内容提要
序言
克里斯多夫•佩恩
家具的风格和样式并不受人为划分的国界或临时的政府和动荡的政权所划定的边界的限制。1789年法国大革命爆发，欧洲经历了战争带来的长期破坏。之后爆发了影响范围更为广泛的拿破仑战争，这场战争从1793年一直持续到1815年，其中只有2年短暂的动荡停战时期，战争几乎对全世界都造成了影响。18世纪晚期，工业革命步伐加快。经历了长时间的战争和荒废，欧洲各国迫切需要大力投入工业以支持其工业革命。因此，19世纪早期，几乎所有的欧洲国家都在努力巩固其基础。
拿破仑战争快结束时，欧洲逐渐稳定下来，并在较长时间内见证了前所未有的生产、设计和技术的发展。最初的时候人们忘记了老式的风格，优雅的执政内阁式宣告了法国18世纪大胆、热情格调的结束，并迎来了崭新的、更为严肃的风格：在新世纪之初，男性的、甚至是沉重的帝政式在欧洲广为流行。帝政式集中体现了拿破仑一世的风格，代表作品如佩儿西埃（Percier）及方丹（Fontaine）的设计作品以及雅各布（Jacob Freres）设计的华丽家具作品。
19世纪初期的现代品味舍弃了文艺复兴风格、巴洛克式、洛可可式和新古典式。厌恶了拿破仑风格和品味的严肃性，并受到雨果（Victor Hugo）、巴尔扎克（Balzac）、沃尔特•斯科特（Sir Walter Scott）等作家的鼓舞，新时期的欧洲开始进入浪漫主义和历代风格的复兴时期。设计者的产品目录和图画体现了哥特式、洛可可式甚至早期英国摄政式的复苏。随之而来的是“维多利亚时代”的混乱和折衷式设计风格。19世纪30年代见证了欧洲的繁荣与和平，在这期间欧洲能够大规模地制造和生产所有的家居用品，包括家具。
受到打压的欧洲贵族迫切需要替换掉手里的豪华家具，这些家具是在18世纪特别定制的或直接从家具木工或贸易商手中购买的。所以大量重要的家具和法国王室家具被拿到公开拍卖会上进行拍卖，其中的许多成为了英国现今的重要藏品，比如英国国立维多利亚与艾尔伯特博物馆中的琼斯收藏品（Jones Collection）、华莱士收藏品（Wallace Collection）、沃德斯登（Waddesdon）和斯特拉特菲尔德藏品（Strathfield Saye）。
一种新的、从未为人所知的现象开始慢慢崭露头角，并随着经济的稳定和迅猛增长开始大胆地展现。中产阶级产生了，人口的剧增加上新的购买力，对廉价和美观的物品产生了巨大的需求。这些物品不需要由娴熟的工匠逐件制作，而是可以进行大批量生产，以满足持续的大规模需求。一般商人和工匠条件的快速改善，意味着人们也有能力购买工厂里机器制造的甚至是大批量生产的家具了。很大程度上来说，购买者不再愿意或是不被允许再向供货商提出自己的要求。王室购买者不再能指引风格的转变和发展。狡猾的商人和制造商通过大批量印刷家具目录，决定了普通大众可以选择的家具风格和品种。精明的生产商果断地停止促销不再流行的风格或品种。但是提供的范围太窄以致于难以满足相对富裕的人群的需求。坚守传统阵地的制造商们牢牢地抓住了这一时机，这能为他们带来更多的报酬而且需求量也非常庞大，这是19世纪初的细木工匠们所难以想象的。
19世纪下半叶出现了许多新的工业和销售技巧。甚至是小作坊也有了电，首先是蒸汽发电，在19世纪80年代晚期，电的普及范围更为宽广。富有的购买者不再去商人那里定制家具或向供应商指定自己的要求。供应商或制造商将产品销售给中间商，中间商再以尽可能高的价格将产品放到最有潜力的市场上进行销售，卖给更远的客户。商品展示的时代已经来临了。大量的家具被展示出来供人们挑选，购买者不仅可以自主选择材料和价格，还能选择风格。家具展厅一时间风靡整个欧洲。许多中间商只是从不同的小镇购买别的木匠生产的家具，继而销售给大众。还有许多中间商利用大制造公司赞助和建立的家具展厅帮其销售产品。19世纪中期，依赖法国家具业所具备的优势、别致的款式以及法国先进的工业水平，许多大胆的法国木匠在欧洲大陆的许多主要城市开设了经营场所。
