Sheraton’s satinwood furniture took the form mainly of commodes or bureaus, small writing desks, toilet tables, and other lighter articles for the boudoir. The daintiness and elegance of some of these pieces decorated by the brush of Angélique Kauffmann or Pergolesi challenge comparison with some of the exquisite furniture made during the reign of Louis XVI, and they mark the final culmination of English furniture before its degeneration into the mediocrity of later times.
French Furniture _A. Saglio_ A History of English Furniture _Percy Macquoid_ French Furniture in the Eighteenth Century _Lady Dilke_ Colonial Furniture in America _Luke Vincent Lockwood_ English Furniture of the Eighteenth Century _Herbert Cescinsky_ Furniture _Esther Singleton_ French and English Furniture _Esther Singleton_ The Furniture Designs of Thomas Chippendale _J. Munro Bell_
[Illustration: ANTIQUE CHEST--THIRTEENTH CENTURY]
People have always used furniture; but the kind of furniture we use today is of comparatively recent origin. Wood, ivory, precious stones, bronze, silver, and gold have been used from earliest times in the construction and for the decoration of furniture, but modern furniture is a development of little more than four centuries.
Furniture has always varied in kind and style, according to the needs and customs of its users. There are few examples left of really ancient furniture. This is due partly to the perishable materials used in its making, and partly to the fact that the people of olden times had little furniture of any kind. Even the poorest home of today is better supplied with some household appliances than the most aristocratic house of splendid Egypt, tasteful Greece, or luxurious Rome.
And in the long period between the destruction of these ancient civilizations and the Renaissance the making of furniture developed very little. The rulers of Egypt were as well housed as the early kings of England. Household furnishings were the privilege of the great alone. No person of mean degree could or would dare to have used a chair--one of the commonest objects in every modern home. Active people, as they were, living much in the open air, they needed but benches on which to sit at meals, and beds on which to sleep. Our luxuries were not only unknown, but unnecessary to them.