SEVENTEENTH & EIGHTEENTH CENTURY ANTIQUES ARE BACK ON TOP
By Katherine Lagomarsino
Photo: Marie Antoinette (2006) © Sony Pictures
“Fashions fade. Style is eternal.” Yves Saint Laurent’s quote is as true about the world of furniture as it is about fashion. Today, there’s renewed interested in the lush and gilded styles of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century antiques. And with reason.
“Anything that is worthwhile always comes back,” explains Michael Simon, an interior designer based in New York. “There has been a great focus on midcentury and people get restless and need a different form of stimulation.”
Simon, who has an extensive collection of French antiques, notes that the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were an exciting time for furniture makers, who produced pieces reflecting the styles and mores of the times and nation in which they lived. In the seventeenth century, the marriage of the Dutch Prince William of Orange to English Mary Stuart created a new concern for comfort and luxury, and with it a new furniture style, William and Mary: upholstery became common, the easy chair and the gateleg table were introduced. The eighteenth century proved to be France’s golden age of furniture as craftsmen, working under strictly enforced guild regulations, produced intricate pieces in the rococo style, while in China Ming Dynasty artisans turned out sleekly austere pieces, ranging from meditation chairs to incense stands.
“Modernist or not, the thing that makes a home lasting and classic is that it must refer to the past, our time and the future,” says Simon. “The only way something becomes classic is if it has a soul. And the only way for something to be soulful is it has some sense of history. Antiques have romance and a back story. Something new might be beautiful but have no soul.”
Forget the notion that antiques don’t work in contemporary spaces, says Simon. Just look at Asian antiques: “They never go out of fashion and work beautifully with contemporary environments.” He also suggests buyers consider some of the more simple Russian or English pieces, which translate as modern.
If you’re wooed by heavily carved and gilded pieces, don’t be fooled into thinking they’re only for grandma: it all depends on the way the piece is presented, explains Simon. Antiques that date back hundreds of years—no matter from what country, culture or period—can add pedigree to today’s interiors, or at the very least spark lively conversations.
Cinema Décor — Catch one of these flicks for a lesson in historical decorating:
• Marie Antoinette (2006): Lavish fashion meets eighteenth-century gilt furniture in this decadent film directed by Sofia Coppola.
• Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003): The life of seventeenth-century painter Vermeer (Colin Firth) and his milkmaid subject (Scarlett Johansen) is portrayed in spare Dutch style.
• Casanova (2005): Venice in the eighteenth century was ornately opulent, right down to its intricately detailed painted pieces.
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