Vintage View: Arts & Crafts movement

BEFORE Art Deco mesmerised a generation of collectors in the 1970s and ’80s, the design period of Arts & Crafts was the last style group that purist antique dealers would acknowledge as properly antique.

Even then, it was tagged on to the tale of high Victorian. This was a movement stirred up by a group of talented idealists, artists, and intellectuals in the 1860s in Britain, continental Europe, and America. It was to peter out as a popular design style just before the First World War, although some adherents and design houses continued to champion its principals for decades.

The word ‘honest’ is often used about Arts & Crafts pieces as they were made to replicate practical hand-made furniture without extraneous details, or fussy lines. There’s no more ancient and quietly regal a wood than oak. Arts & Crafts furniture restored oak above the parlour fancies of satinwood and mahogany to King of the forest.

In 1861, William Morris (b 1834) and a group of friends founded Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co, later to become Morris & Co. Their designs for everything from Medieval type-faces to fabrics and furnishings were highly influential and founded on Morris’s still famous saying that everything in the home should be “useful and beautiful”.

The look was described by many as “Gothic” but this was not the toothy Gothic encrusting castles and cathedrals, but old court shapes and styles interpreted in startling modern, bald forms.

Companies including Liberty and Co, started mixing up factory made Arts & Crafts ware with genuinely hand crafted masterpieces in their flagship stores in London. Students at the Birmingham School of Art, and CR Ashbee’s Guild & School of Handcraft in East London, were the appointed Knights of the war on the dragon of mass production. They fanned out across the country on graduation, proving that less really was more, and hand crafted the ideal of furniture making. The architect Edwin Lutyens, was one of a number of architects working in the Arts & Crafts. He built several houses in Ireland, where the Celtic motifs and spirit of the movement appealed to urgent young Irish politicians and artists alike. Many cabinet makers, from Rossmore down to the independent artisan craftsmen, still use Arts & Crafts forms.

So, what can you expect in genuine examples of the style? First of all, pore over the best of the best. There are a few names to conjure with in an internet search for images: Morris, of course, Liberty & Co, Christopher Dresser and Charles Rennie Mackintosh (both Scottish). Morris’s own Red House, still stands in Blexleyheath, a testament to his devotion to pure craftsmanship in every detail. In Cork, pop down to UCC and get a look at the Honan Chapel.

Dressers, sideboards, single chairs, dining sets, and entire bedroom sets do appear at auction, but expect to pay in the same area as you would for high end Victorian.

In smaller pieces, look for hammered metal chargers, book ends, lamp bases, shelving, trunky hat stands and strap-hinged boxes.

Arts & Crafts is almost plain but always lovely. The lines are pared back to utter simplicity, but every line is sophisticated in the way it’s laid down. Made by a good firm, furniture and accessories such as clocks and candlesticks will have perfect proportions, superb craftsmanship, glowing woods and silken finishes, allowing them to sit with the pared lines of Georgian with ease. You will find solid wood, irregular dovetailed drawers, wide inlays, hammered metal hinges and catches and the inclusion of coloured panes of leaded glass. Copper, pewter, and cabochons of semi-precious stones were highly prized for discreet decoration. & Morris & Co kept going until the 1940s when their designs for wallpaper were taken on by Sanderson & Co. Some papers and textiles are still in production today.