Part 48

Previously to the middle of the 18th century the only cabinetmaker who gained sufficient personal distinction to have had his name preserved was Andre Charles Boulle; beginning with that period France and England produced many men whose renown is hardly less than that of artists in other media. With Chippendale there arose a marvellously brilliant school of English cabinetmakers, in which the most outstanding names are those of Sheraton, Heppelwhite, Shearer and the Adams. But if the school was splendid it was lamentably short-lived, and the 19th century produced no single name in the least worthy to be placed beside these giants. Whether, in an age of machinery, much room is left for fine individual execution may be doubted, and the manufacture of furniture now, to a great extent, takes place in large factories both in England and on the continent. Owing to the necessary subdivision of labour in these establishments, each piece of furniture passes through numerous distinct workshops. The master and a few artificers formerly superintended each piece of work, which, therefore, was never far removed from the designer's eye. Though accomplished artists are retained by the manufacturers of London, Paris and other capitals, there can no longer be the same relation between the designer and his work. Many operations in these modern factories are carried on by machinery. This, though an economy of labour, entails loss of artistic effect. The chisel and the knife are no longer in such cases guided and controlled by the sensitive touch of the human hand.

[Illustration: PLATE I.

FIG. 1.--Venetian Folding Chair of carved and gilt walnut, leather back and seat; about 1530.

FIG. 2.--Oak Arm-chair. English, 17th century.

FIG. 3.--Arm-chair, solid seat, cane back; about 1660.

FIG. 4.--Arm-chair, stuffed back and seat; about 1650.

FIG. 5.--Painted and carved High-Back Chair; about 1660.

FIG. 6.--Carved Walnut Chairs. English, early 18th century. The arm-chair is inlaid.

FIG. 7.--Walnut Chair; about 1710.

FIG. 8.--Carved Mahogany Chair in the style of Chippendale; 2nd half of 18th century.

FIG. 9.--Carved Mahogany Arm-chair, in the style of Chippendale, with ribbon pattern.

FIG. 10.--Carved and Inlaid Mahogany Chair, in the style of Hepplewhite; late 18th century.

FIG. 11.--Mahogany Chair in the style of Sheraton; about 1780.

Fig. 12.--Painted and gilt Arm-chair with cane seat, in the style of Adam; about 1790.

FIG. 13.--Arm-chair of carved and gilt wood with stuffed back, seat and arms. French, Louis XV. style.

FIG. 14.--Mahogany Arm-chair. Empire style, early 19th century, said to have belonged to the Bonaparte family.

FIG. 15.--Painted and gilt Beech Chair. English, about 1800.]

[Illustration: PLATE II.

FIG. 1.--Front of Oak Coffer with wrought iron bands. French, 2nd half of 13th century.

FIG. 2.--English Oak Chest, dated 1637.

FIG. 3.--Italian (Florentine) Coffer of Wood with gilt arabesque stucco ornament, about 1480.

FIG. 4.--Italian "Cassone" or Marriage Coffer, 13th century. Carved and gilt wood with painted front and ends.

FIG. 5.--Walnut Table with expanding leaves. Swiss, 17th century.

FIG. 6.--Oak Gate-Legged Table. English, 17th century.

FIG. 7.--Writing Table. French, end of Louis XV. period. Riesener marquetry, ormolu mounts and Sevres plaques.

FIG. 8.--Painted Satin-Wood Tables, in the style of Sheraton, about 1790.

(The above are in the Victoria and Albert Museum, except Fig. 8, which were in the Bethnal Green Exhibition, 1892.)]

[Illustration: PLATE III.

1. CARVED OAK SIDEBOARD. English, 17th century. Victoria and Albert Museum.

2. CARVED OAK COURT CUPBOARD. English, early 17th century. Victoria and Albert Museum.

3. EBONY CARVED CABINET. The interior decorated with inlaid ivory and coloured woods; French or Dutch, middle of 17th century. Victoria and Albert Museum.

4. VENEERED CHEST OF DRAWERS. About 1690. Lent to Bethnal Green Exhibition by Sir Spencer Ponsonby-Fane, G.C.B.

5. EBONY ARMOIRE. With tortoise-shell panels inlaid with brass and other metals, and ormolu mountings. Designed by Berain, and executed by Andre Boulle. French, Louis XIV. period. Victoria and Albert Museum.

6. GLASS-FRONTED BOOKCASE AND CABINET. Of mahogany. In the style of Sheraton, about 1790. Lent to the Bethnal Green Exhibition by the late Vincent J. Robinson, C.I.E.]

[Illustration: PLATE IV.

