Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Victorian Furniture: Who, What, When, Where, and Why? Season 2, Episode 26.
42 Plays3 years ago
This week we introduce the Victorian period of furniture. Tune in and learn a thing or two!
Affiliate Links:
10% off of Vesting USA finishing products:
Use AMERICANCRAFTSMAN at www.VestingUSA.com
10% off your order from Montana Brand Tools:
https://www.montanabrandtools.com/discount/AMERICANCRAFTSMAN
Greene Street Joinery is a custom design & build shop located in Monmouth County, New Jersey. We build multigenerational furniture with an eco-friendly and sustainable mindset.
Inspired and guided by the ideals of the Arts and Crafts movement, we believe in the use of traditional craftsmanship and simple, well-proportioned forms; sustainability and ethical practices; and importantly, taking pleasure in our work as craftsmen to create quality pieces of enduring value.
Follow us!
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/greene_st_joinery
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greenestreetjoinery
Support us on Patreon!
https://www.patreon.com/Greene_st_joinery
Visit Us at https://www.greenestreetjoinery.com/
Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-american-craftsman-podcast/donations
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Recommended
Transcript
Promo Collaboration: Green Street Joinery & Montana Brand Tools
00:00:21
Speaker
Green Street Joinery and the American Craftsmen Podcast are proud to partner with Montana Brand Tools. Montana Brand Tools are manufactured by Rocky Mountain Twist in Montana, USA. With numerous patents dating back to the invention of the hex shank system by our founders, we strive to produce accessories that add precision, flexibility, and efficiency to your toolkit.
00:00:41
Speaker
In addition to woodworking tools, we produce many high quality cutting tools that are used by the aerospace, medical, automotive, and industrial markets. Our end product has a fit and finish that is beyond comparison. Montana brand tools are guaranteed for life to be free of defects in material and workmanship because we build these tools with pride and determination. For 10% off your order, visit MontanaBrandTools.com and use the coupon code American Craftsman.
Victorian Period Overview: 1840-1910
00:01:06
Speaker
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the American Craftsman podcast.
00:01:11
Speaker
Yeah. We're on to episode 26 of the second season. That's half a year. Yeah. Oh, wow. I didn't even think of that. Halfway through season two.
00:01:24
Speaker
We just had a good idea for some episodes that we're going to tuck into the to the second season. So yeah, we want to spoil the surprise, but looking forward to them. Yeah. So what do we got? We're getting into the Victorian period this episode and for the next four episodes total. Yeah. Well, we're talking about 1840 to 1910.
00:01:51
Speaker
I think most people are familiar with the term Victorian when it comes to design, but a lot of like with homes and things like that. Yeah. Especially like where we live. There's a lot of houses built right around that time. Yeah. So as usual, we start off with an overview of who, what, where, when, maybe even why. But are those all the Ws? Yeah. And we kind of saved the how.
00:02:21
Speaker
Yeah, for the subsequent episodes.
Furniture Style Contrast: Shaker vs Victorian
00:02:26
Speaker
So it gets like a lot of these style periods, they get their name from some sort of ruler or main contributor. And this one, it's the ruler in England, Queen Victoria.
00:02:46
Speaker
And first thing we could say between the differences between Shaker and Victorian, they're very distinct differences, very sharp contrast. Oh, yeah. Victorian furniture, it's formal, elaborate.
00:03:03
Speaker
Even opulent upholstery of the period matched the ornate stylings of the wood with needlepoint and tapestries adorning many of the most intricate pieces. Black walnut, oak, maple, and ash were common building materials at the time.
00:03:23
Speaker
And rosewood was used a lot as an inlay for contrast work. You can't really do that much these days. No, rosewood's on the endangered list, isn't it? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Where does it come from, India, or is that a... Yeah, I think so. I think there's like South American, like, I think it's like rosewood in quotes. Oh, yeah, like mahogany. Yeah. Because they use that for fingerboards, don't they? Yeah, yeah, rosewood fingerboard. Yeah, I think it's, you know,
00:03:53
Speaker
That's actually my preference. Yeah. I like the rosewood fingerboard as opposed to the maple. I like the look of the maple. Yeah, me too. I don't know why. I just like a short veil. Yeah. I like that.
