Colonial Revival architecture ................................... Illustrated FURNITURE Glossary

Furniture - Colonial Revival in Buffalo, NY
1880-1920

Table of contents:


Colonial styles - Pre-Revolutionary War

"Colonial" style in architecture and furniture includes all the styles which existed during the Colonial period of American history. The Colonial period ended once the Colonies declared independence from England.

Architectural styles include the following:

Furniture styles, of course, corresponded to the architectural styles.

The furniture styles that existed in the English-speaking colonies included the following:


Colonial Revival 1880-1930

Colonial Revival: Style in furniture and architecture that imitated or freely interpreted American designs from the Pilgrim to Federal eras. Begun in the 1880s, it became the dominant style of the early 20th century.

Proportions: Narrower and more slender than 18th-century originals.

Essential elements: Traditional 18th-century motifs and shapes rendered more schematically. Some modern construction techniques such as metal braces.

Woods: Oak; or traditional high-style woods such as mahogany and walnut.

Notable forms: Most Colonial types.

- Marvin D. Schwartz, American Furniture: Tables, Chairs, Sofas and Beds. 2000

The Kittinger Furniture Company of Buffalo is nationally known for its 20th century reproductions and has been furnishing the White House for decades.

"Whatever is new, is bad," Wallace Nutting wrote in 1925. A minister-turned-entrepreneur who almost single-handedly popularized the colonial revival style via the sale of period furniture reproductions, Nutting (1861-1941) was one of the most acerbic partisans in an aesthetic fight waged in the early decades of the twentieth century - a battle between modernism and tradition.

In the 1920s and 1930s the cream of the American aristocracy was firmly entrenched in the latter camp.

- Gregory Cerio, "What Modern Was," The Magazine Antiques, May 2008, p.113


Colonial Revival examples:


See also: Colonial Revival architecture
Page by Chuck LaChiusa
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