History of Furniture: Queen Anne

Although I covered chairs from the Queen Anne period here, and settees here, the style deserves to be discussed in my History of Furniture series as well!

Queen Anne furniture has long stood as a symbol of refined elegance, simplicity, and the graceful transition between ornate Baroque and the more restrained Georgian styles. This beloved style has remained a staple in traditional interiors since its emergence in the early 18th century (I remember seeing tables with cabriole legs at my Aunt's house in upstate New York!). But to understand Queen Anne furniture, let's explore its historical roots—both in monarchy and design.

So who was Queen Anne? She was the monarch of Great Britain, reigning from 1702 to her death in 1714, and was the last monarch of the House of Stuart. Her rule marked a significant time in British history: the Act of Union of 1707 united England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain. Though her personal health was frail and she experienced considerable political turmoil during her reign, Anne presided over a period of significant cultural, political, and architectural change.

Portrait of Queen Anne, circa 1702 from the workshop of John Closterman

Despite her limited direct influence on the design world, the style that bears her name became associated with the sophistication and domestic comfort that flourished during and after her reign. Queen Anne furniture reflects the shift in British society toward more intimate, livable interiors—a stark contrast to the more ceremonial and grandiose styles that came before.

Queen Anne furniture began to emerge in the early 18th century, around 1720, but interestingly, it wasn’t called by that name until over a century later. This style grew out of the William and Mary period (late 17th century), which itself was known for more rectilinear forms and Dutch and Flemish influences that featured heavier, more angular pieces with intricate marquetry and turned legs.

As craftsmen became more skilled in working with woods like walnut (a preferred material of the time), furniture design became more refined and the Queen Anne style gained immense popularity not just in Britain but also in Colonial America, where it inspired generations of American craftsmen. The style was embraced for its simplicity, making it relatively easy to replicate with local materials like cherry and maple. The Queen Anne style is known for its delicate proportions, gentle curves, and a greater emphasis on comfort. This evolution reflects broader cultural trends: an increasing emphasis on private life, leisure, and intellectual pursuits in the home. The Queen Anne style introduced several key design elements that would become hallmarks of 18th-century British and American furniture:

* Cabriole Legs: Inspired by animal limbs, these S-shaped legs end in pad or trifid feet and are perhaps the most iconic feature of the style.

* Curvilinear Forms: Chairs, settees, and tables began to show more graceful silhouettes, with rounded backs and smooth edges.

* Minimal Ornamentation: While earlier styles favored bold marquetry and carving, Queen Anne furniture emphasized restrained elegance—favoring line and form over lavish decoration.

* Veneers and Inlay: When ornamentation did appear, it was subtle—delicate fan or shell motifs, small inlays, or the strategic use of wood grain patterns.

As I have said before in this series, if you want to discover why a certain style or movement looks the way it does, you simply need to look at the styles immediately preceding it and you will see that, generally, the style is a reaction to and against its antecedent. However, the Queen Anne furniture style represents a pivotal transition in the history of furniture design. Preceding it, the William and Mary style featured heavier, more angular pieces with intricate marquetry and turned legs. Succeeding it was the Georgian period, which would reintroduce classical influences and symmetry, especially under the later guidance of designers like Thomas Chippendale. What makes Queen Anne style so important in the continuum of furniture history is its role as a bridge: it softened the excesses of Baroque design and paved the way for a more human-centered, elegant aesthetic. It marked a shift from ostentatious display to graceful domesticity--furniture that was not only beautiful but also functional and comfortable.

Happy designing!

History of Furniture: Sheraton

For this installment of the History of Furniture, I propose a look at a style known as Sheraton, based on the work of Thomas Sheraton, an English writer and furniture designer who lived from 1751 to 1806. He was trained as a cabinet (furniture) maker but is best known as the author of many volumes illustrating what came to be known as the Sheraton Style, starting in 1791 with The Cabinet Maker's and Upholsterer's Drawing Book.

Scholarly sources put the start of the Sheraton Style at either 1780 or 1790 (Wiki splits the difference and cites 1785) but most agree that it saw its end in 1820. As I have said before in this series, if you want to discover why a certain style or movement looks the way it does, you simply need to look at the styles immediately preceding it and you will see that, generally, the style is a reaction to and against its antecedent. And what came before this period was Baroque and Rococo, a highly detailed, heavily decorated, and dizzyingly ornamented style championed by Louis XV. When Louis XVI took over, tastes turned from such sinuous ornamentation--or rather I should say tastes returned to something sleeker, cleaner: Classicism.