00:04:10
Speaker
nice slime green paint job maybe. So Queen Victoria's reign defined not only an ideological and political movement but an aesthetic one as well.
Cultural Icon: Queen Victoria's Influence
00:04:25
Speaker
very influential figure, which was embraced throughout the United Kingdom, later through much of Europe and ultimately in the United States. She was respected culturally as a woman of the people and creatively as a trendsetter, as her taste in furniture influenced the stylistic sensibilities of her people.
00:04:49
Speaker
They didn't really have celebrities, I guess, the way we have celebrities, which set all these tones nowadays. Yeah. So who's the biggest deal? It's, you know, somebody like the Queen of England. Right. As opposed to, you know, The Rock or, I don't know, like Beyonce, where I was talking to the wife last night.
00:05:16
Speaker
And I noticed like when I watch all my sports shows like all the the talking heads and everything the women tend to dress in these style Blocks like you start noticing like they all start wearing like for a while it was like all this asymmetrical dresses were a big thing and now it's purple lipstick I'm starting to notice
00:05:45
Speaker
You're talking about the women on the sports shows. Yeah. All the talking heads. Right. So they're getting there. What I'm trying to say is that there are these you know either star celebrities or fashion houses that create this stylistic norm for the present. You know what's hot. And back then they they didn't have anything like that. So you know it's it's somebody like Queen Victoria.
00:06:15
Speaker
That was some long way around. I think we're picking up your drift. Yeah. So Victorian furniture is known for its ornateness, its orderliness, and eclectic approach to unifying design themes from a variety of periods into a coherent framework. So it sounds like it's an amalgam. It's transitional.
00:06:44
Speaker
Very good. While it incorporated elements of Renaissance, Rococo, and Gothic influences, Victorian furniture is often characterized by its use of velvet, hardwoods with dark finishes, intricate tufting, detailed needlework, floral patterns, and romantic imagery.
00:07:08
Speaker
We're getting away from the kind of stuff that we like again here. Yeah, this is really going down another road.
Shift to Factory-Made Furniture
00:07:16
Speaker
You're not kidding. During the Victorian era, furniture manufacturing shifted largely from handmade to machine made.
00:07:24
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that's sort of been misunderstood by a lot of people. They see these Victorian homes, and we're talking about homes here, not furniture, and they see all the ginger breading and turned posts, and they think, wow, look at this handmade craftsmanship. It was all made in factories. Yeah, it was all cranked out and somebody just applied it.
00:07:52
Speaker
And a lot of times this stuff becomes influential and far-reaching is because it's accessible. And that's part of what made this machine-made stuff popular. Yeah, you just pick it out of a catalog. And it becomes cheaper.
00:08:09
Speaker
So as it shifts to machine-made primarily, and it's more accessible, and because of this, Victorian furniture was an all-encompassing genre that included all types of furniture, from chairs, set teas, and sofas, and tables, coffee tables, beds, and case goods. You know, Victorian furniture remains widely popular today. It's enjoyed longevity through its influences in 20th century design.
00:08:40
Speaker
Things like the Chesterfield sofa, for instance, which is a staple of Victorian design, are arguably more popular in the 21st century than ever. And there's the Chesterfield sofa. I didn't know that was the name of it when I looked this up, but a lot of times you'll see those sofas, deeply tufted leather sofa with big rolled over arms. Imagine you went into your lawyer's office
00:09:09
Speaker
Yeah, or like a cigar lounge. They're usually like a deep-colored, mahogany leather. Yeah, this is like a cognac kind of color.
00:09:22
Speaker
And that's the Chesterfield sofa. I knew somebody who had a couple of those. They're not the most comfortable. It looks a little stiff. It is. It is. I guess that's kind of the nature of... Victorian era. We'll get into that I'm sure later on. So a little background to Victorian decoration and furniture.