新客户群体没有类似的教育背景或社会背景来引导时尚和设计以满足大众的口味，这使得生产商可以将历史上的众多风格合并成更为舒适方便的家具样式。比如，将17世纪晚期椅子的细长腿缩短，从而使椅子更为结实。完善了过去装饰繁复但过于严肃且不舒适的装饰美术，并不可避免地融入可塑性特征以彰显设计中颇为丰富的洛可可式元素。如果说18世纪人们只能规矩地坐在椅子上，那么到了19世纪中期人们可以舒适地靠在椅上—现代品味将舒适、风格和时尚融为一体。
19世纪40年代，装饰业者的重要性可与家具木工媲美，且新的舒适标准被引入这个行业。即使是法国和英国最伟大的木匠，比如佛迪诺斯（Fourdinois）或赖特（Wright）和曼斯菲尔德（Mansfield），在19世纪70年代末也开始在国际展览会目录上公开承认自己是家具匠和装饰业者。外部世界真正地成为了装饰美术业的舞台—使用垂花饰或缘饰来遮盖家具和壁炉架难看的脚，女性服装裙撑上的修饰材料更突显了这一时尚。
不协调的传统设计在第一次国际展览会上—1851年在水晶宫举行的万国工业博览会—达到了顶峰。路易式在欧洲和英国得以复兴，英国创立了自己的“詹姆斯一世”家具品牌，涵盖了哥特式、都铎式、詹姆斯一世和斯图亚特风格，一件家具基本囊括了所有的风格。意大利文艺复兴风格再度回归，偶尔采用新的格调，但通常只是采用伪传统的方式。弗朗索瓦（Francois Premier）和亨利（Henri Deux）的旋转栏杆和精致的圆柱在法国再度盛行，而意大利和法国占据了文艺复兴时期家具制造业的主导地位。16世纪和17世纪意大利再度成为主导力量，世纪末紧跟其后的是法国和低地国家（指荷兰、比利时和卢森堡）。18世纪早期，法国迅速奠定了自己时尚界领军人物的地位，并成为最有影响力的国家，但是18世纪中期，来自于英国繁华工业地区的顾客们奠定了英国在欧洲其他地区的主导地位。
到18世纪晚期19世纪初期，英国在时尚、风格和家具制造方面取得了至上的地位。法国的地位随之下降，基本是沿用其18世纪的传统，仍然沉浸于凡尔赛的荣誉光环中。美国工业的发展让其一跃成为大规模家具制造商，并于1876年在费城举行的国际展览会上巩固了这一地位。由于政治和设计影响力的消散以及帝国的衰落，其他的欧洲国家只充当了次要的角色。在19世纪晚期，德国和斯堪的纳维亚开始树立其影响力，确定了现代设计的原则和基本规则。
像上18世纪一样，建筑师在家具设计中扮演了重要的角色，并强调房屋及其内部家具的连贯性。19世纪中叶，英国前卫的建筑设计者们作为改革者对设计产生了重要的影响，虽然影响范围相对有限。威廉•莫里斯（William Morris）以及他的团队，威廉•伯吉斯（William Burges）和戈德温（E.W. Godwin），及之后的亚瑟•海因盖特•麦克莫多（Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo）、沃尔特•克莱恩（Walter Crane）、查尔斯•别尼•麦金托什（Charles Rennie Mackintosh）和德国的理查德•利默切米德（Richard Riemerschmid）试图将设计和大批量生产协调起来，他们各自非凡的设计对欧洲其他地区产生了深远的影响，并为现代主义运动奠定了基础。在法国拥有店铺的德国商人塞缪尔•宾（Samuel Bing）为新艺术主义运动命名，他于1898年写道“当英国创造开始出现的时候，高兴的叫喊响彻了整个欧洲”。
荒谬的是，两位英国改革者，刘易斯（Lewis F. Day）和沃尔特•克莱恩（Walter Crane），狠狠地批判了送给维多利亚与艾尔伯特博物馆的新艺术主义家具，这些家具是1900年巴黎万国博览会后赠送给该博物馆的，现在陈列于Bcthnal Green博物馆。
