Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/886

 850 U R F U R mahogany carved chairs of Chippendale and Sheraton are oftenopied, but the repetitions have not the spirit of the originals. Tbo slight irregularities and variations made by carvers, who never absolutely repeat themselves in a series or set of such pieces, save them from the monotony so often seen in copies. Couches. In ancient times couches were used as actual beds. A cast of an antique bronze couch can be seen in the South Kensington Museum. The general shape has not changed in modern times. It is the chair without arms elongated or the arm chair widened. The proprieties ob served in such furniture are such as are applicable to chairs. If parts of the furniture of state rooms, they are generally framed in wood, carved and gilt or painted. The seats, backs, and ends are stuffed and upholstered with rich materials, like the chairs, the most costly material being tapestry, formerly woven in fanciful designs after Boucher, Fragonard, and other &quot;genre&quot; painters, in the looms of Beauvais, or, in England, of Mortlake and Soho. Such tapestries cau seldom be procured now. Inferior imita tions of these designs are still produced. Couches or sofas of this kind aro made for conversation rather than repose, and admit of the backs being shaped in curves or carved at the top, provided that the inequalities are but slight (a rule often violated in cheap modern furniture), and the carvings BO arranged as not to interfere with the comfort of sitters, or of those who may occasionally lean on them. The ends should generally be square. In rooms not intended for receptions shallow couches, with rounded ends, and awk ward showy carvings on the backs, are out of place. Another kind of couch, thickly stuffed on the back, ends, and seat, may be considered as the Oriental divan raised on legs. It is practically a framework of fixed cushions, in tended for repose. Its excellence depends on the uphol stery, as does that of the modern stuffed arm chair. Tables. Good workmanship and careful regard for com fort and use are absolutely necessary in making tables. They are to be firm, and easily moved, and the legs or sup ports out of the way of persons sitting at them; their proper ornamentation is veneer of fine grained wood, split and arranged in patterns or buhl and other marquetry. Carved and gilt tables with marble tops, made as ornaments to galleries and halls, should have the carvings so arranged as not to interfere with the general look of support, or be too liable to breakage. The same may be said of side boards. Much skilful carving on such pieces is either too close an imitation of nature, and looks as if it were hung on, not part of, the structure, or is crowded and not ar ranged in parts in which it would be subordinate to lead ing lines of division, panels, borders, &c. Cabinets. Cabinet fronts are flat, with metal edgings, or shallow and delicate carvings ; or they are subdivided by architectonic members, columns, deep mouldings, &c. In divisions protected by these salient features carvings of regular figure compositions are in place. The interiors may be subdivided into any varieties of quaint and ingenious drawers and receptacles. It is to cabinets that the greatest skill is devoted. The perfect fitting of small interior drawers, &c., ia a test of excellence in workmanship. On combes, brackets, and other projections, busts, figures, and carving of the finest kind can be placed effectively, great care being taken not to break up running mouldings, cor nices, and other members that mark the structure, or form lines of division. The French, and after them the Italians, are the first masters of this kind of carving. London cabinetmakers rarely attempt the figure. A cabinet by Fourdinois (No. 721-69) in the South Kensington Museum, purchased from the exhibition of 18G7, may be referred to for careful observation of these proprieties; even the mould ings of tho panelling are covered with carving, but so delicate as not to interfere with their general outlines or surfaces. An example of flat carving may also be seen in a Flemish 17th century ebony cabinet in the same collection (No. 1651 56). As to the proper arrangements and colours of marquetry decoration, there also the masses of the design should be symmetrical, or balanced by compensating parts where absolute symmetrical arrangement is not suitable. In marquetry, as in carving, there ought to be agreeable dispositions of lines and masses of ornament, such as will look in proportion at distances at which details are not distinguishable. Ths colours should be few and harmoni ous, even when the materials are contrasted as decidedly as ebony with ivory, or satin wood with mahogany. We may compare the crowded patterns and the garish contrasts of colour of much modern marquetry with the work of Riesener. His marquetry is laid out with diapers of two woods, or with medallions and pattern work, much space being left plain. A good example is in the large secretaire now in the Louvre, signed and dated 1769. The same may be said of Chippendale s furniture, and of that in satin wood designed by the brothers Adam in the last century. The manufacture of furniture is, to a great extent, in the hands of large factories both in England and on the Con tinent. Owing to the necessary subdivision of labour in these establishments, each piece of furniture passes through numerous distinct workshops. The master and a few work men formerly superintended each piece of work, which, therefore, was never far removed from the designer s eye. Though accomplished artists are retained by the manufac turers of London, Paris, and other capitals, there can no longer be the same relation between the designer and his work. Many operations in these modern factories are carried on by steam. Even the carving of copies and repetitions of busts, figures, and ornaments is done in some instances by a special machine. This, though an economy of labour, entails loss of artistic effect. The chisel and the knife are no longer in such cases guided and controlled by the sen sitive touch of a human hand. Collections of Furniture. 1. Antique. British Museum; Louvre; Vatican; Royal Museum, Naples. 2. Mediaeval and I6lh century. Muse&quot;e de Cluny, Paris ; S. Kensington Museum ; Sauvageot Collection, Louvre ; National Museum, Nuremberg ; Museum of Madrid. 3. I8lh century. Louvre Galleries ; collection of Sir K. &quot;Wallace, Manchester Square, London. Fine examples have been exhibited from &quot;Windsor Castle. Carriages, in the royal palaces at Lisbon and Vienna. Hooks. Description de VlZc/yptc; &quot;Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptians; Layard, Nineveh, &amp;lt;L-c. ; Hamilton s Vases ; &quot;Wright s Homes of our Forefathers; Agincourt, Histoire de I Art; Du Sommerard, Arts Somptuaires ; Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire du Mobilicr ; Jacque- mart, History of Furniture ; Pollen, Furniture and Woodwork, where references to books will be found and notes on materials and construction. ( J. H. P. ) FURRUCKABAD. See FAEEAKHABAD. FURST, JULIUS (1805-1873), Orientalist, was born of Jewish parents at Zerkowo in Posen, 12th May 1805. His friends designed him for the rabbinical profession, and at a very early age he had gained an extensive acquaintance both with Biblical and with Talmudical Hebrew. In his fifteenth year he entered the Berlin gymnasium, whence he passed to the university in 1825; but straitened circum stances compelled his return to Posen, long before the com pletion of his studies. He then taught for some time in the Jewish school at his native place, with the result that he experienced a growing feeling of repugnance to what was then regarded as rabbinical orthodoxy. In 1827 he was able to resume a university career at Breslau, where he studied theology and Oriental philology; and in 1831 he removed to Halle, where he heard the lectures of Gesenius, Wegscheider, and Tholuck. He ultimately fixed his resi dence in Leipsic, where, after having taught privately for some years, ho obtained an appointment as lecturer in tho