Search

Created c.1568 to commemorate a trio of dynastic marriages between the Cavendishes and the Talbots, the 'Aeglentyne' Table stands in the High Great Chamber at Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire. Featuring an intricate three-panelled motif of musical instruments, gaming paraphernalia, and intertwining flowers borrowed from various continental prints, it has long been held as a masterpiece of English furniture. However, when approached through a traditional stylistic analysis, based upon the identification of tropes and features, the Eglantine Table runs the risk of falling under the category of 'bad' style: it is paratactic; it is epideictic. Such a judgement utterly misses the point of the Eglantine Table, and its visual strategies. 'Style' has become a ubiquitous term for the analysis of the things of visual culture. It allows the historian of visual culture to categorize into a shorthand that belies the sheer variety of the objects of study. The work of Willibald Sauerländer, amongst others, has long since argued for a deeper reflection on 'style' and a shift away from the 'sheer abysmal vagueness' of stylistic analysis. This paper seeks to respond to Sauerländer's call by providing a sensitive and illuminating analysis of the style(s) of the Eglantine Table. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

London's Tottenham Court Road has long been associated with the furniture business, but had its heyday between 1850 and 1950. This paper considers the furniture business in this street through a mix of retail business history and urban geography. It will attempt to show why this particular 'furniture street' developed as it did. Considerations of the networks or clusters of businesses associated with furniture-making assist in the analysis. The nature of the furniture industry and trade in the immediate area and the history of particular stores in the street as exemplars of the processes are examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The furniture maker has been seen within English culture as an embodiment of a skilled craft worker. In similar vein, anthropologists and philanthropists working in London's East End in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the site of the capital's furniture industry, saw the possession of furniture as a sign of respectability. However, although researchers have acknowledged the role of furniture in the study of material culture, scant attention has been paid to the specific meanings given to furniture made by a known family member. This paper suggests that such crafted furniture and photographs of such objects have a particular role in the development of material culture and public history. Furniture made by cabinet makers and wood carvers in London's East End has been conventionally defined as unskilled work. However, the way such work is viewed by their current owners gives different insights and suggests alternative ways of approaching this topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: There have been approximately 400 third sector organisations set up across the UK since the 1970s with the primary function of collecting used furniture and electrical appliances and re-distributing them for the relief of hardship. In addition to the resulting socio-economic outputs of these organisations, their role in diverting waste from landfill and increasing re-use and recycling rates raises their standing in the current political climate of high emphasis on improving waste management practices. This paper reports on the current size of the furniture and appliance re-use sector, how re-use organisations operate, and the level of re-use and recycling associated with their activities. It was found that significant improvements in the re-use rate of local authority bulky waste collection services may be obtained if a third sector re-use organisation takes over the service; where re-use organisations collect household bulky waste on behalf of the LA, a 40% re-use rate was achieved, compared to the 2–3% average of waste collection departments. In most areas of the UK, these two sectors are not well integrated at present and this results in potentially re-usable items being disposed of to landfill or incinerated. Establishing partnerships between the two sectors has the potential to benefit both but this will probably require system and culture changes. A significant current barrier is that LA waste management departments are hampered by the current (well-intended) quantitative waste management system coming into conflict with the unquantified, positive social value generated by the distribution of previously used bulky household items to disadvantaged groups by re-use organisations. If added to the environmental improvements and high quality of service provided by third sector-run services, the effort involved in setting up such partnerships may be regarded more favourably. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Advice books in the first half of the nineteenth century offered homemakers instructions for creating the ideal home. The problem for the design historian is to ascertain with what results the homemaker mediated these instructions. This article suggests using lists of house contents, which survive in a variety of forms, and adopting a qualitative approach to their analysis. Evidence for a number of middle-class homes is used to explore the variations. The symbolic value of individual objects and their role within the material culture of the home is examined--in particular, the use of textiles to articulate the practical and symbolic functions of living rooms. Although all the examples followed the general tendencies of the period as described in advice books, they also showed distinct differences according to social status, age, sex and occupation. A qualitative approach to the evidence permits exploration of the differences between homes and the possible social and cultural meaning that they conveyed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]