What is Italian Renaissance furniture?
Furniture was mainly made out of wood, often walnut or willow, and was usually rich in style, with many inlays of ivory, gold, stone, marble or other precious materials, often decorated with marquetry.
What are the characteristics of Renaissance furniture?
Features of the Renaissance style furnishings are also folding chairs: the savonarola and the dante. The volumes, strictly square, are decorated with frames, moldings, beads, pilasters, capitals, lozenges, bugnature, paws and lion heads, grotesques, masks, all elements and motifs of the classical tradition.
What did Renaissance furniture look like?
Furniture had a restrained character with simple designs and a moderate ornamentation. The decoration consisted mostly of carved details created on the surface of the wood. The designs often had some architectonic elements from the classical world like columns, pediments, and cornices.
How was Renaissance furniture made?
Carving of Renaissance Furniture The carving was the main ornamentation of the Italian Renaissance furniture. The cabinet-makers partially abandoned the oak, which was the common wood of the Gothic period, and began to use walnut, chestnut, and other woods, which were better suited for fine, detailed carving.
What is Renaissance Revival furniture?
Attributes of the Renaissance Revival style are turned and fluted legs, raised, or inset burled panels, heavily carved finials and crests, inset marble tops, and cookie-cut corners. Many pieces are further decorated by black and gold incising, marquetry inlay and bronze or brass mounts.
What is a Renaissance chair?
Savonarola are chairs named for the 15th century Florentine, Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola, who lived during the Italian Renaissance. Instead of four legs, the Savonarola was made up of a series of narrow wooden curved slats (also s-curved) that all folded in unison.
When was Renaissance Revival furniture?
Renaissance Revival Style, 1860-1885 The preferred wood was walnut, as it had been in the 1500s—and that was the most accurate thing about this revival style, which also borrowed heavily from the 17th-century Baroque and the earlier Gothic periods.
What influences the furniture of Renaissance?
The Renaissance furniture in Italy was influenced by the Greek and Roman Antiquities, and its development was favored by the interest so many wealthy people had in Arts. Similar to the Gothic style, the furniture of the Renaissance period was reflecting the architectural forms and ornaments.
Why is it called a Dante chair?
At that time, furniture dealers dubbed the chairs “Savonarola” or “Dante” after those important historical figures. Like a curule chair, its legs form an x-shape, but here the base extends to the arms. Some chairs are made of several cross-like slats that fold “campaign” style.
Why is it called a Savonarola chair?
The name “Savonarola” (the most common name for the chair)* derives from a chair found in the convent of San Marco in Florence which was used by the 15th century Italian Dominican priest Girolamo Savonarola. ** A “Dante” chair, a heavier version of the X-form chair, does not fold.