Chairs That Go Bump in the Night: Gothic Furniture, Part 3

Time to show you the last few delicious prints of Gothic furniture from my collection of prints from Ackermann’s Repository! Part 1 can be viewed here and Part 2 here... and here we go!

These Gothic Chairs give off a shabby chic vibe, don’t they?  According to the accompanying text (after a bit of pontificating about the nature and usefulness of chairs), “There are but few specimens of the furniture of the sixteenth century, remaining; those which once belonged to Cardinal Wolsey and a few others, now in the possession of his Majesty, are the only ones known to be extant; and even these are far from being pure in their details. They are executed in ebony, with ivory occasionally introduced in the heads of the figures, animals, &c. They are totally unfit for imitation, being clumsy in their design and very heavy. The use of chairs was hardly known to our ancestors, stools and benches being generally substituted in their place: so that in designing them for modern use, we must greatly deviate from their original character.”  All of which says, “we are totally making these designs up!” as far as I’m concerned...but they’re still a lot of fun. The chair at right in particular looks like the style of chair already in common fashion, with some Olde Gothicke decoration added in. (December 1826)

A similar confession accompanies the description of this Gothic Bookcase (exact date not known, but it was published in the first half of 1827). It reads, “The library now constitutes one of the principal apartments in the country-seats of our noblemen and gentlemen. No style can be better adapted for its decoration than that of the middle ages, which possesses a sedate and grave character, that incites the mind to study and reflection. The rays passing through its variegated casements cast a religious light upon the venerable tomes on either side, the beautiful arrangements of its parts combining to produce an impressive grandeur in the whole design. Every thing proclaims it an apartment consecrated to learning. All mansions, however, are not sufficiently capacious to admit of devoting a whole apartment to this purpose: bookcases have therefore been resorted to, which form a most excellent substitute; as, while fulfilling the purpose of a library, they form handsome pieces of furniture, which can be well applied in filling up recesses and other inequalities in a room.” So again, not so much a gothic bookcase as a bookcase in the gothic style...but no matter what, I wouldn’t mind a few of these...so long as I kept them on the bottom floor of my house!

Alas, I do not have the accompanying text for our last print from the July 1827 Ackermann’s Repository. It is labeled “Gothic Furniture” but is clearly a card table.  I love the areas for equally Gothic candlesticks at the table’s corners, the tracery on the table’s apron, and the legs modeled to look like cathedral windows—rather an amusing juxtaposition for a gaming table!

I hope you enjoyed our look at Ackermann’s ever-inventive Gothic furniture styles. Any favorite pieces?

Chairs That Go Bump in the Night, Part 2: More Gothic Furniture

Are you ready for more Gothic fashions for your home?

Of course, every well-appointed castle home needs a Gothic Flower Stand. As the accompanying text says, “Among the various decorations of modern apartments we can reckon none, perhaps, more pleasing than a flower-stand: it diversifies and enlivens the appearance of almost any room; and the odoriferous perfume proceeding from the flowers, and the beautiful appearance of their variegated hues, tend at once to delight and charm the senses. There is no style more appropriate for this sort of decoration than the gothic: its crockets, finials, foliage, pendants, &c. all flowing and pliable, seem to be a continuation of nature; while its open and fanciful traceries contribute to the lightness of the effect.” The text goes on to say that it cannot be determined if flower stands are “of any great antiquity”, but that any well-appointed modern home should have one...and now we know the Regency origin of this very popular Victorian style. (Ackermann’s Repository, August 1826)


The preoccupation with finding some link to the ancient past in the descriptions of furniture is noteworthy and more than a little amusing; somehow, linking the day’s furniture to the past somehow made it better (as we saw a few weeks back with the Gothic pianoforte.) In the text accompanying this illustration of Candelabras from September 1826’s Repository (which look like an ancestor of the floor lamp) the anonymous author discusses at length their use in Roman household décor and how they lend themselves to Gothic styling for modern “elegant furniture.” Gotta say, though, that the candelabra at right, complete with two tiers of flying buttresses, is just a tad on the silly side...


And speaking of Gothic pianofortes...another example, this time of an upright pianoforte complete with coverings of crimson silk to set off the brass and rosewood. The music stand, with its candles, is a re-imagining of an example found at King’s College in Cambridge, and the chair includes a screw seat that can be raised up and down at the convenience of the pianist.

The description of a Gothic Sofa in the November 1826 Repository is worth, I think, quoting in full: “The annexed plate represents a sofa in the Gothic style. This piece of furniture is comparatively of modern date, and undoubtedly of Eastern origin; but in adapting it to European customs, it has been found necessary to vary the decoration in some degree from that of the original model.

