Painted Furniture

1 January 1988

Interior Design

The urge to adorn one's surroundings is age old. Ancient civilizations
used paint to decorate their walls, their furniture and their everyday
objects. The Egyptians, the Etruscans and the Romans painted their
houses and their furniture with extraordinary inventiveness and a
variety of colors.

In the Western world, decorative painting was limited to the furniture
of the church, and was usually carried out by first-rate artists.
Gradually, this practice spread to secular furniture such as trays, beds
and the large storage chests called cassoni. Most of this work was
executed by craftsmen and apprentices; sometimes the master would paint
a special piece for a noble family.

By the 17th century, the Renaissance had created an enormous influence
on decorating in Italy and France. Italian architecture dominated
decoration; ceilings were painted in exaggerated perspective leading
theatrically into the sky. Furniture followed this grandiose pattern,
though not as expertly. The craftsmen who made the wood pieces were not
too meticulous, the furniture was crude. To hide the inferior
workmanship, gesso (a paste of white limestone) was applied and then
carved and gilded, creating a new style.

In France, great architectural panels, moldings and cornices were
painted, striped or gilded. Furniture quickly followed suit. In royal
circles wood pieces were heavily carved and richly gilded. Lesser
nobility had to make do with furniture that was painted white and
touched with gold or simply waxed and enhanced with ormulu (gilt bronze).

England's great halls in the 17th century were lined with fine unpainted
wood paneling. The craftsmanship of their wooden furniture was flawless
and required no camouflage; gilt furniture was created for originality
and grandeur late in the period and continued to be popular in the 18th
century.

Lacquer was introduced to the Western world by Marco Polo in 1295. As
trade with the Orient increased, pieces of lacquer were imported by
Spain and Portugal. Early imitations were produced in Venice, but only
on small boxes and chests. By the 17th century, when Europe entered into
regular trade relations with China, Oriental lacquer became very
fashionable. The imported lacquer ware was taken apart, then
incorporated by cabinet makers into tables, chests, bookcases and
armoires in the prevailing taste.

In the second half of the 18th century, a new phase of decorative
painting spread through Europe. Robert Adam, the great English architect
and designer, visited Rome and was inspired by the spell of antiquity.
Chippendale and Sheraton used real or turned bamboo, gilded, painted and
japanned to lighten the heaviness of wood surfaces. The desire for
brightness in English houses, where gold was considered unsuitable, gave
rise to the fashion of painting classic designs on satinwood. And the
Brighton Pavilion, which was begun early in the 19th century, was
enormously influential in making all kinds of realistic and fantasy
painted finishes popular.

In America, cabinet makers created their own versions of painted and
lacquered furniture. Using native woods, local craftsmen produced
country furniture with ingenious naivete. The kind of decoration they
developed was not unlike that of provincial furniture as it had
flourished in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Austria and Germany. There,
during the long winters, peasants had painted their chairs, tables and
chests with colorful and artless motifs from daily life. An American
designer named Peter Hunt created a market for country pieces covered
with naif drawings of hearts and flowers in primary colors, and his
style has been widely imitated.

It may be helpful to describe some of the techniques for painting
furniture. Oriental lacquer is varnish applied to clear color, built up
in many coats until a deep, satiny finish is achieved. Japanning is
Western imitation of Oriental lacquer. Faux finishes are painted to look
like other materials. Faux bois is one wood painted to look like
another. Some faux bois looks realistic; some is pure fantasy and exists
only in the artist's imagination. Bamboo is the most widely used painted
wood finish. Faux marbre is wood painted to look like marble, and here
again the painter may duplicate the real thing, or invent his own. Then
there are all the techniques available for painting wood. There is
antiquing, which involves a base color, an over-coat and a glaze. There
is strie (which gives a hazy striped effect), spatter (which looks
dotted) or sponged (which looks mottled). There are tortoise shell
finishes in life-like browns and black, and fanciful reds and blues and
greens. There are finishes that look like semi precious stones --
malachite, lapis lazuli, quartz and porphyry. There are all the ways of
adding gold to painted furniture: burnishing, striping, gilding and
leafing. And of course there are the myriad styles and techniques of
painting pictures on furniture--baskets of flowers, ribbons and bows,
stripes and swirls, figures, landscapes, even scenes from country life.
There are many other styles and techniques in the creation of painted
furniture, but these examples illustrate the range and variety of this
fascinating category of antiques.

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