Antiques Through The Ages
Your handy guide to antiques periods and styles throughout the ages. Click on the highlighted text form more information
| Dates | British Monarch | U.K. Period | French Period | German Period | U.S. Period | Style | Woods |
| 1485-1603 | Tudor | ||||||
| 1558-1603 | Elizabeth I | Elizabethan/Tudor | Renaissance | Renaissance (to c1650) | Gothic | Oak period (to c1670) | |
| 1603-1625 | James I | Jacobean / Stuart | |||||
| 1625-1649 | Charles I | Carolean / Stuart | Louis XIII (1610-1643) | Early Colonial | Baroque (c1620-1700) | ||
| 1649-1660 | Commonwealth | Cromwellian | Louis XIV (1643-1715) | Renaissance / Baroque (c1650-1700) | |||
| 1660-1685 | Charles II | Restoration / Stuart | Walnut period (c1670-1735) | ||||
| 1685-1689 | James II | Restoration / Stuart | |||||
| 1689-1694 | William & Mary | William & Mary / Stuart | William & Mary | ||||
| 1694-1702 | William III | William III / Stuart | Dutch Colonial | Rococo (c1695-1760) Hepplewhite (from 1727) Sheraton (from 1751) |
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| 1702-1714 | Anne | Queen Anne / Stuart | Baroque (c1700-1730) | Queen Anne | |||
| 1714-1727 | George I | Early Georgian | Regence (1715-1723) | Chippendale (1715 - 1762) | |||
| 1727-1760 | George II | Early Georgian | Louis XV (1723-1774) | Rococo (c1730-1760) | Early Mahogany period (c1735-1770) | ||
| 1760-1811 | George III | Late Georgian | Louis XVI (1774-1793) Directoire (1993-1799) Empire (1799-1815) |
Neoclassicism (c1760-1800) Empire (c1800-1815) |
Early Federal (1790-1810) Americal Directoire (1798-1804) American Empire (1804-1815) |
Neoclassical (c1755-1805) Empire (c1799-1815) Hepplewhite (to 1788) Sheraton (to 1806) |
Late Mahogany period (c1770-1810) |
| 1812-1820 | George III | Regency | Restauration (1815-1830) | Biedermeier (c1815-1848) | Later Federal (1810-1830) | Regency (c1812-1830) | |
| 1820-1830 | George IV | Regency | |||||
| 1830-1837 | William IV | William IV | Louis Philippe (1830-1848) 2nd Empire (1848-1870) 3rd Republic (1871-1940) |
Revivale (c1830-1880) Jugendstil (c1880-1920) |
Eclectic (c1830-1880) Arts & Crafts (1880-1900) | ||
| 1837-1901 | Victoria | Victorian | Victorian | ||||
| 1901-1910 | Edward VII | Edwardian | Art Nouveau (c1900-1920) | ||||
| Art Deco (1920 - 1930) |
Renaissance
The Renaissance was an influential cultural movement which brought about a period of scientific revolution and artistic transformation, at the dawn of modern European history. It marks the transitional period between the end of the Middle Ages and the start of the Modern Age. The Renaissance is usually considered to have begun in the 14th century in Italy and the 16th century in northern Europe. It is also known as "Rinascimento" (in Italian).
Gothic
Gothic art told a narrative story through pictures, both Christian and secular.
The earliest Gothic art was Christian sculpture, born on the walls of Cathedrals and abbeys. Christian art was often typological in nature (see Medieval allegory), showing the stories of the New Testament and the Old Testament side by side. Saints' lives were often depicted. Images of the Virgin Mary changed from the Byzantine iconic form to a more human and affectionate mother, cuddling her infant, swaying from her hip, and showing the refined manners of a well-born aristocratic court lady.
Secular art came in to its own during this period with the rise of cities, foundation of universities, increasing trade, a money-based economy and a bourgeois class who could afford to patronize the arts and commission works resulting in a proliferation of paintings and illuminated manuscripts. Increased literacy and a growing body of secular vernacular literature encouraged the representation of secular themes in art. With the growth of cities, trade guilds were formed and artists were often required to be members of a guild—as a result, because of better record keeping, more artists are known to us by name in this period than any previous, some artists were even so bold as to sign their names
Gothic sculpture was born on the wall, in the middle of the 12th century in Île-de-France, when Abbot Suger built the abbey at St. Denis (ca. 1140), considered the first Gothic building, and soon after the Chartres Cathedral (ca. 1145). Prior to this there had been no sculpture tradition in Ile-de-France—so sculptors were brought in from Burgundy, who created the revolutionary figures acting as columns in the Western (Royal) Portal of Chartres Cathedral (see image)—it was an entirely new invention, and would provide the model for a generation of sculptors.
