History of Furniture: Regency

Welcome to another installment of the History of Furniture! We are getting into the way-back machine to visit a period that sits between the British eras of Georgian (Regency technically happened during this period) and Victorian.

King George III of England and Ireland reigned from 1760 to his death in 1820. Fans of "Hamilton" will recognize him as the petulant King, and the Georgian period is named for him and his reign. However, he suffered from ill health as well as later mental illness (seen in the film "The Madness of King George" starring Nigel Hawthorne as King George and Helen Mirren as Queen Charlotte). Scholars and historians now postulate, based on contemporaneous descriptions of his symptoms, that he had porphyria and most likely suffered from acute bipolar disorder.

Here I am with a wax bust of George III taken from an original modelled from life by Madame Tussaud in 1809, on view at Kew Palace in London. It must look exactly like him...

However, in 1810 George III became too ill to function, and in 1811 his son, George the Prince of Wales was appointed Prince Regent to rule in his stead, hence the Regency period began. When his father died in 1820, he became King and ascended the throne as George IV. But his reign was controversial: he was, by accounts, selfish, irresponsible, gluttonous, and supremely wasteful of money and resources. However it must be said that much of what was spent went to creating some enduring structures which have come to symbolize England itself. He tasked John Nash with renovating Buckingham Palace and designing the spectacular Royal Pavilion in Brighton, while also commissioning Jeffry Wyatville to reconstruct Windsor Castle. You can see that, strictly speaking, the Regency era spanned 1811 to 1820 when George became King but speaking stylistically, Regency can be considered to cover a bit of time before (1795) and after his regency, into his reign proper, and even into the reign of his successor to the throne, his younger brother William IV. It wasn't until 1837 when Victoria becomes queen that we get a new title for an era.

When considering Regency interiors, it is good to keep in mind that the preceding architecture was neo-classical in nature with the elegant lines, columns, and symmetry of ancient Greece and Rome. This informed the style and silhouettes of interiors and furniture. Regency pieces are marked by straight lines, clean edges, and design elements of acanthus leaves, rosettes, laurel wreaths, busts of caryatids, U-shaped lyres, and with discoveries in Egypt at the time (as well as Napoléon's campaign in that country), sphinx imagery, animal heads, legs ending in animal feet carvings, and general Egyptian shapes and designs. Chairs often featured gently curved sabre legs or X-legs. Woods tended to be dark like mahogany or exotic like rosewood and zebrawood, and pieces were generally painted. And convex mirrors, often topped with flowers and eagles were very popluar.

One of the biggest names in Regency interiors is designer, traveler, author, philosopher, and art collector Thomas Hope. He traveled extensively and his home on Duchess Street in London featured an Egyptian Room complete with furnishings inspired by the kind of authentic designs he encountered in Egypt. This space was very influential in the development of the Regency style.

“The Egyptian Room,” Plate 8, from the book "Household Furniture & Interior Decoration"
written by Thomas Hope, London, 1807

Egyptian chairs designed by Thomas Hope for his Egyptian Room
Collection of the Powerhouse Collection, New South Wales, Australia

Happy designing!