This Neo-Classicism and the reign of Louis XVI ran from 1774 - 1793. As you can see by all the dates involved, Sheraton was simply following the fashion of the day. So Sheraton (as well as some other styles around and overlapping Sheraton, like Directoire--previously here--and Empire--previously here--in France, and the Federal style in the United States which saw a tremendous amount fo Sheraton-style furniture) embraced the silhouettes and motifs of ancient Greece and Rome, all based on symmetry and the straight line. Chair and sofa legs are straight, not the old cabriole shape of the past. They were round, sometimes slightly tapered, often with fluting like a Greek column--although it is not uncommon to see splayed back legs. The overall sense of Sheraton furniture is one of elegant, well-proportioned geometric shapes commonly made out of satinwood but mahogany and beech were also popular. Seat backs for chairs and settees are usually rectilinear. Pieces are decorated with small, low-relief carvings consisting of swags, lyres, ribbons, festoons, rams' heads, urns and flowers in the neoclassical tradition or inlaid with parquetry and veneers of exotic woods.

Happy designing!

History of Furniture: Chippendale Chinoiserie

For this portion of the History of Furniture, let's look at a furniture maker we have seen before...the legendary Thomas Chippendale, previously here, was the first furniture maker to have a style of furniture named after him instead of an English monarch! Born in 1718 in Otley in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England, he came from a long line of wood workers. Thomas was trained by his father, and it is presumed he apprenticed with the aptly-named York wood worker Richard Wood.

He moved to London and married Catherine Redshaw at St George's Chapel, Mayfair. And in 1754, Chippendale relocated to 60–62 St. Martin's Lane in London, where he operated his business for the next 60 years. This same year he published a book of his designs entitled "The Gentleman and Cabinet Maker's Director," the first work of its kind solely devoted to the furniture and furnishing of the 18th century British interior, which made him instantly known. He tapped into a certain style that was popular at that time and became the most famous name in the history of English furniture at a time when such craftsmanship was at its zenith. Chippendale’s patrons included aristocracy, gentry and public figures.

His furniture designs include chairs, settees, tables, desks, mirrors, bookshelves, and cabinets. Chippendale designs fall into three main styles: Gothic, Rococo (called "modern" in the book), and Chinese. And while he operated his own workshop and crafted pieces of exquisite beauty, others made furniture and furnishings based on patterns in the "Cabinet Maker's Director," so the term Chippendale refers to English furniture of the 1750s and ’60s made in a modified Rococo style.

For this post, we are focusing on his Chinese-inspired designs, often referred to as Chinoiserie. Although the Silk Road--trade routes that connected Asia with the Middle East and Europe, facilitating the import of silks, jade and other precious stones, porcelain, tea, and spices--operated from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century, the Ottoman Empire closed off trade in 1453. Bits and pieces of Asian objects trickled out for the next hundred years or so and people in Europe became fascinated with furniture and architecture of Asian origin. English and European makers began interpreting these objects from mysterious, exotic locations, creating pieces that were clearly made with a European eye. This style came to be known as Chinoiserie...not actually Chinese (imported from China) but something "in the style of" objects from Asia.

But Thomas Chippendale hit it first and hit it well, with his Chinoiserie designs reigning. Fanciful pagoda shapes mixed with carved wood made to look like pieces of bamboo or rattan lashed, and other details that evoked how the English and Europeans saw--or rather imagined--life in Asia.

Left to right: Design for part of an overmantel and a
wall bracket, Thomas Chippendale, about 1760, London.
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London;
Design for a chinoiserie-inspired chimney piece,
Thomas Chippendale, about 1760, London.
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Settees, chairs, beds, stair rails, all with bamboo-like lattice work (or in the case of the black japanned tall boy seen below, images of an idealized, imagined world of pagoda roofs, Ho Ho birds, and bells): there are a few original Chippendale Chinoiserie pieces left but there are plenty of examples of pieces "in the Chippendale Chinoiserie style."

Happy designing!

History of Furniture: The Conversation Pit

For this installment, let's look at something that is not so much an actual piece of individual furniture as much as it is a structure: The Conversation Pit.