The French ideas spread. In Germany, from 1225 at the Cathedral in Bamberg onward, the impact can be found everywhere. The Bamberg Cathedral had the largest assemblage of 13th century sculpture, culminating in 1240 with the Bamberg Rider, the first equestrian statue in Western art since the 6th century. In England the sculpture was more confined to tombs and non-figurine decorations (which can in part be blamed on Cistercian iconoclasm). In Italy there was still a Classical influence, but Gothic made inroads in the sculptures of pulpits such as the Pisa Baptistery pulpit (1269) and the Siena pulpit.
Gothic sculpture evolved from the early stiff and elongated style, still partly Romanesque, into a spatial and naturalistic feel in the late 12th and early 13th century. Influences from surviving ancient Greek and Roman sculptures were incorporated into the treatment of drapery, facial expression and pose.
Dutch-Burgundian sculptor Claus Sluter and the taste for naturalism signaled the beginning of the end of Gothic sculpture, evolving into the classicistic Renaissance style by the end of the 15th century.
Painting in a style that can be called "Gothic" did not appear until about 1200, or nearly 50 years after the start of Gothic architecture and sculpture. The transition from Romanesque to Gothic is very imprecise and not at all a clear break, but we can see the beginnings of a style that is more somber, dark and emotional than the previous period. This transition occurs first in England and France around 1200, in Germany around 1220 and Italy around 1300.
Painting (the representation of images on a surface) during the Gothic period was practiced in 4 primary crafts: frescos, panel paintings, manuscript illumination and stained glass. Frescoes continued to be used as the main pictorial narrative craft on church walls in southern Europe as a continuation of early Christian and Romanesque traditions. In the north stained glass was the art of choice until the 15th century. Panel paintings began in Italy in the 13th century and spread throughout Europe, so by the 15th century they had become the dominate form supplanting even stained glass. Illuminated manuscripts represent the most complete record of Gothic painting, providing a record of styles in places where no monumental works have otherwise survived. Painting with oil on canvas does not become popular until the 15th and 16th centuries and was a hallmark of Renaissance art.
Baroque
In arts, the Baroque (or baroque) is both a period and the style that dominated it. Baroque style used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur from sculpture, painting, literature, and music. The style started around 1600 in Rome, Italy and spread to most of Europe. In music, the Baroque applies to the final period of dominance of imitative counterpoint.
William and Mary
Named for the joint reign of England's King William III and Queen Mary II in the late 17th century, this style carried William's Dutch influence, particularly in floral marquetry and oyster veneer. It was elegant in scale and shape. In America, it represented a provincial or country American Baroque style.
Queen Anne
Style that arose in England during the reign of Queen Anne, from 1702 to 1714, in a break from French influences. Veneering in walnut was popular, and gentle, subtle curves added grace. This period marked the development of secretaries and china cupboards and a maturing of the cabriole leg, serpentine arms, and soft, rounded frames and shapes.
Rococo
The Rococo style of art emerged in France in the early 18th century as a continuation of the Baroque style, but in contrast to the heavier themes and darker colors of the Baroque, the Rococo was characterized by an opulence, grace, playfulness, and lightness. Rococo motifs focused on the carefree aristocratic life and on lighthearted romance rather than heroic battles or religious figures; they also revolve heavily around nature and exterior settings. In the mid-late 18th century, rococo was surpassed by the Neoclassic style.
The word Rococo was apparently a combination of the French rocaille, or shell, and the Italian barocco, or Baroque style. Due to Rococo love of shell-like curves and focus on decorative arts, some critics used the term to derogatively imply that the style was frivolous or merely fashion; interestingly, when the term was first used in English in about 1836, it was a colloquialism meaning "old-fashioned". However, since the mid 19th century, the term has been accepted by art historians. While there is still some debate about the art historical significance of the style, rococo is now widely recognized as a major period in the development of European art
Rococo developed first in the decorative arts and interior design. Louis XV's succession brought a change in the court artists and general artistic fashion. By the end of the old king's reign, rich Baroque designs were giving way to lighter elements with more curves and natural patterns. These elements are evident in the architectural designs of Nicolas Pineau. During the Régence, court life moved away from Versailles and this artistic change became well established, first in the royal palace and then throughout French high society. The delicacy and playfulness of Rococo designs is often seen as a reaction to the excesses of Louis XIV's regime.