00:09:48
Speaker
Design of anything in a particular period will depend on the social and creative background to the period. And in Victorian Britain, there was a massive diversity in styles and a high output of furniture. The Victorians loved to show off their wealth and good taste. And this was demonstrated by the interior design and decoration of their homes and the furniture they chose for it.
00:10:17
Speaker
Ooh la la. Yeah. And this is something that's new. The newly rich entrepreneurs wanted to be seen as equal or better than the aristocracy. And the new middle class wanted to show their success and status to their friends.
00:10:37
Speaker
There's really no middle class up until these times. Yeah, that makes sense. You know, it's kind of your working, lower class, and your rich folk. Yeah. Kind of like today. Certainly seems that way, huh? But I digress. So, you know, the people with new money want to sort of show themselves off and
00:11:07
Speaker
The way they did this was how they decorated their homes, how they dressed, et cetera. And they manifested in the diversity of furniture styles and choices that were marketed to them. Yeah, made by some borderline slaves in a factory. Exactly, exactly.
Middle Class and Victorian Furniture Demand
00:11:28
Speaker
You just had to be lucky not to be down there in the trenches. That's true.
00:11:34
Speaker
The business class chose furniture with a classical design, which was at odds with the furniture found in the average middle class home, or even those of many wealthy people. So that kind of makes sense. They're sort of trying to be ostentatious and things like that.
00:11:56
Speaker
So these new designs were copied in a simplified and more economical fashion by other furniture manufacturers and produced on a large scale to sell to the mass market. This sounds very reminiscent of what's going on today and probably ever since.
00:12:16
Speaker
You know, people sort of reaching to be something elevated socially. Fake it till you make it. I guess that's appealing to some people. Yeah. You know, it's like you're driving down Middle Road and there's like a what do you call a split level home, you know, like a split ranch.
00:12:38
Speaker
and there's gonna be like these faux columns, like these Dora columns and cast cement lions and things like that out front. That's a great example of this. It's people sort of with this pretense. My palatial suburban home. And that's what happens in Victorian England.
00:13:06
Speaker
So what is happening in the Victorian era and in America? The Victorian era was a time of tremendous scientific progress and ideas. Darwin took his voyage of the Beagle.
00:13:21
Speaker
in 1831 and he proposed the theory of evolution. Wow. You know, to think it's only been 200 years, no wonder there's still some people who are trying to deny its legitimacy. How did he get all the way out there to the Galapagos if the earth is flat? That's a good point.
00:13:45
Speaker
probably hits the ride with the Illuminati. Now this thing kept coming up the great exhibition of 1851. I guess you could consider it something like like the World's Fair. Yeah. Only it's you know has less to do with rides and more to do with the like a trade show. Yes. Yes.
00:14:12
Speaker
So the Great Exhibition of 1851 took place in London, showing off the technical and industrial advances of the age.
00:14:27
Speaker
Oh, yeah, like the home show with the electronics that happens in Vegas. Yeah, there's like a three, I think it's like a three letter CES, Consumer Electronics Show. Yes. Yeah, it's kind of like something like that. Except not limited to just the one area. Right, yeah. But it was a pretty influential thing. And I guess because of the time period, that's what I've been reading into. It had a big impact on a lot of things.
00:14:58
Speaker
There were 13,000 total exhibits, including a Jacquard loom, an envelope machine, kitchen appliances, steel making displays, a reaping machine that was sent from the United States. So it's all sorts of the technical and industrial advances of that time.
00:15:24
Speaker
But here's a quote from the Times, which was the paper in London. Quote, it seems to us that the art manufacturers of the whole of Europe are thoroughly demoralized.
00:15:42
Speaker
be replaced. Yeah. So said the times in 1851 commenting on the furniture and other interior decorations displayed at the great exhibition in London 1851. The furniture exhibited at the exhibition shows early antique Victorian furniture at its most extravagant and flamboyant and somewhat cut off from reality.
00:16:10
Speaker
Cut off from reality. I see a lot of people like that.