新艺术主义设计与德国的现代主义及机能主义家具设计并驾齐驱。与此同时，新世纪来临之际，大部分欧洲国家仍在大批量销售久经考验的新文艺复兴风格、哥特式和路易式复古家具，此时的市场需要的是舒适度高、价格低廉、经久耐用、且充满怀旧之情的家具。通常当一个国家位于家具制造业的顶峰时期时，它会回顾自己的过去，不管是16世纪、18世纪还是19世纪的风格。当代家具是融合了过去、现在和未来的产物。
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获得相关信息后，后续的版本将提供额外的史实、家具匠及相应的照片。希望有识之士能根据其发现和结论为此版本中所提及的内容作补充或为未涉及领域提供信息。
风格的定义
19世纪的学生可能不需要详细了解过去的发展便可以开始学习。然而，因为19世纪的艺术形式大部分是从过去的时代借鉴而来的，所以了解一些过去盛行的风格和艺术观点是非常重要的。在其他地区兴起的风格会慢慢地渗透到更遥远的省城、城镇和边远地区。新观念和时尚的扩散时间颇为漫长，与现代的通讯速度相比更是慢如蜗牛，这也就意味着没有硬性的规定指出风格在什么时候、什么地方过时了：没有日期的引导，某种风格或样式可能在罗马或巴黎已经过时很久了，然而一些乡村家具却仍然沿用这种装饰风格或样式。因此，直至19世纪早期，才有可能发现一些精巧的、折衷风格的家具，乍看一眼，这些家具似乎体现了19世纪下半叶工业化发展后折衷、混乱的风格。根据调查表明，这些家具只是纯粹地跟随过去的、也许是过时的时尚，只能称呼为“留存”而不是复兴。
对风格有了全面的了解，才有可能辨别大部分家具的日期：某一位国王统治期间这种风格相当盛行，或是某位国王在其宫廷和王室宫殿里大力推行这一时尚。不幸的是，即使是这位国王的去世也不一定意味着他喜欢的某种风格会立即随之灭亡，尽管在18世纪的法国，可以根据国王的统治期限来划分某一种风格的开始和结束时间。这相当简单，因为法国国王在一百多年里引领和定义欧洲大陆的时尚。这样一来，将家具命名为“路易甲”或“路易乙”有时候是正确的，而且也能表明这种风格是与某个特定的君主相联系的，不管它是文艺复兴风格还是洛可可式。
只有了解了这方面的内容，才能将19世纪下半叶的折衷式区分为“文艺复兴洛可可式”、“古典巴洛克式”、“詹姆斯一世式”或者其他任意设计者能想到的组合。
之后附有一张能反映中世纪早期至1900年家具风格的图表，它是根据法国的君主而进行划分的，可作为了解欧洲大陆家具所受到的影响的指南。
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摘自Christopher Payne所著的《19世纪欧洲家具》
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Introduction
Christopher Payne
The title, The Age of Exquisite Luxury is a perfect summing up of the period of furniture making and the decorative arts in the West between 1830 and 1930. The quality of furniture was at its height, more often than not surpassing the quality of the furniture made for the Royal houses of Europe in the eighteenth century. The French style became the leading fashion of the nineteenth century and is still in vogue and demand today on the international circuit.