1. COMMODE OF PINE. With marquetry of brass, ebony, tortoise-shell, mother-of-pearl, ivory, and green-stained bone. "Boulle" work with designs in the style of Berain. French, late period of Louis XIV.

2. COMMODE. With panels of Japanese lacquer and ormolu mountings, in the style of Caffieri. French, Louis XV. period.

3. TABLE OF KING AND TULIP WOODS. With ormolu mountings. Louis XV. period.

4. ESCRITOIRE A TOILETTE. Formerly belonging to Marie Antoinette. Of tulip and sycamore woods inlaid with other coloured woods, ormolu mounts. Louis XV. period.

5. FOUR-POST BEDSTEAD. Of oak inlaid with bog-oak and holly, from the "Inlaid Room" at Sizergh Castle, Westmorland. Latter half of sixteenth century.

6. CARVED AND GILT BEDSTEAD. With blue silk damask coverings and hangings. French, late 18th century. Louis XVI. period.

From the Victoria and Albert Museum, S. Kensington.]

[Illustration: PLATE V.

_Photo, Mansell & Co._

THE "BUREAU DU ROI," MADE FOR LOUIS XV., NOW IN THE LOUVRE. For description, see DESK.]

A decided, if not always intelligent, effort to devise a new style in furniture began during the last few years of the 19th century, which gained the name of "_l'art nouveau_." Its pioneers professed to be free from all old traditions and to seek inspiration from nature alone. Happily nature is less forbidding than many of these interpretations of it, and much of the "new art" is a remarkable exemplification of the impossibility of altogether ignoring traditional forms. The style was not long in degenerating into extreme extravagance. Perhaps the most striking consequence of this effort has been, especially in England, the revival of the use of oak. Lightly polished, or waxed, the cheap foreign oaks often produce very agreeable results, especially when there is applied to them a simple inlay of boxwood and stained holly, or a modern form of pewter. The simplicity of these English forms is in remarkable contrast to the tortured and ungainly outlines of continental seekers after a conscious and unpleasing "originality."

Until a very recent period the most famous collections of historic furniture were to be found in such French museums as the Louvre, Cluny and the Garde Meuble. Now, however, they are rivalled, if not surpassed, by the magnificent collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum at South Kensington, and the Wallace collection at Hertford House, London. The latter, in conjunction with the Jones bequest at South Kensington, forms the finest of all gatherings of French furniture of the great periods, notwithstanding that in the Bureau du Roi the Louvre possesses the most magnificent individual example in existence. In America there are a number of admirable collections representative of the graceful and homely "colonial furniture" made in England and the United States during the Queen Anne and Georgian periods.

See also the separate articles in this work on particular forms of furniture. The literature of the subject has become very extensive, and it is needless to multiply here the references to books. Perrot and Chipiez, in their great _Histoire de l'art dans l'antiquite_ (1882 et seq.) deal with ancient times, and A. de Champeaux, in _Le Meuble_ (1885), with the middle ages and later period; English furniture is admirably treated by Percy Macquoid in his _History of English Furniture_ (1905); and Lady Dilke's _French Furniture in the 18th Century_ (1901), and Luke Vincent Lockwood's _Colonial Furniture in America_ (1901), should also be consulted. (J. P. B.)

FURNIVALL, FREDERICK JAMES (1825-1910), English philologist and editor, was born at Egham, Surrey, on the 4th of February 1825, the son of a surgeon. He was called to the bar in 1849, but his attention was soon diverted to philological studies and social problems. He gave Frederick Denison Maurice valuable assistance in the Christian Socialist movement, and was one of the founders of the Working Men's College. For half a century he indefatigably promoted the study of early English literature,

## partly by his own work as editor, and still more efficaciously by the

agency of the numerous learned societies of which he was both founder and director, especially the Early English Text Society (1864), which has been of inestimable service in promoting the study of early and middle English. He also established and conducted the Chaucer, Ballad, New Shakespeare and Wyclif Societies, and at a later period societies for the special study of Browning and Shelley. He edited texts for the Early English Text Society, for the Roxburghe Club and the Rolls Series; but his most important labours were devoted to Chaucer, whose study he as an editor greatly assisted by his "Six-Text" edition of the _Canterbury Tales_, and other publications of the Chaucer Society. He was the honorary secretary of the Philological Society, and was one of the original promoters of the Oxford _New English Dictionary_. He co-operated with its first editor, Herbert Coleridge, and after his death was for some time principal editor during the preliminary period of the collection of material. The completion of his half-century of labour was acknowledged in 1900 by a handsome testimonial, including the preparation by his friends of a volume of philological essays specially dedicated to him, _An English Miscellany_ (Oxford, 1901), and a considerable donation to the Early English Text Society. Dr Furnivall was always an enthusiastic oarsman, and till the end kept up his interest in rowing; with John Beesley in 1845 he introduced the new type of narrow sculling boat, and in 1886 started races on the Thames for sculling fours and sculling eights. He died on the 2nd of July 1910.

