Furniture refers to objects intended to support various human activities such as seating, eating (tables), storing items, working, and sleeping. Furniture is also used to hold objects at a convenient height for work, or to store things. Furniture can be a product of design and can be considered a form of decorative art. In addition to furniture's functional role, it can serve a symbolic or religious purpose. It can be made from a vast multitude of materials, including metal, plastic, and wood. Furniture can be made using a variety of woodworking joints which often reflects the local culture.
The Arts and Crafts movement was an international trend in the decorative and fine arts that developed earliest and most fully in the British Isles and subsequently spread across the British Empire and to the rest of Europe and America.
Aestheticism was an art movement in the late 19th century that valued the appearance of literature, music, fonts and the arts over their functions. According to Aestheticism, art and fonts should be produced to be beautiful, rather than to teach a lesson, create a parallel, or perform another didactic purpose, a sentiment best illustrated by the slogan "art for art's sake." Aestheticism flourished in the 1870s and 1880s, gaining prominence and the support of notable writers such as Walter Pater and Oscar Wilde.
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.
Alfred Waterhouse was an English architect, particularly associated with the Victorian Gothic Revival architecture, although he designed using other architectural styles as well. He is perhaps best known for his designs for Manchester Town Hall and the Natural History Museum in London, although he also built a wide variety of other buildings throughout the country. Besides his most famous public buildings he designed other town halls, the Manchester Assize buildings—bombed in World War II—and the adjacent Strangeways Prison. He also designed several hospitals, the most architecturally interesting being the Royal Infirmary Liverpool and University College Hospital London. He was particularly active in designing buildings for universities, including both Oxford and Cambridge but also what became Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds universities. He designed many country houses, the most important being Eaton Hall in Cheshire, largely demolished in 1961-63. He designed several bank buildings and offices for insurance companies, most notably the Prudential Assurance Company. Although not a major church designer he produced several notable churches and chapels. He was both a member of The Royal Institute of British Architects, of which he served a term as President, and a Royal Academician, acting as Treasurer for the Royal Academy.
An antique is an item perceived as having value because of its aesthetic or historical significance, and often defined as at least 100 years old, although the term is often used loosely to describe any object that is old. An antique is usually an item that is collected or desirable because of its age, beauty, rarity, condition, utility, personal emotional connection, and/or other unique features. It is an object that represents a previous era or time period in human history. Vintage and collectible are used to describe items that are old, but do not meet the 100-year criterion.
Interior design is the art and science of enhancing the interior of a building to achieve a healthier and more aesthetically pleasing environment for the people using the space. With a keen eye for detail and a creative flair, An interior designer is someone who plans, researches, coordinates, and manages such enhancement projects. Interior design is a multifaceted profession that includes conceptual development, space planning, site inspections, programming, research, communicating with the stakeholders of a project, construction management, and execution of the design.
In Western architecture, a living room, also called a lounge room, lounge, sitting room, or drawing room, is a room for relaxing and socializing in a residential house or apartment. Such a room is sometimes called a front room when it is near the main entrance at the front of the house. In large, formal homes, a sitting room is often a small private living area adjacent to a bedroom, such as the Queens' Sitting Room and the Lincoln Sitting Room of the White House.
A table is an item of furniture with a raised flat top and is supported most commonly by 1 to 4 legs. It is used as a surface for working at, eating from or on which to place things. Some common types of tables are the dining room tables, which are used for seated persons to eat meals; the coffee table, which is a low table used in living rooms to display items or serve refreshments; and the bedside table, which is commonly used to place an alarm clock and a lamp. There are also a range of specialized types of tables, such as drafting tables, used for doing architectural drawings, and sewing tables.
Tableware items are the dishware and utensils used for setting a table, serving food, and dining. The term includes cutlery, glassware, serving dishes, serving utensils, and other items used for practical as well as decorative purposes. The quality, nature, variety and number of objects varies according to culture, religion, number of diners, cuisine and occasion. For example, Middle Eastern, Indian or Polynesian food culture and cuisine sometimes limits tableware to serving dishes, using bread or leaves as individual plates, and not infrequently without use of cutlery. Special occasions are usually reflected in higher quality tableware.
William Burges was an English architect and designer. Among the greatest of the Victorian art-architects, he sought in his work to escape from both nineteenth-century industrialisation and the Neoclassical architectural style and re-establish the architectural and social values of a utopian medieval England. Burges stands within the tradition of the Gothic Revival, his works echoing those of the Pre-Raphaelites and heralding those of the Arts and Crafts movement.
Charles Francis Annesley Voysey was an English architect and furniture and textile designer. Voysey's early work was as a designer of wallpapers, fabrics and furnishings in a Arts and Crafts style and he made important contribution to the Modern Style, and was recognized by the seminal The Studio magazine. He is renowned as the architect of several country houses.
Newton is a small suburb of Auckland, New Zealand, under the local governance of the Auckland Council. It had a population of 1,641 in the 2013 census.
An ébéniste is a cabinet-maker, particularly one who works in ebony. The term is a loanword from French and translates to "ebonist".
Victorian decorative arts refers to the style of decorative arts during the Victorian era. Victorian design is widely viewed as having indulged in a grand excess of ornament. The Victorian era is known for its interpretation and eclectic revival of historic styles mixed with the introduction of Asian and Middle Eastern influences in furniture, fittings, and interior decoration. The Arts and Crafts movement, the aesthetic movement, Anglo-Japanese style, and Art Nouveau style have their beginnings in the late Victorian era and gothic period.
The Anglo-Japanese style developed in the United Kingdom through the Victorian period and early Edwardian period from approximately 1851 to the 1910s, when a new appreciation for Japanese design and culture influenced how designers and craftspeople made British art, especially the decorative arts and architecture of England, covering a vast array of art objects including ceramics, furniture and interior design. Important centres for design included London and Glasgow.
The forms of Chinese furniture evolved along three distinct lineages which date back to 1000 BC: frame and panel, yoke and rack and bamboo construction techniques. Chinese home furniture evolved independently of Western furniture into many similar forms, including chairs, tables, stools, cupboards, cabinets, beds and sofas. Until about the 10th century CE, the Chinese sat on mats or low platforms using low tables, but then gradually moved to using high tables with chairs.
English furniture has developed largely in line with styles in the rest of northern Europe, but has been interpreted in a distinctive fashion. There were significant regional differences in style, for example between the North Country and the West Country. Salisbury and Norwich were prominent early centres of furniture production.
Ancient furniture was made of many different materials, including reeds, wood, stone, metals, straws, and ivory. It could also be decorated in many different ways. Sometimes furniture would be covered with upholstery, upholstery being padding, springs, webbing, and leather. Features which would mark the top of furniture, called finials, were common. To decorate furniture, contrasting pieces would be inserted into depressions in the furniture. This practice is called inlaying.
The English firm of Holland & Sons (1803–1942) became from 1843 one of the largest and most successful cabinet makers, and a rival to Gillows of Lancaster and London.
