Rococo, less commonly Roccoco, also known as Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and dramatic style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, and trompe-l'œil frescoes to create surprise and the illusion of motion and drama. It is often described as the final expression of the Baroque movement.
Monticello was the primary plantation of Thomas Jefferson, a Founding Father, author of the Declaration of Independence, and the third president of the United States, who began designing Monticello after inheriting land from his father at age 14. Located just outside Charlottesville, Virginia, in the Piedmont region, the plantation was originally 5,000 acres (20 km2), with Jefferson using the forced labor of Black slaves for extensive cultivation of tobacco and mixed crops, later shifting from tobacco cultivation to wheat in response to changing markets. Due to its architectural and historic significance, the property has been designated a National Historic Landmark. In 1987, Monticello and the nearby University of Virginia, also designed by Jefferson, were together designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The United States nickel has featured a depiction of Monticello on its reverse since 1938.
Thomas Chippendale was an English cabinet-maker in London, designing furniture in the mid-Georgian, English Rococo, and Neoclassical styles. In 1754 he published a book of his designs in a trade catalogue titled The Gentleman and Cabinet Maker's Director—the most important collection of furniture designs published in England to that point which created a mass market for furniture—upon which success he became renowned. According to the Victoria and Albert Museum, "so influential were his designs, in Britain and throughout Europe and America, that 'Chippendale' became a shorthand description for any furniture similar to his Director designs".
A balcony is a platform projecting from the wall of a building, supported by columns or console brackets, and enclosed with a balustrade, usually above the ground floor. They are commonly found on multi-level houses, apartments and cruise ships.
The Eastlake movement was a nineteenth-century architectural and household design reform movement started by British architect and writer Charles Eastlake (1836–1906). The movement is generally considered part of the late Victorian period in terms of broad antique furniture designations. In architecture the Eastlake style or Eastlake architecture is part of the Queen Anne style of Victorian architecture.
George Hepplewhite was a cabinetmaker. He is regarded as having been one of the "big three" English furniture makers of the 18th century, along with Thomas Sheraton and Thomas Chippendale. There are no pieces of furniture made by Hepplewhite or his firm known to exist but he gave his name to a distinctive style of light, elegant furniture that was fashionable between about 1775 and 1800 and reproductions of his designs continued through the following centuries. One characteristic that is seen in many of his designs is a shield-shaped chair back, where an expansive shield appeared in place of a narrower splat design.
Thomas Johnson (1714–1778) was an English wood carver and furniture maker.
Robert Manwaring was an English 18th-century furniture designer and cabinet maker. The dates of his birth and death are unknown.
John Crunden was an English architect of country houses and villas, and mobiliary designer.
Henry Copeland, aka Henry Copland, was an 18th-century English cabinetmaker and furniture designer. In partnership with Mathias Locke during the mid-18th century in London, they produced many furniture designs in the Rococo Furniture Style. However both men worked for Thomas Chippendale the elder and many of their designs appear, without acknowledgement, in his book of designs, The Gentleman and Cabinet Makers Director, published two years later. However a study of the original drawings suggests that they may have actively collaborated with Chippendale on his book.
A baluster is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its construction are wood, stone, and less frequently metal and ceramic. A group of balusters supporting a handrail, coping, or ornamental detail is known as a balustrade.
John Hemmings was an American woodworker. Born into slavery at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello as a member of the large mixed-race Hemings family, he trained in the Monticello Joinery and became a highly skilled carpenter and woodworker, making furniture and crafting the fine woodwork of the interiors at Monticello and Poplar Forest.
Jeffersonian architecture is an American form of Neo-Classicism and/or Neo-Palladianism embodied in the architectural designs of U.S. President and polymath Thomas Jefferson, after whom it is named. These include his home (Monticello), his retreat, the university he founded, and his designs for the homes of friends and political allies. More than a dozen private homes bearing his personal stamp still stand today. Jefferson's style was popular in the early American period at about the same time that the more mainstream Greek Revival architecture was also coming into vogue (1790s–1830s) with his assistance.
Cast-iron architecture is the use of cast iron in buildings and objects, ranging from bridges and markets to warehouses, balconies and fences. Refinements developed during the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century made cast iron relatively cheap and suitable for a range of uses, and by the mid-19th century it was common as a structural material, and particularly for elaborately patterned architectural elements such as fences and balconies, until it fell out of fashion after 1900 as a decorative material, and was replaced by modern steel and concrete for structural purposes.
Barboursville is the ruin of the mansion of James Barbour, located in Barboursville, Virginia. He was the former U.S. Senator, U.S. Secretary of War, and Virginia Governor. It is now within the property of Barboursville Vineyards. The house was designed by Thomas Jefferson, president of the United States and Barbour's friend and political ally. The ruin is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Shack Mountain is a house near Charlottesville, Virginia, that is a tribute to Thomas Jefferson's architectural style. It was designed by and for Fiske Kimball (1881-1955), an architectural historian who was the founder of the University of Virginia School of Architecture, and who is credited with restoring respect for Jefferson's architectural ability. The house derives its name from the Shackelford family, who owned and settled the property in the 18th century.
Hope Plantation, built in 1803, is an early house built in the Palladian mode of the federal style, located on the Carolina Coastal Plain, near Windsor, North Carolina, in the United States. The plantation house was built by David Stone, a member of the coastal Carolina planter class, later Governor of North Carolina and a United States senator. One of the finest examples of Palladian design built in timber, the manor house is slightly modified by neo-classical elements. The facade has five bays and a pedimented double portico with the original Chinese Chippendale balustrade. Crowning the house is a widow's walk with matching railing. The interior of the house displays a height and grandeur rare in the region, and is furnished with a unique collection of period furniture, art and artifacts.
Openwork or open-work is a term in art history, architecture and related fields for any technique that produces decoration by creating holes, piercings, or gaps that go right through a solid material such as metal, wood, stone, pottery, cloth, leather, or ivory. Such techniques have been very widely used in a great number of cultures.
Deck railing is a guard rail to prevent people falling from decks, stairs and balconies of buildings. Over time, many different styles of deck railing have been developed.
Trade catalogs, originating in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries primarily in Europe, are print catalogs which advertise products and ideas in words, illustrations, or both. They included decor, ironwork, furniture, and kitchenware. If a trade catalog included illustrations, the items were commonly engraved or hand-drawn and replicated.
