A history of Victorian furniture

During the course of the 1800s, Great Britain became the most prosperous and technologically advanced nation in the world. Invention, mechanization, and industrialization brought about the greatest and most far-reaching change in England and the English. The nation quickly grew confident of its place as one of the world’s leading powers. Fueled by the wealth of her industrialization and new manufacturing industries, her influence spread across the globe to the remotest corners of her empire. This was a new world and with it came a new order to challenge the old accepted power structures. A new middle class of wealthy industrialists whose money gave them power and influence became the Victorian wealthy, and their choices and values ​​were to be a major influence on Victorian life. Their money, founded on the output of the new factories, bought them beautiful new houses, large and important. These grand new houses borrowed the styles of the upper classes with many rooms that needed to be filled in. The rise of the middle classes meant more houses with more money to spend and the need for more furniture.

Along with the new modern Victorian world, there was an inevitable change in the style of the Victorian house, and the history of Victorian furniture is varied. Furniture styles that reflected a fascination with the past were also a showcase for what was now possible in design and production. This era saw the beginning of the mass production of furniture in a manufacturing industry whose new industrial techniques could rapidly reproduce the styles and designs that had hitherto been expensively carved by craftsmen.

The history of Victorian furniture is one of variety. The grace and fine lines of Regency-style furniture fell out of favor and were replaced by the more robust and heavier furniture of the prosperous Victorian home. Ornate décor and dark, glossy mahogany and rosewood veneer woods and intricate machine-turned legs. However, no style was dominant in the Victorian home, as designers, encouraged by the rapid output of the new furniture-making industries, gave free rein to their imaginations. It was now possible to mass-produce styles from other historical periods, and reproduction of earlier styles from the Tudor, Elizabethan, and Neoclassical periods became popular. However, the style that is perhaps most reminiscent of this period is the neo-Gothic style. Large, heavy furniture of Gothic design was made from solid oak to reflect the English character. The Victorians embraced the Gothic style with enthusiasm, as can be seen in the architecture and art, as well as in the design of these pieces of furniture. The history of Victorian furniture reflects the history of the Victorian era, where a society experienced great changes but also great uncertainties. Which made them look forward with pride and confidence while still looking back to a fictional era of order, glory, and chivalry.