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!

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!

The Neo-Classical Contemporary Bathroom by Fiorito Interior Design

Sometimes the shape and size of a space is great but the details inside seem wrong. That was what my clients thought about their primary bathroom in their newly purchased mountain home. As only the second owners of this large house built in the early 90s, they were eager to be rid of an array of artifacts from that period: a wall of glass bricks at the shower; a huge Jacuzzi tub and deck; and an odd, unnecessary run of shelving about a foot down from the ceiling line. These clients spent many years living on the east coast and brought with them a wonderful classical sense for their interiors—so I created a space that would give them that feeling of Classicism while simultaneously feeling fresh and current.

To start we chose a cooler color palette for the entire space. Tiles that look like Statuario marble are set off by a white and blue marble Arabesque mosaic medallion in the center of the room.

Once the space-hogging Jacuzzi tub was removed, I was able to fit larger, dueling vanities in a lovely French green (a grey with a slight, cool olive tone). These furniture-style units feature a breakfront sink base flanked by fluted columns topped with rosettes. A sculptural, contemporary tub now sits in the alcove looking out over the lush hillside.

The Neo-Classicism of the Georgian aesthetic inspired my choices for light fixtures. The central chandelier and vanity sconces feature glass finials and simplified flourishes.

We removed the glass bricks and rebuilt the entire shower to accommodate a linear drain, making it a true zero-clearance shower without a curb. My clients are now able to waltz into the shower without navigating oddly placed walls and an unusually high step into the pan.

Even the adjacent make-up vanity got a make-over—and a beverage refrigerator concealed by a panel of the same French green--to blend with the new, lighter style of the space. Finally, I designed custom Roman shades in a stunning embroidered material of cream and aqua to complete the room. The high style of the space references the past while reveling in a current moment of comfort and convenience.

Photo: Bernardo Grijalva

Photo: Bernardo Grijalva

Photo: Bernardo Grijalva

Photo: Bernardo Grijalva

Photo: Bernardo Grijalva

Photo: Bernardo Grijalva

Photo: Bernardo Grijalva

Photo: Bernardo Grijalva

Photo: Bernardo Grijalva

Photo: Bernardo Grijalva

Photo: Bernardo Grijalva

Photo: Bernardo Grijalva

And for those who are curious, here are some side-by-side Before and After composites to boggle your mind!

If you have an unruly 1990s bathroom you want to tame, give me a call!

Happy designing!

History of Furniture: George Hepplewhite

In the context of the history of furniture, there were a lot of cabinetmakers (an old term for furniture makers) in England in the 18th and 19th centuries but there are only a handful of legendary names:  Thomas Chippendale, Thomas Sheraton, and George Hepplewhite are known as The Big Three.

We have covered Chippendale in a post post here but let's take a look at George Hepplewhite. Not much is known of Hepplewhite's early life. Even his precise birthyear is unknown. But we do know he opened a cabinetmaker shop in London and died in 1786. However his widow Alice kept the business in operation.

Fascinatingly, it was not until 1788 when Alice posthumously published her late husband's designs in the CABINET MAKER AND UPHOLSTERER'S GUIDE that his work gained any notoriety. She published two further editions in 1789 and 1790. Chippendale was producing furniture at the same time and while he worked in a variety of styles, Hepplewhite stood by a single distinctive look featuring a neo-classical silhouette. Instead of the curvy cabriole leg of Queen Anne and Chippendale pieces, Hepplewhite looked to Grecian and Roman columns to make his straight legs--whether round or square--which were often fluted like a column of antiquity. He also pioneered and made popular the sideboard and the short chest of drawers which he designed with a serpentine or bow front, a relatively new feature in furniture for that period. Pieces are of contrasting veneered woods with inlays in interesting and pastoral shapes.

Hepplewhite created a unique chair back that is known as a "shield back chair," and it is easy to see why: the shape is that of a shield.

Hepplewhite also pioneered a decorative and functional object that every well appointed dinign room of the period held: the cutlery urn or box. These were carved wooden vessels with removeable lids that held knives but also spoons and forks. They were displayed on pedestals of their own often flanking a sideboard. The urn shape was popular but  Hepplewhite and Sheraton also designed square boxes with sloped and hinged lids.

Happy designing!