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Furniture Finishing

Spanish Renaissance (1500-1700)


UNTIL affected by the general European intellectual awakening known as the Renaissance, the furniture of Old Spain (Castile and Aragon) shows little in the way of individuality. The most accurate classification would probably be French and Flemish Gothic with departures traceable to Moorish influence, but of these very few original pieces have survived. Incidentally the world may count it a loss that with the expulsion of the Moors so little of their handiwork, apart from architecture, escaped the vengeful destruction of all things infidel. The Moor, nevertheless, left his decorative impress on many of the arts.

The Spaniard of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was cruel, proud and loath to accept new ideas so that we find his furniture a thing of crude beauty, allied decoratively to contemporary Italian forms but without their elegance and fine craftsmanship. He scorned comfort for strength and harsh simplicity and ladies of the highest rank were expected to sit bolt upright or retire to bed while their consistent, if arrogant, husbands likewise spurned furniture which would permit them to lounge.

The room of King Phillip II (1556-1598) has been preserved to us and suggests the proper setting for modern reproductions. It shows plain white plaster walls relieved only slightly by a wainscot of blue and white tiling, green painted shutters, somber oiled pine doors and oak beams crossing the ceiling. This severity was varied in the palaces of bishops and grandees only by the introduction of black or red tile floors and mural decorations or tapestries depicting scenes from the Bible or early Spanish history. Furniture in all of them is sparse and rugged, hardly conforming to the ideas of aristocratic comfort which then prevailed in other parts of Europe.

Of typical pieces we have chairs, tables, benches, chests and varguenos. Chairs were of two types, one rectangular with corded, solid wood or stretched and nailed leather seats, arcaded wood and tooled leather backs, pierced front leg stretchers, scroll and square column legs. In Catalonia these chairs were often elaborately lacquered red and green and decorated in gold. The other or hip-joint style of chair was a Spanish version of the familiar curved X Savonarola or Dante Italian chair. Like other pieces this "chair of dignity" was frequently ornamented with carved geometrical circle designs, chipped out in tiny half moons or inlaid with intricate patterns of bone, boxwood or ivory, all of marked Moorish inspiration.