“In the Oriental countries a sofa is but little elevated from the floor, and consists of soft cushions covered with silk and other costly materials. Two of these are generally piled upon one another, and a third is placed against the wall to recline upon. These cushions are thus ranged round an apartment, and the heat of the climate renders them indispensible, either for public meetings or private assemblies. They are also well calculated for the sitting posture of the Eastern nations, which requires an easy couch. As none of these conveniences are adapted to the climate and customs of Europeans, the artist has been obliged to make some change from the original; so that the modern sofa presents quite a different appearance from its Oriental original: it nevertheless possesses a comfort which entitles it to rank among useful furniture. From its flowing and easy form, it is more calculated for the Italian than the Gothic style: the latter character has nevertheless been attempted to be given in the present design, which is composed from the best authorities in the florid style.”

And finally,  January 1827’s issue brings a Gothic upright moveable (see the little wheels?) Looking-glass, with a description containing familiar text about a looking-glass of this size being a luxury unknown to “our ancestors” but admirably adapted to the florid style...


Any favorites this time around? I just keep thinking of the poor maids who job it would be to keep this furniture dusted and polished...!

Chairs That Go Bump in the Night: Gothic Furniture, Part 1

Literature wasn’t the only thing that was influenced by the Gothic craze in 18^th and early 19^th century England.  Horace Walpole, who’d started the whole Gothic thing with The Castle of Otranto, built and decorated his home, Strawberry Hill in Twickenham as a sort of fairytale homage to the middle ages... and for the next hundred and fifty years or so, this fanciful style fell in and out of fashion.

Even the Prince Regent himself was caught up in the early nineteenth century’s “in” cycle of Gothic love: his splendid London home, Carlton House, featured Gothic rooms such as the cast iron and stained glass conservatory (and it is a serious downer that he decided to demolish Carlton House and focus instead on Buckingham Palace; the existing illustrations of it are amazing.)

Well, if it was good enough for Prinny, it was good enough for the rest of society...and our old friend Mr. Ackermann followed suit in The Repository with a series of illustrations of Gothic furniture, suitable for fashionable homes everywhere...even if your house wasn’t Strawberry Hill.

The series started in 1825, but the interest in Gothic decor was already well underway, as demonstrated by this State Bed from the September 1823 issue. The description is interesting: The authors who have written on the arrangement of furniture in olden times, have given to the common bed a width of six feet, and to state ones an altitude quite unknown to the present day, except as we see it exemplified in some of our very ancient mansions, whose chambers exhibit the four-post bedstead at from 20 to 30 feet in height.... The recurrence to such sources for designs of furniture for buildings in the Gothic style is to be desired, because they afford the means of assimilating them to such edifices, in accordance with the practices of the times which they are intended to imitate. 

Here we have an Episcopal Chair in The Repository's November 1825 issue (...the wood is of light oak with gilt mouldings, relieved by rich crimson velvet cushions and tassels. This chair may be introduced with propriety into a church, prelate's mansion, or an extensive library.) The Drawing-Room Chair...is light oak, and the mouldings gilt; the tracery should be filled up with velvet of the same colour as the room; perhaps it would be more appropriate if it were of rose-wood or cedar. And the Table for a Boudoir (can I pretty please have a boudoir some day?) is also of oak or rose-wood.

This Gothic Sofa (Ackermann, December 1825) would appear to be completely at home (so to speak) in a gothic novel, conveniently located, perhaps, for the beleaguered heroine to swoon onto... This piece of furniture, in which the modern form is preserved, is embellished according to the style of the 13th century; or rather the parts are adapted from Gothic tracery executed at that period, so as to combine the peculiar features of Gothic art with the form that is now considered to afford the best accommodation for its purpose.)

I do like the griffin-like beasts guarding the pedestal of this Gothic Table from March 1826, as well as the illuminated manuscripts and books so artfully displayed on its surface...because of course, doesn’t everyone just have to have a table like this to display their 14th century psalter collection? Somehow this plate really brings home that these plates are truly advertisements—that they are selling a "look" to which readers longing to be fashionable should aspire.

More delicious Gothic Chairs...I find the right-hand chair with the blue seat to be most interesting, as it marries aspects of the previously fashionable Classical influence with Gothic decoration. I think I'll skip the middle one, though, as it doesn’t look very comfortable. (The Repository, May 1926)

And to end on a high note (see what I did there? ☺) we have An Horizontal Grand Pianoforte (July 1826’s Repository). Even the editor who wrote the descriptive copy accompanying the plate is forced to recognize the irony of decorating a pianoforte, a relatively recent invention at the time, in the style of many centuries past: This instrument being totally unknown to our ancestors, and only invented within the last half century, we can merely decorate the given forms by traceries and other Gothic ornaments best calculated to assist the sound, and to fulfil the intent of the instrument.

I’ll post more Gothic furniture in coming weeks...which was your favorite?