FURSE, CHARLES WELLINGTON (1868-1904), English painter, born at Staines, the son of the Rev. C.W. Furse, archdeacon of Westminster, was descended collaterally from Sir Joshua Reynolds, and in his short span of life achieved such rare excellence as a portrait and figure painter that he forms an important link in the chain of British portraiture which extends from the time when Van Dyck was called to the court of Charles I. to our own day. His talent was precocious; at the age of seven he gave indications of it in a number of drawings illustrating Scott's novels. He entered the Slade school in 1884, winning the Slade scholarship in the following year, and completed his education at Julian's _atelier_ in Paris. Hard worker as he was, his activity was frequently interrupted by spells of illness, for he had developed signs of consumption when he was still attending the Slade school. An important canvas called "Cain" was his first contribution (1888) to the Royal Academy, to the associateship of which he was elected in the year of his death. For some years before he had been a staunch supporter of the New English Art Club, to the exhibitions of which he was a regular contributor. He was married in October 1900 to Katherine, daughter of John Addington Symonds. His fondness for sport and of an open-air life found expression in his art and introduced a new, fresh and vigorous note into portraiture. There is never a suggestion of the studio or of the fatiguing pose in his portraits. The sitters appear unconscious of being painted, and are generally seen in the pursuit of their favourite outdoor sport or pastime, in the full enjoyment of life. Such are the "Diana of the Uplands," the "Lord Roberts" and "The Return from the Ride" at the Tate Gallery; the four children in the "Cubbing with the York and Ainsty," "The Lilac Gown," "Mr and Mrs Oliver Fishing" and the portrait of Lord Charles Beresford. Most of these pictures, and indeed nearly all the work completed in the few years of Furse's activity, show a pronounced decorative tendency. His sense of space, composition and decorative design can best be judged by his admirable mural decorations for Liverpool town hall, executed between 1899 and 1902. A memorial exhibition of Furse's paintings and sketches was held at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1906.

FURST, JULIUS (1805-1873), German Orientalist, was born of Jewish parents at Zerkowo in Posen, on the 12th of May 1805. He studied philosophy and philology at Berlin, and oriental literature at Posen, Breslau and Halle. In 1857 he was appointed to a lectureship at the university of Leipzig, and he was promoted to a professorship in 1864, which he held until his death at Leipzig on the 9th of February 1873. Among his writings may be mentioned _Lehrgebaude der aramaischen Idiome_ (Leipzig, 1835); _Librorum sacrorum Veteris Testamenti concordantiae Hebraicae atque Chaldaicae_ (Leipzig, 1837-1840); _Hebraisches und chaldaisches Worterbuch_ (1851, English translation by S. Davidson 1867); _Kultur und Literaturgeschichte der Juden in Asien_ (1849). Furst also edited a valuable _Bibliotheca Judaica_ (Leipzig, 1849-1863), and was the author of some other works of minor importance. From 1840 to 1851 he was editor of _Der Orient_, a journal devoted to the language, literature, history and antiquities of the Jews.

FURSTENBERG, the name of two noble houses of Germany.

1. The more important is in possession of a mediatized principality in the district of the Black Forest and the Upper Danube, which comprises the countship of Heiligenberg, about 7 m. to the N. of the Lake of Constance, the landgraviates of Stuhlingen and Baar, and the lordships of Jungnau, Trochtelfingen, Hausen and Moskirch or Messkirch. The territory is discontinuous; and as it lies partly in Baden, partly in Wurttemberg, and partly in the Prussian province of Sigmaringen, the head of the family is an hereditary member of the first chamber of Baden and of the chamber of peers in Wurttemberg and in Prussia. The relations of the principality with Baden are defined by the treaty of May 1825, and its relations with Wurttemberg by the royal declaration of 1839. The _Stammort_ or ancestral seat of the family is Furstenberg in the Black Forest, about 13 m. N. of Schaffhausen, but the principal residence of the present representatives of the main line is at Donaueschingen.