00:16:14
Speaker
Yeah. It reminds me a little bit of maybe how like a high fashion show might be cut off from the reality of what people normally wear. Yeah. When the hell you wearing the you know that like they'll have you know the crazy hats and all this really minimalist clothing. You know there's no way a woman could walk around in those things. No like hey you're gonna go to work in that. Right.
00:16:45
Speaker
In 1845, Thomas Jordan, who was a London engineer and wood carver. He patented a machine for carving wood superior to that patented by William Irving in 1843.
00:16:59
Speaker
and his patent allowed for up to eight copies to be made simultaneously. Well the writings on the wall machinery was extensively used for carving at the new palace of Westminster. Let's take a look at this labor destroyers a little cursor probably. Yeah. If there's a name I forget what they call. It looks almost like a primitive CNC machine does. It looks like a 3D printer. Yeah.
00:17:28
Speaker
Look at these little cherubs down here. Yep. So here's something that's carving out. I can't tell the scale of this thing. Yeah. Is it huge or small? Right. I mean. What do you mean? Is this like a? A hand wheel. You figure if it's anything like on our machinery it's six inches or something. Yeah.
00:17:53
Speaker
Interesting. I mean, all the appliques and things like that that are big during the Victorian era. And here comes a guy. They're carving eight at a time. Instead of having eight people carve these things by hand, now you've got one person who all they're doing is spinning wheels and pushing knobs. Yeah, some slack jawed mouth breather.
00:18:20
Speaker
could be a slack jawed nose breather. We don't know that it's true. But I doubt it. By this time around the middle of the 19th century good design may be said to have suffered in much early Victorian furniture even in country areas with the partial exception
Craftsmanship Decline & Arts and Crafts Movement
00:18:39
Speaker
of chair making. So design is really taking a slide. We you know we saw things Victorian era chair making.
00:18:49
Speaker
I think it's just happened. Yeah, that just happens to be a link there. The demands of the mass market with its concerns of economy.
00:19:06
Speaker
led to a probably inevitable decline in standards of ordinary domestic furniture, but lots of showy hastily and cheaply put on ornament and veneer attempting to conceal the lack of quality craftsmanship.
00:19:23
Speaker
My god. And those things still perpetuate today. Yeah. I put in parentheses here, the seeds of the arts and crafts movement and the art furniture fashion of late Victorian style had been sewn. But more on that in coming episodes. Yeah. English arts and crafts furniture, yeah.
00:19:50
Speaker
It's funny, that transition piece, right? Very Jacobean. Yeah. Oof, Chippendale. Clismo. Yep. I tell you, the things that started about 100, 120 years ago, all the problems are basically still the same. Yeah.
00:20:15
Speaker
120 years ago, no. Yeah, like the beginning of 1900. Oh, yeah. I thought you were talking about Victorian era. Yeah. Right, yeah, 1840s. Yeah, it's 200 years now, almost. Yeah, you're right. Good 180. Why is that the thing that stuck?
00:20:44
Speaker
Yeah, why couldn't those wigs have stuck? Because we have deodorant now. And shampoo. And tests for syphilis. Yeah.
00:20:59
Speaker
Oh man, so back to Victorian era happenings. Progress in medicine and the physical sciences continued throughout the century. The Victorians were impressed by science and progress and felt that they could improve society in the same way as they were improving technology.
00:21:18
Speaker
Now, you see, so they think that, I mean, I guess depends on your point of view. So they're looking at all these things as improvements. And our point of view is that it's a real decline, not just in taste and style, but in the handcraft disappearing and these
00:21:42
Speaker
Yeah, it's like anything like everything in moderation. Right. You know, yeah, it's good to be able to, you know, produce furniture cheaply so that everyone can have furniture. So not you don't you know, there's the barrier of entry is lower. So you don't have to not have a table in your house because it costs too much to have. But when all the tables are being made and the standard is, you know, lowered across the board, that's when it's bad.
00:22:09
Speaker
Right. When it wipes out what you know the other thing is there's a hard time for the craftsperson to peacefully coexist with the you know cheap factory made piece. Yeah they're creating a monopoly.
