved from frivolity by faultless execution, the author writes, and the change, he adds, was not affected in weeks or months, but represented a long and deliberate evolution. These folio volumes, in the fancy and erudition of their texts and the magnificence, correctness, and always suggestive character of the illustrations, are not only unequaled in their own theme and the treatment given it, but, in many ways, from an example which must henceforth be followed by all writers who would wish to appeal to a similar class of virtuoso readers and students.