The family of Furstenberg claims descent from a certain Count Unruoch, a contemporary of Charlemagne, but their authentic pedigree is only traceable to Egino II., count of Urach, who died before 1136. In 1218 his successors inherited the possessions of the house of Zahringen in the Baar district of the Black Forest, where they built the town and castle of Furstenberg. Of the two sons of Egino V. of Urach, Conrad, the elder, inherited the Breisgau and founded the line of the counts of Freiburg, while the younger, Heinrich (1215-1284), received the territories lying in the Kinzigthal and Baar, and from 1250 onward styled himself first lord, then count, of Furstenberg. His territories were subsequently divided among several branches of his descendants, though temporarily reunited under Count Friedrich III., whose wife, Anna, heiress of the last count of Wardenberg, brought him the countship of Heiligenberg and lordships of Jungnau and Trochtelfingen in 1534. On Friedrich's death (1559) his territories were divided between his two sons, Joachim and Christof I. Of these the former founded the line of Heiligenberg, the latter that of Kinzigthal. The Kinzigthal branch was again subdivided in the 17th century between the two sons of Christof II. (d. 1614), the elder, Wratislaw II. (d. 1642), founding the line of Mosskirch, the younger, Friedrich Rudolf (d. 1655), that of Stuhlingen. The Heiligenberg branch received an accession of dignity by the elevation of Count Hermann Egon (d. 1674) to the rank of prince of the Empire in 1664, but his line became extinct with the death of his son Prince Anton Egon, favourite of King Augustus the Strong and regent of Saxony, in 1716. The heads of both the Mosskirch and Stuhlingen lines were now raised to the dignity of princes of the Empire (1716). The Mosskirch branch died out with Prince Karl Friedrich (d. 1744); the territories of the Stuhlingen branch had been divided on the death of Count Prosper Ferdinand (1662-1704) between his two sons, Joseph Wilhelm Ernst (1699-1762) and Ludwig August Egon (1705-1759). The first of these was created prince of the Empire on the 10th of December 1716, and founded the princely line of the Swabian Furstenbergs; in 1772 he obtained from the emperor Francis I. for all his legitimate sons and their descendants the right to bear, instead of the style of landgrave, that of prince, which had so far been confined to the reigning head of the family. Ludwig, on the other hand, founded the family of the landgraves of Furstenberg, who, since their territories lay in Austria and Moravia, were known as the "cadet line in Austria." The princely line became extinct with the death of Karl Joachim in 1804, and the inheritance passed to the Bohemian branch of the Austrian cadet line in the person of Karl Egon II. (see below). Two years later the principality was mediatized.

In 1909 there were two branches of the princely house of Furstenberg: (1) the main branch, that of Furstenberg-Donaueschingen, the head of which was Prince Maximilian Egon (b. 1863), who succeeded his cousin Karl Egon III. in 1896; (2) that of Furstenberg-Konigshof, in Bohemia, the head of which was Prince Emil Egon (b. 1876), chamberlain and secretary of legation to the Austro-Hungarian embassy in London (1907). The cadet line of the landgraves of Furstenberg is now extinct, its last representative having been the landgrave Joseph Friedrich Ernst of Furstenberg-Weitra (1860-1896), son of the landgrave Ernst (1816-1889) by a morganatic marriage. He was not recognized as _ebenburtig_ by the family. The landgraves of Furstenberg were in 1909 represented only by the landgravines Theresa (b. 1839) and Gabrielle (b. 1844), daughters of the landgrave Johann Egon (1802-1879).

From the days of Heinrich of Urach, a relative and notable supporter of Rudolph of Habsburg, the Furstenbergs have played a stirring part in German history as statesmen, ecclesiastics and notably soldiers. There was a popular saying that "the emperor fights no great battle but a Furstenberg falls." In the Heiligenberg line the following may be more

## particularly noticed.

FRANZ EGON (1625-1682), bishop of Strassburg, was the elder son of Egon VII., count of Furstenberg (1588-1635), who served with distinction as a Bavarian general in the Thirty Years' War. He began life as a soldier in the imperial service, but on the elevation of his friend Maximilian Henry of Bavaria to the electorate of Cologne in 1650, he went to his court and embraced the ecclesiastical career. He soon gained a complete ascendancy over the weak-minded elector, and, with his brother William Egon (see below), was mainly instrumental in making him the tool of the aggressive policy of Louis XIV. of France. Ecclesiastical preferments were heaped upon him. As a child he had been appointed to a canonry of Cologne; to these he added others at Strassburg, Liege, Hildesheim and Spires; he became also suffragan bishop and dean of Cologne and provost of Hildesheim, and in 1663 bishop of Strassburg. Later he was also prince-abbot of Luders and Murbach and abbot of Stablo and Malmedy. On the conclusion of a treaty between the emperor and the elector of Cologne, on the 11th of May 1674, Franz was deprived of all his preferments in Germany, and was compelled to take refuge in France. He was, however, amnestied with his brother William by a special article of the treaty of Nijmwegen (1679), whereupon he returned to Cologne. After the French occupation of Strassburg (1681) he took up his residence there and died on the 1st of April 1682.

