Victorian style furniture

Two common styles of furniture that was manufactured between 1845 and 1915 was known as "Victorian" and "Turn of the century". Victorian style is classified into many substyles like Rococo Revival, Renaissance Revival, Gothic Revival, Egyptian Revival, Aesthetic and Eastlake. Sometimes we carry pieces from each of these styles, the first two being Southampton Antiques speciality. Here's a brief description of each of the Victorian sub style:

Rococo Revival (1845 - 1865) : Rococo Revival furniture was usually made of walnut, mahogany, or rosewood. Most available seem to be parlor pieces. These parlor pieces like tables, chairs, and sofas which have cabriole legs often feature naturalistic carvings of fruit, flowers and leaves. The table tops being turtle shaped, round or oval. Henry Belter who used a technique of immitating the wood (primarily rosewood) to produce a curved but durable surface was the chief cabinet maker of this period. His process was copied by many of his contemporaries.

There is a tendency of naturalistic carvings in other Rococo Revival pieces. The corners are rounded and front of the dressers are often serpentine shaped. The drawers are decorated with leaf or fruit carved pulls. This style is very popular today and is being reproduced. The carvings appear to be much flatter and less detailed than the original ones and black walnut or rosewood styles are not being imitated.

Renaissance Revival ( 1860 - 1880 ) : Under this style walnut was mostly being used but mahogany, chestnut and rosewood too were being used frequently. This style consists of turned and fluted legs, raised or inset burled panels, heavily carved finials and crests, inset marble tops, and cookie cut corners. Black and gold incising, marquentry inlay, and bronze or brass mounts were further used to decorate many of the pieces. The most popular craftsman of the Renaissance Revival furniture was John Jelliff of Newyork, New Jersey. Carved heads on the arms and chest, with sevres painted plaques sometimes in the crests featured his parlor sets. Many gargantaun pieces of this style were produced with some sideboards or beds exceeding 14' in height. This period reached it's zenith at the Philadelphia centennial of 1876 where many of the foremost furniture makers of that period exhibited their proudest accomplishments

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