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Egyptian Woodcraft & Scandinavian Ornaments InfluenceThe History of the Origin of the Design Period Known as Early American Colonial Furniture

Travelling to the north in search of the style known as Early American Colonial Furniture we come to Greece. Here there were no such tombs as in Egypt, there were different beliefs with regard to the dead, and centuries of warfare destroyed all but the merest trifles of old Greek woodwork. The British Museum has a little box that shows that the Greeks knew and used the corner locking joint.

Inlaid Chair

Egyptian Woodcraft

 

Plate II
Scandinavian Ornament, Ninth and Tenth Centuries

1. Carved Bed Post from the Oseberg Ship

2. Early Norwegian Chair (copy of the original)

In tracing the origins of the style known as Early American Colonial Furniture the Greek joint resembles the sort of joint used in machine-made soap boxes. We are not so interested in Greek furniture, however, as in Greek ornament. The Greek artists perfected certain forms of ornament to such a degree, and they were seen to be so lovely and exquisitely suited to their purpose, that they were repeated endlessly. Chief among them were the " fret," which in the very beginning was probably a rope pattern ; the use of the acanthus leaf, and of various mouldings of which the " egg and dart " is the best known. The Greeks also perfected different ways of decorating the capitals of columns and the various methods of grooving or " fluting " the surface of columns.

All these " tricks of the trade " were borrowed by the Romans, who mixed them with ideas from other peoples they conquered. All these borrowings made Roman art very florid and varied. It became more naturalistic. Whole masses of fruit and flowers were carved as festoons and " swags." Strange beasts, birds, and the human figure were introduced. All of this was joined with a very free use of the round-headed arch.

This may seem to be a long way from the style known as Early American Colonial Furniture woodwork of furniture-making, but really it is most important. Three times at least in English history decoration in this country has been most deeply influenced by the art of the Greek and Roman, (1) after the Normans came, (2) during the Renaissance, in the reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth, and. (3) from about 1750 till 18oo, when the greatest of English furniture makers, Thomas Chippendale, was working to the designs of an architect called Robert Adam. History tells us, and we can read in the shapes of chairs and tables, in the carven de­coration of chests and picture frames, of cupboards and staircases, in the inlaid panels of bed-heads and bureaux, and in a thousand other instances the immense influence that Greek and Roman design has had upon the woodworker's craft in England.