Although sunken seating has roots far back in history, particularly in Asian countries, interior design lore suggests that the first real conversation pit as we know it today was created by Bruce Goff, an American architect, for a home he designed in 1927. Conversation pits became something of a signature in his home designs but it wasn't until the 1950s that the idea caught fire and spread, showing up in the 60s, 70s, even into the 80s!

Perhaps one of the best known examples of a conversation pit is in the Miller House, the mid-century masterpiece designed by Eero Saarinen with interiors by the incomparable Alexander Girard. It was Girard who suggested the conversation pit so as not to clutter the space with furniture pieces that would have impeded the view and interrupted the lines of Saarinen's architecture.

Another spectacular example of a conversation pit, on a grand scale, is another Saarinen design: the TWA Terminal at JFK which is now the fabulously retro TWA Hotel!

Conversation pits could be found in ordinary residential designs as well!

Eventually, like any element from pretty much any era, conversation pits started to look dated and fell out of favor. But word is they are making a comeback in interior architecture and design. Here is a current, superb example by architect Craig Steely who embedded a marvelous sunken pit into the concrete foundation of a home in the hills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. Steely says the pit "is filled with 144 sq. ft. of B&B Italia’s 'Tufty time' sofa components." In deep purple. Delightful.

Happy designing!

History of Furniture: Chippendale

In our last installment of History of Furniture, we examined what is known as the Adam Style, based on the work of brothers Robert and John Adam, here. So it seems right to examine a style that was happening just before, a style known as Chippendale.

Chippendale is the first style of furniture not be named after a monarch but after a cabinet maker, Thomas Chippendale, born in 1718 in Otley in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. Coming from a long line of wood workers, Thomas was trained by his father, and it is presumed he apprenticed with the aptly-named York wood worker Richard Wood.

He moved to London and married Catherine Redshaw at St George's Chapel, Mayfair. And in 1754, Chippendale relocated to 60–62 St. Martin's Lane in London, where he operated his business for the next 60 years. This same year he published a book of his designs entitled "The Gentleman and Cabinet Maker's Director," the first work of its kind solely devoted to the furniture and furnishing of the 18th century British interior, which made him instantly known. He tapped into a certain style that was popular at that time and became the most famous name in the history of English furniture at a time when such craftsmanship was at its zenith. Chippendale’s patrons included aristocracy, gentry and public figures.

His furniture designs include chairs, settees, tables, desks, mirrors, bookshelves, and cabinets. Chippendale designs fall into three main styles: Gothic, Rococo (called "modern" in the book), and Chinese. And while he operated his own workshop and crafted pieces of exquisite beauty, others made furniture and furnishings based on patterns in the "Cabinet Maker's Director," so the term Chippendale refers to English furniture of the 1750s and ’60s made in a modified Rococo style.

Among his furniture designs, it is his chairs which garnered the most attention. Many of the Rococo designs were French in origin, but Chippendale modified some of them for the less flamboyant English market; among these are his French chairs, based on Louis XV designs.

Many of his chairs had yoked top railings and intricately pierced and carved back splats.

A feature of many Chippendale chairs is the ball-and-claw foot, so named for the literal claw holding a ball. This element left over from the Queen Anne period, seen here, also shows up on corner chairs, writing desks, and tall chests of drawers.

But Thomas Chippendale also espoused another simpler chair foot, the pad or club foot which looks much like a golf club.

Chippendale eventually developed an even simpler leg and foot: a square leg with a square foot called a Marlborough leg.

To honor his contributions and legacy, it is important to note that he was much more than cabinetmaker or furniture designer. He operated in the capacity of what would now be an interior designer although that term and job title did not exist at that time. He advised on all aspects of decor such as soft furnishings like rugs and drapery, and even the color a room should be painted. During Chippendale's period of greatest success, he worked with other specialists for the supply of fully decorated and furnished rooms or whole houses, once the principal construction was done. His son, Thomas Chippendale Jr. assumed management of the business in 1776 and worked in the emerging Neoclassical and Regency styles but eventually bankrupted the company in 1804.

There is a statue and memorial plaque dedicated to Chippendale outside The Old Grammar School Gallery in Manor Square, in his home town of Otley, near Leeds, Yorkshire. And in London, there is a full-size sculpted figure of Thomas Chippendale on the façade of the Victoria and Albert Museum created in 1906 by Albert Hodge.

Happy designing!