I am delighted that this catalogue should include 14 to 18 pages extracted and printed below from my first book Nineteenth Century European Furniture, published in 1981 by the Antique Collectors Club, a firmly established and widely respected publisher in England. Although I am pleased to give my blessing for this extract to be published for this new catalogue in Shanghai, I was very aware that I wrote this text some thirty years ago. However, on re-reading my original text I find no reason to correct it or change it in any way. Of course with three decades more experience and enjoyment on this fascinating subject I would love to be able to expand the main text of the book. The most important additions, having written my monograph on Francois Linke in 2003 would be my research on other important Paris makers such as Beurdeley, Dasson and Sormani to name but a few. Also I would like to underline how well made this furniture was, made by hand to the most exacting techniques that took many years of experience to acquire, so that Paris furniture of the 1830-1930 period became known as arguably the best made in the world.
A new edition of my 1981 book is in preparation with talks with Chinese publishers about the feasibility of a Chinese edition. When it finally appears I hope that a new generation of furniture collectors and scholars will enjoy reading to what has become known in leading English auction rooms as "The Bible". In the meantime we hope that our new catalogue will act as a stepping stone for the understanding of European furniture in China and the catalogue will act as a basis for a new book on furniture that my friends in China have asked me to write, a challenge that I am taking up with great excitement and I look forward to launching this new work, written with Chinese collectors in mind with explanations of how to understand the charm and complexities of this international style of furniture.
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The style and form of furniture does not neatly follow man-made borders or boundaries imposed by transient governments and fluctuating politics. In the early years of the nineteenth century almost the whole of Europe struggled to get back on to a firm footing after the long ravages of firstly the French Revolution in 1789 and secondly the more wide-ranging consequences of the long Napoleonic Wars, whose effects were almost global, continuing from 1793 to 1815 with a brief two year interval of uncertain peace. The Industrial Revolution had been quickening its pace throughout the late eighteenth century and a huge industrial effort was needed to sustain such a long drawn-out conflict.
At the close of the Napoleonic Wars, Europe was able to settle down to a long period of unprecedented production, design and techniques. The old styles were initially forgotten. The elegant Directoire forms which ended the splendidly bold and ebullient years of the eighteenth century in France heralded a new, far more severe form at the turn of the century as the masculine, sometimes heavy, Empire style became commonplace throughout Europe. This style epitomised the rule of the first Napoleon, captured in the designs of Percier & Fontaine and the resplendent furniture of the Jacob Freres.
Modern taste at the beginning of the nineteenth century had shunned and turned away from Renaissance, baroque, rococo and pure neo-classical forms. As a direct reaction against the severity of Napoleonic rule and taste, the new Europe began to embed itself in a romantic revival and love of past history encouraged by writers such as Victor Hugo, Balzac and Sir Walter Scott. Designers were producing catalogues and drawings of revived Gothic and rococo forms even as early as the early teens of the English Regency period. This led to the muddled and eclectic forms of' The Victorian Era'. The decade of the 1830s saw new prosperity and peace in a Europe which was now capable of large-scale manufacture and production of all household objects, including furniture.
The battered European aristocracy needed to replace their luxurious furniture of the previous century bought by special commission or directly from the ebenistes or from the discreet rooms of the marchand-mercier. Vast quantities of important and royal French furniture had been sold at public auctions, much of it forming today's important English collections such as the Jones Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Wallace Collection, Waddesdon and Strathfield Saye.
