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Page 18 The Antique Shoppe April, 2018
He published his influential book “Hints on Household Taste” in England
COMMON SENSE in 1868 and in the US in the early 1870s. In the 1860’s he wrote a series of
articles for several prominent London magazines including “The Queen”. He
ANTIQUES assembled these articles and published them in 1868 as his book which was
his take on how to properly decorate a home. In it he expressed opinions not
only on furniture but also on most types of articles found in a house including
By Fred Taylor wallpaper, draperies, ceramics, clothing and jewelry. This was not a modest
man.
His ideas of straight lines and simple decoration appealed to the machine-
A BUM RAP driven factory-made furniture production of the post-Civil War industrial era.
The factory production of furniture was nothing new to America. J. and J.
Eastlake Was Innocent W. Meeks had a three-story factory in New York in the 1830s as did Lambert
Hitchcock in Connecticut. In the 1850s J. H. Belter had a multi-story factory
According to some older and antique furniture dealers and collectors there next to his apartment house in Manhattan and Mitchell & Rammelsberg
is one style from the 19th century that stands as the least attractive (read ugly), had a factory in Cincinnati. What was new in the 1870s was the addition of
most clunky and least desirable of all the Victorian period forms. Who gets that significantly more and more powerful machinery. Meeks for example used
honor? Eastlake of course. machinery but it was oxen powered and Belter had used machinery but only
Eastlake furniture is often regarded as the bottom of the barrel of the 19th marginally.
century. It is awkwardly sized, indelicately assembled and sometimes just The new factories of the 1870s had powerful steam driven machinery
downright cheap looking. No argument there, but Mr. Eastlake actually got a that was much more versatile than Meeks or Belter ever imagined. Within
bum rap. He didn’t do it. Eastlake’s guidelines furniture manufacturers saw the potential of high speed
Charles Locke Eastlake was an English designer who was a leader in the mass production based on two things machines do very well - straight lines
rebellion against Victorian excesses. Born in 1836 with the proverbial silver and circles. One illustration in his book, an oak “toilet table” as he called it
spoon firmly in place, he was trained as an architect but rather than practice the (vanity with a mirror and several small drawers), made of oak with straight line
craft he traveled Europe as a young man and became an art and architecture decoration and shallow incised decoration, seemed to become the blueprint of
critic. At the ripe old age of 19 he was appointed secretary of the Royal subsequent “Eastlake” furniture. Except that Eastlake didn’t design that table.
Institute of British Architects. From this lofty vantage point he began to notice It was designed and made by the London firm of Jackson and Graham. Eastlake
the ground swell of activity in the field of design reform. What had begun merely admired it and included a woodcut print of it in his book.
as a vague discontent with the stagnation of original English thinking on the But the bell had been rung and there was no unringing it. Manufacturers
subject crystallized into openly expressed distaste at the 1851 Crystal Palace then began to pick and choose which of Eastlake’s tenets they chose to follow
Exposition. in their manufacturing process. One thing he advocated in his chapter “The
He advocated a return to value and simple design in furniture and was in Bed-room” was square corners in cabinet work. He opined current fashion “...
fact one of the early pioneers in the Arts & Crafts movement that blossomed at condemns us to adopt his own notions of elegance by rounding off corners
the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. Continued →

DELAND

ANGEVINE’S
FINE SILVER, INC.
Over 30,000 Pieces of Sterling
DeLand’s Oldest Antiques Shop
Asparagus Servers to Sardine Forks
Baby Cups to Tea Services

3 2899 S. Woodland Blvd.
4 4 DeLand, FL 32720
386-734-3553
3 M-F 10AM-5PM; SAT 10AM-4PM
Purchase on the web at:
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Since 1959
Hours M-F 10-5, Sat. 10-1
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DeLand, FL
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