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Furniture making was a major factor in British commerce in the 18th century, but the high end, really fine furniture, was mostly by, and for, the home audience in Britain and was the domain of a select number of cabinetmaking shops. (Not that wonderful items were made outside the elite circle of cabinetmakers.) And yet the best of British furniture, as good as it was, did not sell well in France which had its own thriving furniture making economy--largely backed by the French monarchy--at least for the very high end goods which was where the prestige lay. Make no mistake that high style furniture was the equivalent to the private jets or super yachts of today--French or English and, as it happens, the English loved French furniture and when the French Revolution happened, English buyers saw an opportunity to grab some of the great and truly grand pieces of furniture that were endangered by the mobs of Paris. The Duke of Northumberland somehow ended up with what I consider to be the greatest pieces of furniture ever made, the Cucci cabinets that were purchased by the Duke in 1823 (now at Alnwick Castle in Northumberland) likely at a time when the French government needed cash. They are stunning grand baroque items made in the 1650's that could not be made today for a host of reasons, one of the most obvious being access to the rare quality of the materials used to make them.
Human nature has compulsions that we may not fully grasp within our social hierarchies--many of them may be somewhat understandable and many can be quite ridiculous to the point of absurdity--who wants to colonize Mars when we still don't know everything there is to know about Earth? (Lots of people, apparently.) Earth is a gem. As for possessions, I certainly don't understand the compulsion regarding yachts. Private jets, possibly, but they are tools that represent something--wealth and status to be sure, but function more than anything and definitely not taste. The focus on taste requires, I would suggest, a certain education. Some people come by that education easily--they can read the craft and quality of a house, a car, a handbag and they know what they are looking at. They are also willing to make judgments and back them up and turn down what isn't up to snuff. This is what antique dealers should do--we ought to tell our clients why you should buy such and such an item--it is our job. But societal compulsions, what I often refer to as the stream of the present. Somehow, however, the ersatz always rises and injects itself into the stream of the present--something that often has my scratching my head in wonder.
Yet, though I am an antiques dealer, I would never advocate decorating solely with antique furniture--that would be hard to do and the vicissitudes of modern life don't encourage that kind of existence. Some people, of course, do go to that extent and often do it well, but it's not everyone's cup of tea. Even the English who collected French furniture after the Revolution tended to moderate their purchases. No, I am not advocating antique furniture for the vast majority of people out there. What I am advocating is the thought that goes into the creation of taste and a disregard of the stream of the present. With a little imagination, it might be interesting to hire a local furniture maker, or search out a really great maker, and have them make something that pertains to your own life. Bespoke furniture, after all, was the rule for the oligarchs in England in the first half of the 18th century. Nor does the furniture need to be made of wood, although resins and plastics have a life span and are not likely to last as long as wood or metal. (How many of those grand supra-expensive yachts will be around in 200 years?) But then, if you want something that is already considered great and will only become greater with time, it's probably safest to go with those things that are known to last--value notwithstanding since value is always a function of the stream of the present. That stream is really hard to ignore.
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