00:22:29
Speaker
So during the Victorian era, science grew into the discipline it is today. In addition to increasing professionalism of university science, many Victorians, Victorian ladies and gentlemen devoted their time to the study of natural history, which became increasingly an amateur activity. Indubitably. Yes, my, my. Reminds me of that Key and Peele skit with the
00:22:58
Speaker
I feel like I want to get a monocle. I'll show you later. Particularly in Britain and the United States, this grew into specialist hobbies such as the study of birds, butterflies, seashells, beetles, I didn't know that was such a thing, and wildflowers.
00:23:20
Speaker
Amateur collectors and natural history buffs played an important role in building the large natural history collections of the 19th and early 20th century. The Audubon Society started in 1905 in the US. That's birds if you didn't know.
00:23:37
Speaker
Yeah, I have a couple of those books. They're really, really great picture books. Ali's like great, great grandfather has like a Audubon Museum in Germany named after him or something. You're kidding me. That's pretty awesome. Yeah, pretty cool. Yeah, he was, I guess, was Audubon the artist or was he the writer? I don't know. Because I know he specialized in one of them. But
00:24:06
Speaker
Yeah, it wasn't if it wasn't for the quote unquote amateurs at this time, we wouldn't have all this documentation because sadly, you know, a lot of the species are gone now. Yeah.
00:24:20
Speaker
Portially due to industry. That's right. The Industrial Revolution created a consumer economy and a huge middle class with purchasing power. This new middle class felt that they had arrived at a higher social plane of existence. Well, well, well. The ways of the farm and of the tenement would not do for the family of a man who had made his way in the world.
00:24:49
Speaker
Yeah. Well, the path is firmly set. The Industrial Revolution brought the possibility of leisure to many and those who could indulge in had leisure hobbies. They did that with a great enthusiasm. That was clumsily worded. As we see now with the garage warriors.
00:25:12
Speaker
Aha, yes, I see the weekend warrior of all sorts. The Industrial Revolution also had a negative impact on traditional apprenticeship. Replacing hand-built goods with factory-produced ones meant the craftsman was also being replaced. And so we're a bit of a throwback, you and I.
00:25:40
Speaker
We are swimming against the current. We're living about 250 years too late. But I'm glad we got indoor plumbing. That's true. In science and technology, the Victorians invented the modern idea of invention, the notion that one can create solutions to problems, that man can create new means of bettering himself and his environment. So I guess we have that to owe the Victorians, people like you and I. Yeah.
00:26:10
Speaker
that idea of, you know, an individual person can problem solve and things like that. So let's see, what are some Victorian values in the new age?
00:26:23
Speaker
Victorian values dominated American social life for much of the 19th century. The notion of separate spheres of life for men and women was commonplace. Well, we kind of lived that way. We got the shop and we got our house. The shop is the male sphere.
00:26:46
Speaker
The male sphere included wage work and politics while the female sphere included child rearing and domestic work. Now we're not chauvinistic like that. No. Industrialization and urbanization brought new challenges to Victorian values. Men grew weary of toiling tireless hours and yearned for the blossoming leisure opportunities of the age.
00:27:14
Speaker
So free time is starting to become a thing. Yeah. I wonder when the word weekend makes its first appearance. Now this is like just free time for some though I'm assuming. Yeah. Yeah we're talking about this newly emerging middle class. I mean if you're working in the factory. You're probably there seven days. Yeah and you're not you're not really
00:27:41
Speaker
you know, part of the middle class, you're still the lower working class. We're talking about more like the merchant class of people who own the factories, or maybe management or purchasing. Also at the time women are becoming more educated.
00:28:00
Speaker
But even with an education, they'd graduate and they'd typically find themselves shut out of many professions. And this is about where my family comes into it. Immigrants had never been socialized in the Victorian mindset.
00:28:18
Speaker
As the century drew to a close, a revolt was indeed brewing. Oh, they're talking about the macaroni rights. My family got here just after the Victorian period in the 1920s. Uh, Victoria battles the Victorians. Well, what do you know?