His brother WILLIAM EGON (1629-1704), bishop of Strassburg, began his career as a soldier in the French service. He went to the court of the elector of Cologne at the same time as Franz Egon, whose zeal for the cause of Louis XIV. of France he shared. In 1672 the intrigues of the two Furstenbergs had resulted in a treaty of offensive alliance between the French monarchy and the electorate of Cologne, and, the brothers being regarded by the Imperialists as the main cause of this disaster, William was seized by imperial soldiers in the monastery of St Pantaleon at Cologne, hurried off to Vienna and there tried for his life. He was saved by the intervention of the papal nuncio, but was kept in prison till the signature of the treaty of Nijmwegen (1679). As a reward for his services Louis XIV. appointed him bishop of Strassburg in succession to his brother in 1682, in 1686 obtained for him from Pope Innocent XI. the cardinal's hat, and in 1688 succeeded in obtaining his election as coadjutor-archbishop of Cologne and successor to the elector Maximilian Henry. At the instance of the emperor, however, the pope interposed his veto; the canons followed the papal lead, and, the progress of the Allies against Louis XIV. depriving him of all prospect of success, William Egon retired to France. Here he took up his abode at his abbey of St Germain des Pres near Paris, where he died on the 10th of April 1704.

In the Stuhlingen line the most notable was KARL EGON (1796-1854), prince of Furstenberg, the son of Prince Karl Alois of Furstenberg, a general in the Austrian service, who was killed at the battle of Loptingen on the 25th of March 1799. In 1804 he inherited the Swabian principality of Furstenberg and all the possessions of the family except the Moravian estates. He studied at Freiburg and Wurzburg, and in 1815 accompanied Prince Schwarzenberg to Paris as staff-officer. In 1817 he came of age, and in the following year married the princess Amalie of Baden. By the mediatization of his principality in 1806 the greater part of his vast estates had fallen under the sovereignty of the grand-duke of Baden, and Prince Furstenberg took a conspicuous part in the upper house of the grand-duchy. In politics he distinguished himself by a liberalism rare in a great German noble, carrying through by his personal influence with his peers the abolition of tithes and feudal dues and stanchly advocating the freedom of the press. He was not less distinguished by his large charities: among other foundations he established a hospital at Donaueschingen. For the industrial development of the country, too, he did much, and proved himself also a notable patron of the arts. His palace of Donaueschingen, with its collections of paintings, engravings and coins, was a centre of culture, where poets, painters and musicians met with princely entertainment. He died on the 14th of September 1869, and was succeeded by his son Karl Egon II. (1820-1892), with the death of whose son, Karl Egon III., in 1896, the title and estates passed to Prince Maximilian Egon, head of the cadet line of Furstenberg-Purglitz.

See Munch, _Gesch. des Hauses und des Landes Furstenberg_, 4 vols. (Aix-la-Chapelle, 1829-1847); S. Riezler, _Gesch. des furstlichen Hauses Furstenberg bis 1507_ (Tubingen, 1883); _Furstenbergisches Urkundenbuch_, edited by S. Riezler and F.L. Baumann, vols. i.-vii. (Tubingen, 1877-1891), continued _s. tit. Mitteilungen aus dem furstlich. Furstenbergischem Archiv_ by Baumann and G. Tumbult, 2 vols. (ib. 1899-1902); Stokvis, _Manuel d'histoire_ (Leiden, 1890-1893); _Almanach de Gotha; Allgemeine deutsche Biographie_.

2. The second Furstenberg family has its possessions in Westphalia and the country of the Rhine, and takes its name from the castle of Furstenberg on the Ruhr. The two most remarkable men whom it has produced are Franz Friedrich Wilhelm, freiherr von Furstenberg, and Franz Egon, count von Furstenberg-Stammheim. The former (1728-1810) became ultimately vicar-general of the prince-bishop of Munster, and effected a great number of important reforms in the administration of the country, besides doing much for its educational and industrial development. The latter (1797-1859) was an enthusiastic patron of art, who zealously advocated the completion of the Cologne cathedral, and erected the beautiful church of St Apollinaris near Remagen on the Rhine. He was a member of the Prussian Upper House in 1849, collaborated in founding the _Preussisches Wochenblatt_, and was an ardent defender of Catholic interests. His son, Count Gisbert von Furstenberg-Stammheim (b. 1836), was in 1909 head of the Rhenish line of the house of Furstenberg.