A new phenomenon, previously unknown, was emerging at first hesitantly but more and more boldly as economic life began to steady and grow on an unprecedented scale. The middle class had arrived. The explosion in population coupled with a new buying power created a huge demand for cheaper and more plentiful goods. These goods no longer needed to be individually made by experienced craftsmen but simply had to be produced in large enough quantities to satisfy a seemingly insatiable demand. The rapidly improving conditions for the average merchant and artisan meant that they could now afford machine-made, in some cases mass-produced, factory furniture. To a large extent the buyer was no longer willing or was no longer able to dictate to the supplier what his requirements were. No longer were Royal patrons dictating the transition and development of style. It was the astute businessman and manufacturer using widely printed furni- ture catalogues who were dictating the style and type of furniture available to the majority of the population. The shrewd producer would doubtless soon cease to market a style or object that was no longer in popular demand. The confines of patronage had become too narrow to satisfy the demands of an invigorated and comparatively wealthy populus. The donkey had very firmly grasped the carrot, which was proving juicier and even more insatiable than could have been imagined by the individual cabinet makers working at the beginning of the century.
The second half of the nineteenth century saw many new industrial and marketing techniques. Power was available to even the smallest workshop, firstly steam power and then, on an even wider scale, electric power by the late 1880s. No longer did the wealthy patron go to the merchant to commission a piece of furniture and to dictate his wishes to the supplier. The supplier or manufacturer was to sell his product to an intermediary who would sell the product at the most advantageous price, in the best possible market and to a new far wider clientele. The age of the showroom had arrived. A vast range of furniture was now put on display for all to see and there would be a choice of not only materials and price, but of style, available. These showrooms began to mushroom all over Europe. Many were simply selling furniture purchased from various makers from various towns. Others were showrooms financed and set up by the large manufacturing companies to sell their own goods exclusively. Certainly a large number of the bolder French makers set up premises in several major cities on the Continent, trading on the certain superiority and chic of Paris-made furniture and the advanced state of her industry compared with others by the middle of the century.
The new clientele had not the education or background to direct fashion and a proliferation of designs flowered catering for all tastes and flights of fancy, which enabled the producer simply to amalgamate the many styles of previous centuries into comfortable and more convenient forms of furniture. The spindly back legs of a late seventeenth century chair would be shortened to make the chair more robust. The highly decorative but rather formal and uncomfortable upholstery of previous eras was rounded off, inevitably incorporating a plasticity exaggerating the most profuse rococo elements of design. If a chair was to be sat upon in the eighteenth century, by the middle of the nineteenth century one was able to sit in the chair -- modern taste was determined to have comfort together with what was considered to be style and fashion.
The upholsterer became by the 1840s almost as important as the ebeniste and a new sense of comfort was introduced. Even the greatest cabinet makers in France and England, for example Fourdinois or Wright and Mansfield, had by the late 1870s begun to call themselves Cabinet Makers and Upholsterers in the International Exhibition catalogues. The outside world had literally become cushioned by upholstery, tassels and fringes which hid the unsightly legs of not only the furniture, but also chimney pieces, a vogue highlighted by the mass of materials needed for the bustle on a lady's dress.
The culmination of this emergence of uncoordinated traditional designs was in the first of the International Exhibitions, the Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace in 1851. The revival of Louis styles proliferated in Europe as well as in England, who developed her own special brand of "Jacobethan" furniture, which covered the wide span of Gothic, Tudor, Jacobean and Stuart forms, normally including all the styles in one single piece of furniture. The Italian Renaissance re-flowered, occasionally in a new style, but more often than not in a pseudo traditional manner. France looked back to the turned balustrades and elegant columns of Francois Premier and Henri Deux, Italy and France had dominated the Renaissance period of furniture making. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries once again saw Italy as the dominant force, closely followed by France and the Low Countries towards the end of the century. During the early eighteenth century France quickly established herself as the leader of fashion and the most influential country, but by the middle of the century patronage in the vastly wealthy English industrial areas and attendant country houses had ascertained England as the most important influence on the rest of Europe.
By the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century England had achieved an unrivalled supremacy of fashion, style and cabinet making. France had begun to play a less important role, essentially following her eighteenth century traditions, basking in the reflected glories of Versailles. The later flowering industrial capabilities of America allowed her to become a major producer of furniture on a large scale, highlighted at the International Exhibition at Philadelphia in 1876. The remaining European countries, their political and designing influence long dissipated and Empires lost, played only a secondary role. Towards the end of the nineteenth century Germany and Scandinavia began to establish themselves as the major influences, laying down the principles and ground rules of modern design.