00:28:40
Speaker
At the vanguard of revolt were the young, single, middle-class women who worked in the cities. Attitudes towards sex were loosening in private, yet few were brave enough to discuss the changes publicly. One exception was Victoria Woodhull. In 1871, she declared the right to love the person of her choice as inalienable. Indeed, she professed the right to free love.
00:29:11
Speaker
She's like an early hippie. That's right, 90 years before the 60s. She and her sister, Tennessee Claflin, or is that Claflin? Claflin. Tennessee, that's an interesting first name. Yeah. They published a book with their beliefs in the periodical Woodhull and Claflin's Weekly.
00:29:32
Speaker
A devout feminist, Woodhull protested the male hold on politics by running for president in 1872. She became the first female American to do so in a time when women did not even enjoy the right to vote. Yeah, she's not even close, not for another 50 years. Exactly, right? I don't know if it's exactly 1920, but it's like right around there, isn't it? I think 1919, something like that. Yeah.
00:30:00
Speaker
So that's pretty interesting. Victoria Woodhull runs for president in 1872. Wow. The Comstock law. So these are changes that are going on in Victorian society. And the reason we're talking about it is we just kind of set the stage for what's going on. And then you can see how it influences the things that we do, just like. Society always influences art. It does. It does.
00:30:29
Speaker
So the Comstock law, as energetic as the rebellion may have been, the reaction was equally as forceful. Those with something do not want to give it up. We know that. Criticizing the evils of modern urban life, prostitution, gambling, promiscuity and alcohol. Yeah, Victorians fought to maintain the values they held dear.
00:30:59
Speaker
So along comes Anthony Comstock. He lobbies Congress to pass a notorious Comstock law banning all mailings of materials of a sexual nature. This is like they they still use the Comstock law to try and prosecute people like
00:31:23
Speaker
what was that guy's name who published hustler larry flint right yeah i was gonna say i've heard the comstock love right that's why because the people versus larry flint that's a movie isn't yes yeah what he has and that's the law still wasn't and i think it's probably still on the books i don't know we have bigger fish to fry people
00:31:46
Speaker
So you can't mail anything of a promiscuous nature. And Victorians valiantly fought to maintain their view of morality, but they couldn't stop the changes.
00:32:05
Speaker
Uh, this was something that I had forgot completely about, which is, is funny. Civil war. The American Civil War happens during this period. Um, you know, no bigger event in, in our history, really. Yeah.
00:32:24
Speaker
It happens during the Victorian era, really early Victorian. The economy of the South is decimated, and industrial capitalism flourishes in the North. It won't go too much into civil war and reformation and all this other stuff, and restoration.
00:32:46
Speaker
Following the Civil War and the nation's eventual return to economic prosperity, ornately decorated interiors proliferated. Man, that's a tough sentence. She sells seashells by the seashore.
00:33:02
Speaker
Many millionaires were made during the war. Surprise, surprise. All subsequent wars. Both honestly and dishonestly, I added. Put in my own point of view there. So properly furnished rooms were a sign of education and good taste, or maybe just of money, and a way to show off one's wealth.
00:33:28
Speaker
Furniture makers began producing furniture in exotic styles from Renaissance to modern Gothic.
00:33:35
Speaker
So there you have it. The groundwork is laid. What do we got? We got manufacturing. We got a new middle class. We got a new bunch of really wealthy people as a result of the war and profiteering and everything like that. You got social rebels popping up.
00:34:00
Speaker
So let's see how this avails itself on the styles of furniture and things like that. Patterns dominant in Victorian furniture.
00:34:15
Speaker
intricate carvings, natural images like floral patterns, leafy patterns, and curving lines. The Art Nouveau, which came at a much later stage, is quite similar, making it difficult to judge if a piece is indeed Victorian or not.
