A history of furniture

This volume is the last work of an accomplished and scientific author, the matured fruits of long study and continuous observation. His son, anxious for his father's fame, has given additional value to the text by the brilliant illustrations with which he has adorned it.

M. Jacquemart was born in 1808, and died on the 14th October, 1875, A Parisian by birth, he witnessed the reward and 'development of the taste for art which has become the feature of the present generation.

Those who date from the beginning of the century can remember the scanty materials of which the furniture of their fathers was composed; the nakedness of a vestibule, the frigid aspect of a dining-room, the tasteless symmetry of a drawing-room. How and by what teaching have imagination and capability replaced routine and ignorance?

At the end of the last century the reign of Terror had annihilated the fortunes and dispersed the personal property of the French aristocracy. Lovers of works of art, then more numerous in England than in any country of Europe, had secured the greater part of the riches of the monarchy, but by the side, or following the steps of the foreigners whose gains have been to us an irreparable loss, the work of preservation which was destined to precede the re-awakening of taste was patiently carried on, often not without danger. The two men who first took the lead, and for their unwearied efforts specially deserve our gratitude, are Alexandre Lenoir and du Sommerard, for the Museum of French Monuments and the Hotel Cluny have been the schools which have preserved to us the models, and furnished us with the means of instruction.

The fashion which, during the brilliant years of the Empire, had inaugurated in Paris a style of furnishing derived from the houses of Pompeii, was but of short duration; few vestiges of it remain, and at a distance of sixty years, whoever may wish to form a precise idea of what was the character of this forgotten style, must consult the Collection published in 1812 by Percier and Fontaine, its inventors and skilful designers. This style, however, had had in Jacob an exponent of great talent, and the furniture signed with his name will always be held in estimation. Some years before 1830, a return to the style of the three centuries preceding our own is to be observed. Charles X. purchased for the museums of the Louvre the sculptured furniture, enamels, and Italian or Palissy faiences collected by M. Durand and Revoil; the Duchesse de Perry restored, in her chateau at Rosny, the room of the minister Sully; cabinets of rare objects of art were formed, among which were to be distinguished those of the Baron de Monville, M. Debruge-Dumesnil, and of our generous donor Charles Sauvageot; Willemin made them known by engravings, and Andre Pottierby his learned description. At the beginning of the reign of Louis Philippe the fashion was then established; the historical furniture of the PlaceRoyale had its imitators, the curiosity shops of Madame Roussel and Mademoiselle Delaunay shared between them a number of rich or elegant clients. Women of refined taste would have none but the furniture of Marie Antoinette, others drew from less pure sources, and were not dismayed by origins of doubtful respectability; each chose her favourite period, and followed her own caprice. Thus side by side with the great public depositories these private museums were created, which now form the richness, elegance, and interest of our habitations, and are liberally thrown open to those who desire to learn or to teach.

No one knew better than Albert Jacquemart how to enjoy and profit by them, or derived greater advantages from their study. No one was so well acquainted as himself with the value of the State collections, and with the rare and useful treasures that Paris contains. One by one he studied the manufactures of which art is the spirit and essence, and these studies, which when united complete each other, constitute the history of Furniture.

After those names which we have already cited as collectors of art, we ought also to inscribe that of Albert Jacquemart himself, who was one of the most intelligent and fortunate of collectors. Thanks to the patriotic liberality of M. Adrien Dubouche, the museum of Limoges has become possessed of the collections patiently and judiciously formed by the historian of the ceramic art. M. Paul Gasnault has described it this year in the journal,l'Art, and lovers of Oriental porcelain could read nothing giving them a more exact idea of the experience and taste which guided the selection of one who was both an artist and a scholar.

Since the introduction of Oriental porcelain into Europe, it has become an important feature in decorative furniture; connoisseurs of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries eagerly sought for it, at high prices, and placed it in their cabinets side by side with works of the highest art; employing chasers, who are still unrivalled, to adorn them with metal mountings. Several collections of those past centuries have remained celebrated, and the names of those who formed them in most cases recall memories of greatness or of elegance; we could produce a list commencing with the son of Louis XIV., and closed by a prince of Conde. It is but justice to their beauty that Chinese vases, when of ancient date and of faultless workmanship, should be the objects of predilection with the most fastidious of amateurs. Where can purer forms be found, so adapted to all uses, fresher or brighter colouring, so endless in variety, that no one can boast of knowing all that the potters of the East have imagined and executed?

It was to the study of these manufactures and to their methodical classification, that Albert Jacquemart principally devoted himself; he had acquired a tact and precision in its pursuit, of which his collection and his works afford ample evidence. When a commission was appointed some years since for improving the manufacture of Sevres, Albert Jacquemart was at once chosen by public opinion to form one of its members, and carried to its counsels the advantages of his science and matured ideas. His colleagues will remember with regret at no longer hearing him, his fluent and elegant language, the accuracy of his observations, and the extent of his learning. His evidence was most convincing and conclusive.