The 1730s represented the height of Rococo development in France. The style had spread beyond architecture and furniture to painting and sculpture, exemplified by the works of Antoine Watteau and François Boucher. Rococo still maintained the Baroque taste for complex forms and intricate patterns. By this point, it had begun to integrate a variety of diverse characteristics, including a taste for Oriental designs and asymmetric compositions.
The Rococo style spread with French artists and engraved publications. It was readily received in the Catholic parts of Germany, Bohemia, and Austria, where it was merged with the lively German Baroque traditions. Particularly in the south, German Rococo was applied with enthusiasm to churches and palaces. Architects often draped their interiors in clouds of fluffy white stucco. In Italy, the late Baroque styles of Borromini and Guarini set the tone for Rococo in Turin, Venice, Naples and Sicily, while the arts in Tuscany and Rome remained more wedded to Baroque.
Rococo in England was always thought of as the "French taste." The architectural stylings never caught on, though silverwork, porcelain, and silks were strongly influenced by the continental style. Thomas Chippendale transformed English furniture design through his adaptation and refinement of the style. William Hogarth helped develop a theoretical foundation for Rococo beauty. Though not intentionally referencing the movement, he argued in his Analysis of Beauty (1753) that the undulating lines and S-curves prominent in Rococo were the basis for grace and beauty in art or nature (unlike the straight line or the circle in Classicism). The development of Rococo in England is considered to had been connected with the revival of interest in Gothic architecture early in the 18th century.
The beginning of the end for Rococo came in the early 1760s as figures like Voltaire and Jacques-François Blondel began to voice their criticism of the superficiality and degeneracy of the art. Blondel decried the "ridiculous jumble of shells, dragons, reeds, palm-trees and plants" in contemporary interiors[1]. By 1780, Rococo had passed out of fashion in France, replaced by the order and seriousness of Neoclassical artists like Jacques Louis David. It remained popular in the provinces and in Italy, until the second phase of neoclassicism, "Empire style," arrived with Napoleonic governments and swept Rococo away.
There was a renewed interest in the Rococo style between 1820 and 1870. The English were among the first to revive the "Louis XIV style" as it was miscalled at first, and paid inflated prices for second-hand Rococo luxury goods that could scarcely be sold in Paris. But prominent artists like Delacroix and patrons like Empress Eugénie also rediscovered the value of grace and playfulness in art and design.
Rococo in Furniture and decorative objects
The lighthearted themes and intricate designs of Rococo presented themselves best on a smaller scale than the imposing Baroque architecture and sculpture. It is not surprising, then, that French Rococo art was at home indoors. Metalwork, porcelain figures, and especially furniture rose to new pre-eminence as the French upper classes sought to outfit their homes in the now fashionable style.
Rococo style took pleasure in asymmetry, a taste that was new to European style. This practice of leaving elements unbalanced for effect is called contraste. This wall clock on its bracket, a well-known design by Charles Cressent is in a gilt-brass case filled with "contraste" in its details. Its theme: "Love conquers Time," with a Cupid atop the clockcase and Time with his scythe, collapsed below.
Rococo taste enjoyed the exotic character of Chinese arts, and imitated them in wares produced in France. In the etagère (case of shelves) to the left of the chimneypiece are decorative tea things above a seated mandarin; they might have been imported, or they might have been European chinoiserie. (Wider aspects of fanciful European views of the East are discussed at the entry Orient.)
In a full-blown Rococo design, like the Table d'appartement (ca. 1730), by German designer J. A. Meissonnier, working in Paris (illustration, below), any reference to tectonic form is gone: even the marble slab top is shaped. Apron, legs, stretcher have all been seamlessly integrated into a flow of opposed c-scrolls and "rocaille." The knot (noeud) of the stretcher shows the asymmetrical "contraste" that was a Rococo innovation.
For small plastic figures of gypsum, clay, biscuit, porcelain (Sèvres, Meissen), the gay Rococo is not unsuitable; in wood, iron, and royal metal, it has created some valuable works. However, confessionals, pulpits, altars, and even facades lead ever more into the territory of the architectonic, which does not easily combine with the curves of Rococo, the light and the petty, with forms whose whence and wherefore baffle inquiry.
Dynasties of Parisian ébénistes, some of them German-born, developed a style of surfaces curved in three dimensions (bombé), where matched veneers (marquetry temporarily being in eclipse) or vernis martin japanning was effortlessly completed by gilt-bronze ("ormolu") mounts: Antoine Gaudreau, Charles Cressent, Jean-Pierre Latz, François Oeben, Bernard II van Risenbergh are the outstanding names.