Architects, as in previous centuries, have always played a major role in furniture design and a continuity of feeling for houses and the furniture within them. It was the progressive architect designers in England during the middle years of the nine- teenth century who were the reformers actively able to influence design, albeit to a limited extent. William Morris and his circle, William Burges and E.W. Godwin, and later Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo, Walter Crane and Charles Rennie Mackintosh with Richard Riemerschmid in Germany attempted to reconcile mass production to design and their individually made, singular designs began to have a wide and far-ranging influence on the rest of Europe which laid down the foundations of the Modern Movement. Samuel Bing, the German dealer whose shop in Paris had given the art nouveau movement its name, wrote in 1898 "When English creations began to appear, a cry of delight sounded throughout Europe".
Paradoxically enough it was two of these English reformers, Lewis F. Day and Walter Crane, who so viciously attacked the art nouveau furniture given to the Victoria and Albert Museum and now at Bcthnal Green, after the Exposition Universelle of 1900.
Art nouveau designs were to run with the new modernist and functionalist furniture designs of Germany. At the same time, as the new century dawned, most European countries were still supplying well-tried neo-Renaissance, Gothic and Louis revival furniture in vast quantities to a market that demanded comfort combined with low prices and certain durability mixed with a nostalgia for the past. Usually the past of the particular country concerned when it was at the height of its furniture making powers, be that the sixteenth century, the eighteenth or even the nineteenth. Contemporary furniture was born out of an amalgam that fused together the past, the present and the future.
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Subsequent editions will contain additional facts, makers and corresponding photographs as the information becomes available and it is hoped that anyone who can add to the points mentioned in this edition or contribute information regarding uncharted territories will be forthcoming with their discoveries and conclusions.
Definition of Styles
It is quite possible for any potential student of the nineteenth century to commence his or her study without a detailed knowledge of developments in previous centuries. However, as a large proportion of nineteenth century art forms are borrowed from a bygone era it is important to have some recognition of the styles and artistic persuasions that prevailed throughout the years. Styles which were developed in one or other major country slowly filtered through to the more remote capitals, the provincial towns and rural areas. The very fact that the dissemination of new ideas and fashions took so long, especially compared to the speed of modern communications, means that there are no hard and fast rules as to when or where a style became passe: There are no dates to guide us, some rural pieces maintaining a particular style of decoration or form for many years after they had ceased to be fashionable in Rome or Paris. Consequently, until the early nineteenth century it is possible to find rather quaint, seemingly eclectic items of furniture which, at first glance, appear to be anticipating the eclectic and muddled styles of the industrialised second half of the nineteenth century. Upon investigation it is proved that these pieces are simply hanging on to an older, perhaps outdated fashion, more aptly named 'survival' rather than revival.
Given a complete understanding of styles it is possible to label most with a reign date of the particular monarch who was on the throne whilst the style was fashionable, or who possibly encouraged the fashion in his court and Royal palaces. Unfortunately, not even the death of the monarch necessarily meant the immediate demise of a particular style he preferred, although in France during the eighteenth century it is almost possible to date the start and termination of a style by the reign of a king. This is quite simply because the French kings led and dictated fashion throughout Europe for over a hundred years. Consequently, to call a piece 'Louis this' or 'Louis that' can on occasions be correct and can also indicate the style associated with that particular monarch, be it Renaissance or rococo.
It is only with this knowledge that the eclecticism of the second half of the nineteenth century can be identified as 'renoco', 'classical baroque', Jacobethan' or whatever other combination the designer's fancy has turned to.
A chart, following the styles from the early Middle Ages to 1900, and based on the French monarchies, is given overleaf, and is intended as a general guide to the influences on furniture in the continent of Europe.
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