In 1861 and 1862, in conjunction with M. Edmond Blant, he published at M. Techener's "l'Histoire artistique. industrielle, el commercial de la porcelaine," and from 1866 to 1869, at M. Hachette's, three volumes of the "Merveilles de la Ceramique." In the " Gazette des Beaux-Arts," he had, during a period of ten years, disseminated his ideas, and communicated his scientific knowledge. M. Henri Perrier, who has drawn up a list in "l'Art" of the volumes and separate notices, the articles published in the " Gazette," the analytical catalogues which, united together, constitute the work of Albert Jacquemart, registers forty publications, and does not consider the list to be complete. To peruse it with attention is to recall, one after another, all that new and intelligent matter connected with art, that has issued from his pen, since a phalanx of clever writers have consecrated their talents to the education of a society, " L'Union centrale des Arts," which passionately admires and intelligently searches out the elegancies of centuries rendered illustrious by progress and perfection in the art.

The pencil and the burin of the son have not been wanting either in the "Histoire de la Porcelaine," or in the "Merveilles de la Ceramique." In 1874 M. Jacquemart published his "Histoire de la Ceramique," one of his most important works. In the first of these two works, M. Jules Jacquemart had engraved twenty-six plates in aqua-fortis displaying all the power of his talent; the second he has interspersed with the most charming illustrations.

A privileged family in which the son has been able to engrave so perfectly what the father knew so wel1 how to describe.

Until within these last few years, those who devoted them after old furniture, antiquities, Venetian glass, painted or lustrous potteries, were looked upon as eccentric or mad. We know what La Bruyere said of the virtuosi of his day: nor in the beginning of the present century was the public mind mere enlightened as to the value of archaeological research; the number of amateurs had increased, the circle of objects collected had become extended: yet. Sir Walter Scott, himself a collector, sacrificed to prejudice in designating as "innocent maniacs doomed to be deceived," those who sought to discover, in objects anciently in use, a history of man and of civilization.

We shall not here refute these absurd notions; it has already been done, with as much humor as learning, by M. Edmond Bonnaffe, in his "Collectionneurs de l'Ancienne Rome et de l'Ancienne France."

It is therefore quite lately, and thanks to the perseverance of art collectors,that ideas have modified, and taste, by spreading, has become enlightened. No longer bowing under a stupid irony, the virtuosi have made themselves the teachers of the public; the learned catalogues of our collections of the Louvre, of Cluny, and of the Library, have become. lucid treasures of history; numerous special books have methodically classed the waifs of past centuries, and shown their connection with the progress of the manners to which they belong; collectors no longer confine themselves to the simple ambition of adding to the number of their pieces, but make choice of those which either indicate a progress in the art, or bear the trace and evidence of contemporary events. Therefore, at the present day, no one would seriously dare to censure the amateur for collecting "bibelots." It is laughed at still, from a remnant of false shame and the memory of remote traditions, yet among the scorners themselves there are few who do not seek for some modest or brilliant specimen of those ancient manufactures which indicate the progress of the past, while stimulating so successfully the intellectual labour of our time.

But though this immense step has been taken, there still remains another no less difficult to accomplish. It cannot be expected that men of the world, whose fortune and instincts lead them to the acquisition of works of art, should surround themselves with an infinity of books, and pass long hours in ransacking them to find a date, decide the characteristics of a style, or seek out a probable name. In our busy life, active as it is to excess, how many would there be found amongst the number of virtuosi, who would steal from business the time necessary for consulting inventories, and rambling through museums for the purpose of making a requisite comparison, to establish with certainty the origin and derivation of some work of art?

It therefore seemed to us essentially useful to spare connoisseurs the necessity for this labour by uniting, in an easy and methodical form, such information as history, chronology, and technical science, may furnish, in each branch of art; by pointing out, century after century, the examples that may be consulted in our public collections. Thus, without any sacrifice of time, and by reference to a short compendium, the amateur would be able to recognize the true origin and date of an object he had purchased, or desired to purchase, and even if he should consider it necessary to confirm his own estimate by the sight of an analogous work, he could proceed direct to the gallery where it would be found.

It frequently happens that a valuable specimen is put aside because its appearance is unusual, and suggests the fear of being a clumsy imitation. This is often the characteristic of transitional works, or of those collateral fabrications denoting, in neighbouring countries, the influence of an external manufacture, whose branches are destined at a later day to assume a leading importance. It is sufficient to point out these connections to the connoisseur in order to awaken his attention ; a word, a figure, or the name of an artist will suddenly throw light on these obscure points, and hesitation ceases, to the great profit of the progress of historical studies.

It was from having felt to what a degree these elements of study were scattered and difficult to lay hold of, that, for a number of years, reading, pen in hand, accumulating notes and collecting names, we have brought together the enormous mass of materials, which it only remains to arrange in order to compose this book.

Is it, then, a mere compilation? No; we trust it will be judged as more than that. Special researches, and a long and intimate acquaintance with the works of the far East, have opened to us perhaps entirely new views concerning the ancient civilization of those lands, and the influence they may have exercised upon the arts of the West. Hence we gain a certainty m the chronological and ethnological determination of styles which was previously wanting.

Much is expected in the present day in the form of a book; a single dictionary, or a dry chronology, would at once repel the reader, who, while seeking for information, wishes to avoid weariness. We have therefore adopted a division into books and chapters, by which the connoisseur will be able to find the point that interests him with certainty ; each branch of art has, so to say, its special history, whether in the East or in the West, and when it has been possible for us to dissimulate the nominative lists by blending them with the text, we have readily done so.

The following table, representing the general and special divisions of the volume, will enable the reader to find his way unhesitatingly, and when certain subjects may have a relation between them, we shall not fail to refer from one to the other.