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Furniture Finishing

Furniture in Tudor and Elizabethan times was less largely confined to the homes of the rich and powerful, for increased trade and travel had created a comparatively wealthy class of merchants and fanners. Notable was the massive bedstead with its four elaborately carved posts supporting a high canopy. There were also heavy refectory tables, carved chests, wainscot chairs, cupboards or hutches, and stools. Under Queen Elizabeth, as a variation from Gothic tapestries, Inigo Jones introduced oak panelling for walls, harmonizing with beamed or ribbed ceilings, broad staircases and huge hearths.

Tudor furniture still followed architectural lines, being heavy, unwieldy and uncomfortable. The style shows many Gothic survivals, notably the linen fold pattern, mingled with carved Renaissance details, profile medallions, armorial bearings and the Tudor Rose. This last was derived from the distinguishing emblems worn by the opposing parties in the War of the Roses, white for York, red for Lancaster, combined with peace to form part of the royal badge of England and perpetuated on furniture in the form of a conventionalized rosette.

Elizabethan pieces show rectangular contours and elaborate carving, worked out in further Renaissance details to include arabesques, garlands and leaves, portrait medallions and caryatid columns; also heraldic motifs, coarse strap work, in imitation of harness, and melon bulb legs for tables, connected by stout rails just clearing the floor. For while carpets first came into English use during this period, the majority of floors were covered as in Gothic times with rushes or reeds and stretchers served as a perch for the feet to escape the unsanitary condition resulting.

With the Elizabethan period, the age of oak in English furniture reached its pinnacle, although as before, elm, beech, chestnut, ash, walnut, sycamore and cypress were also used to some extent. Mahogany, a strange wood not employed in cabinet making until considerably later, was first brought into England by Sir Walter Raleigh. Upon his return from a voyage to the West Indies in 1597 he invited Queen Elizabeth aboard one of his ships, the deck of which had been partially repaired 'with a peculiar brownish red wood. When she expressed her admiration of its coloring. Sir Walter ordered the planks removed and made into a table for his royal mistress.

However, modern furniture of Tudor or even Elizabethan inspiration cannot, strictly speaking, be executed in mahogany with any idea of historical precedent. Hence, so-called "Tudor Mahogany" occasionally advertised is merely an English Renaissance design with a mahogany finish. The majority of present day reproductions are carried out in walnut or oak. Tudor designs take the form of radio and phonograph cabinets, dining room and sometimes bedroom suites, all considerably modified alike in size, design and ornamentation in order to meet modern requirements and limitations of expense. Elizabethan reproductions appear in dining room suites, library and living room pieces, where for maximum decorative effect they should appear was the originals against a background of oak panelled walls. Dignity is the keynote of both styles.