00:34:36
Speaker
Yeah, a lot of mishmash. And I guess that's a result, too, of the factory manufacturing process. Yeah. Maybe not all that well thought out. That and, like, as opposed to an individual craftsperson making something, and then we noted that there were, like, these schools of style, like, you know, Providence, Rhode Island, and things like that. They're, you know, they have to appeal to the lowest common denominator.
00:35:04
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, a lot less discipline as well. Victorian furniture can be further determined by its angular shapes and lines along with the carvings. Victorian chair or table basically has a straight shaped with curves along the bottom of the sofa below the cushions.
00:35:29
Speaker
Why did I say a Victorian chair or table basically has a straight shape with curves along the bottom of the sofa below their cushions, the legs of the chair and the back of the seat. There was some bad cutting and pasting going on there. A Victorian chair or table basically has a straight shape with curves along the legs of the chair and the back of the seat.
00:35:53
Speaker
You know, curved moldings, decorative freezes. Those are also design motifs. What about the materials? Victorians loved embellishments in various forms like embossing. That's made with that carving machine.
00:36:12
Speaker
tassels, and layers of material. This type of furniture gives the extra attention to texture and detail. This is where Art Nouveau is different and lacking, as there are no frills. And I didn't know that. I would have assumed that just by their name, Art Nouveau, there were more frills. But no. So if you come across a piece. It's got flounce. Art Nouveau's got the flounce.
00:36:39
Speaker
No frills, just flounce. So if you come across a piece with a lot of tassels and fancy carving, probably it's Victorian. And flounce.
00:36:52
Speaker
What about the upholstery? Upholstery during the Victorian era was plush. And it concentrated on luxurious material and textures like velvet. Mm, I love me some velvet. Yeah. Dark colors. You know, things, they wanted it to be rich and lush. That's what they're shooting for.
00:37:15
Speaker
And they used different colors to accent the backgrounds, which were usually plain white. And again, furniture, which was upholstered, had lots of tassels and flounce and embellishments. What about Victorian proportions?
00:37:35
Speaker
My guess is that they're not going to be great. Yeah. Let's see what we have here. Furniture of the Victorian era was characterized by large side boards, heavy pedestals, and pieces in bulkier proportion.
00:37:50
Speaker
The designs were able to provide balance and character to the decorations of the piece. I see. So they've got so much going on. You need something there to ground it. Right. Otherwise, it's going to be like a skinny guy wearing a big coat. Yeah, I get it. I get it. All that flounce, you need something heavy to. You need a foundation for your flounce. Yeah, foundation for the flounce.
00:38:18
Speaker
So from right now, if you were trying to identify a Victorian piece.
00:38:23
Speaker
You got to have some foundation for the flounce. There you go. And tassels. Tassels are big. Most of the pieces of Victorian furniture were made of walnut with rosewood or mahogany. And the replicas are stained deep brown to give them the look of the Victorian era. So we're already getting into this heavy use of mocking up.
00:38:53
Speaker
Here's looking at you, Chad. I don't think you listen to the podcast. No. But that's exactly what I thought of, because the boot jacks are staying to look like Walnut. At least he doesn't call it Walnut. That's true. Staying to look like Walnut. Check out our buddies over at the Working Hands podcast. Yeah, yeah. They have a great podcast, actually. I've really grown to like it. I listen to it.
00:39:21
Speaker
Victorian fun facts. Oh, this is how we're ending. This is always one of my favorites. Victorians ingested arsenic, believing it held all sorts of health benefits. Of course, it wasn't long before sickness and death followed. It takes away the pain.
00:39:46
Speaker
Relieves all kinds of ailments. Can't be sick if you're dead. This is one I kind of knew. Due to water's poor quality, and we're talking about, you know, city life, beer was a more common choice for hydration than water. Yeah. Even for kids. Yeah, they had what was called like a small beer, which meant that it was like really low in alcohol. I think that's what it was called, small beer.
00:40:14
Speaker
I love it. This is our last funny. This is a good one. Fainting was common among Victorian women. Maybe it was the arsenic or the beer or the fact that they bound their waists in whale bone corsets until it was hard to breathe and organs were displaced. Oh man.