French designers like François Cuvilliés and Nicholas Pineau exported Parisian styles in person to Munich and Saint Petersburg, while the German Juste-Aurèle Meissonier found his career at Paris. The guiding spirits of the Parisian rococo were a small group of marchands-merciers, the forerunners of modern decorators, led by Simon-Philippenis Poirier.
In France the style remained somewhat more reserved, since the ornaments were mostly of wood, or, after the fashion of wood-carving, less robust and naturalistic and less exuberant in the mixture of natural with artificial forms of all kinds (e.g. plant motives, stalactitic representations, grotesques, masks, implements of various professions, badges, paintings, precious stones).
English Rococo tended to be more restrained. Thomas Chippendale's furniture designs kept the curves and feel, but stopped short of the French heights of whimsy. The most successful exponent of English Rococo was probably Thomas Johnson a gifted carver and furniture designer working in London in the mid 1700s.
Chippendale
Thomas Chippendale (1718-79) designer and cabinet-maker; published 'The Gentleman and Cabinet-maker's Director' in 1754, reissued in 1755 and again between 1759 and 1762. He worked in London in St. Martin's Lane at the sign of 'The Chair' where his son (Thomas Chippendale the Younger) carried on the business after his death.
Neoclassical
"Neoclassical," as contrasted with Renaissance Classical is approximately synonymous with Romantic , and refers to those early-19th-century architectural styles inspired by the first scientific archaeological excavations of ancient ruins (Pompeii and Herculaneum). The Early Classical Revival style (which see) can be considered a transitional style between Renaissance Classicism and Neoclassicism. Neoclassical styles exhibit less symmetry and greater variety in the design of columns and other "classical" elements. (2) "Neoclassical" also refers to a revival of the earlier Neoclassical styles which began in the 1890's and continued well into the 20th century. These later Neoclassical houses exhibit a mixture of motives derived from Greek Revival and other Romantic styles.
Hepplewhite
George Hepplewhite (died June 21, 1786) was a cabinet and chair maker. He was 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. Reproductions of his designs continued through the following centuries. One characteristic that is seen in many of his designs, but not all of them, is a shield shaped chair back.
Very little is known about Hepplewhite himself. He served his apprenticeship in Lancaster and then moved to London where he opened a shop. After he died in 1786 the business was carried on by his widow, Alice. In 1788 she published a book with about 300 of his designs, The Cabinet Maker and Upholsterers Guide. Two further editions were published in 1789 and 1790.
The book influenced cabinet makers and furniture companies for several generations. The work of these generations influenced in turn copies of the original designs and variants of them through the 19th and 20th centuries
Biedermeier
A furniture style of German derivation in the first half of the 19th century and named after "Papa Biedermeier," a cartoon character that represented the well-to-do, uncultured middle class. The furniture is often plain and blocklike in form and borrows freely from many styles, particularly French Empire, adding strength and comfort at the expense of grace and refinement.
Regency
Pertaining to the style of architecture, furnishings and decoration of the British Regency, somewhat similar to the French Directiore and Empire styles and characterized by close imitation of ancient Greek forms as well as by less frequent and looser adaptations of ancient Roman, Gothic, Chinese, and ancient Egyptian forms.
Victorian
Style named for England's Queen Victoria, who reigned from 1837 to 1901, applied to English and American furniture of that time, particularly in the mid-years of her reign. That furniture takes its cue from and elaborates on rococo and Louis XV style, with exaggerated curves and size, lush upholstery (often in complicated curves and shapes), ellipses, spools, and carvings. Among its hallmarks is horsehair cushioning.
Art Nouveau
A romantic furniture and design style borrowing heavily from Gothic style, and its revivals, in being curvilinear. Seldom utilizes straight lines, and can be asymetrical. Started with the designs of William Morris in England and was therefore origianlly called "le style anglais" and later "le style moderne" in France. Influenced and devolped by Toulose-Lautrec, Emil Galle, and Rene Lalique. An organic flowing style with gentle and well balance curves and edges.
Derived from an historic Paris exposition in 1925 that celebrated the marriage of art and industry in denunciation of Art Nouveau. It introduced simple, streamlined forms that were majestically interpreted in exotic woods and materials. American designers of the 1930s took this look further, using asymmetry, arcs, sleek lines, and geometric shapes not only in furniture, but also in architecture and a wide range of household objects.
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