00:40:41
Speaker
These poor Victorian women not catching a break. Yeah. So every time you see like those movies where the women have those like super tight dresses. Yeah. In reality they were really disfiguring themselves. Yeah. Man. So what could we take from the onset of the Victorian era?
00:41:08
Speaker
I mean sort of seems like a harkening back to like the like Chippendale sort of era. What was that period? Well, I think we didn't we call it wasn't it called Chippendale or was it Queen Anne? Yeah, you know, I think it was a queen. Yeah. Because when I think of Queen Anne like revival stuff, I think of like Victorian. Mm hmm.
00:41:35
Speaker
Yeah I mean it's sort of a harkening back to that the heavily Renaissance and Rococo influence stuff this sort of hoity-toity kind of look to it you know. Well you got to figure because if it's named after a queen it's got to be fancy.
00:41:54
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it's going to be ornate. And the rich folk want to sort of align themselves with the aristocracy. And then the folks that can afford it in this new middle class, they're like social climbers of all periods.
00:42:20
Speaker
So they go for the knockoffs. They're the equivalent of the women buying the knockoff Gucci bag or the man with the knockoff. The Folex. Yeah, the Folex. That's exactly what I was going to say. It's amazing how similar things are. It must be in our genetics. I guess so. And the same thing I think of with technology.
00:42:50
Speaker
factory production of course that's you know an ingrained part of our lives but then like things like CNC machining come into play.
00:43:03
Speaker
And that kind of creates this new way of duplicating stuff. Again, there's no way that somebody like you or I could build by hand something that a CNC machine could do perfectly and repetitively and quickly and do it and sell it.
00:43:29
Speaker
at, you know, in the same cost bracket. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, things, we have things like injection molding and, you know, resin 3D printing. I mean, so many, the technology now for production is insane.
00:43:44
Speaker
You're right, you're right. You ever watch- Metal 3D printing? Yeah, that's amazing. There's like a 3D printed house I've seen. Yeah, it spits out concrete. It's like that show how things are made. Yeah, I love that show. Yeah, it is pretty cool.
00:44:03
Speaker
I'm always shocked at how fast some of these processes are done. They have to slow the machines down. It's actually to be able to film it. Like more than one a second sometimes, whether it's like filling up soda bottles or putting a label on something or engraving something. And the way they check for discrepancies as it's passing through the slide. Yeah, when your salsa goes under a metal detector, make sure there's no nut or a bolt in there.
00:44:33
Speaker
It's amazing. I guess also because it's the most recent period we've done, because we're going in a straight timeline, it's most similar to our experiences now, too, with the society and industry. Yep. So the only thing is we got clean water, relatively speaking. Just a little bit of lead in there.
00:45:04
Speaker
Women are wearing yoga pants instead of corsets. Yep, that's a parallel move. Yeah, and we're sort of off the arsenic. As far as I know.
00:45:21
Speaker
are making progress. Yeah. Now people drink alkalized water. Yeah. It's been replaced. Replace the arsenic and kombucha. Yeah. I was saying earlier that when you were out attending to
00:45:41
Speaker
little what's her name guy guys business out there. It'd be it'd be awesome if we had some live you know give and take at the end. Oh yeah. You know so people could comment whether positively or negatively on what we just said. Yeah. That would be a lot of fun. Yeah. We had like a twitch stream. Yeah. And I was always saying you guys don't know what the hell you're talking about.
00:46:06
Speaker
That'd be funny. I mean, I'd enjoy those types of reactions probably more than anything else. Yeah, maybe it was something to think about for season three. Right. That's a great idea. Season three would kind of go live interactive in a way if we can. We'll figure it out. Yeah. We've got six months figured out. Yeah. Yeah. So I want to bid everybody a farewell.
00:46:32
Speaker
Yeah, thanks for tuning in. And yeah, we'll continue the conversation next week with the design. We'll get into the design and influences of Victorian furniture. Thanks for listening. Ciao.
00:47:02
Speaker
Ain't no shame, but there's been a chain.