Changed Days

Inspiration for today's blip came from a set of four volumes on The History of English Furniture by Percy MacQuoid - a collector and connoisseur. These were gifted to my aunt by her parents when she was only 16 years of age. She went on to become an artist and died recently aged 86.

These volumes have been passed to me, and a search on Google revealed that - The Age of Oak : The Age of Walnut : The Age of Mahogany : The Age of Satinwood - were first published in 1904 and are still highly respected reference works on the development of English furniture from the 16th century through its golden age, up to 1820. The illustrations are wonderful - works of art in themselves, especially the plates in colour signed by the artist Shirley Slocombe. You can see this on the writing chair picture.

I thought a way to convey the huge shift in our culture since these leisurely times was to put a mahogany writing chair side by side with my ergonomic HÅG office chair, where I do all my writing these days. HÅG, of course, is not English, but a leading brand of Scandinavian business seating, known for its design excellence. They each are excellent in their own ways. I am looking forward (in my spare time!) to seeing what I can learn about the influences on furniture design over the centuries. Rooke's Books have a 1938 set and you can see more furniture pictures by clicking here. The value of these second hand books, of course, depends on their condition and how they were bound. Prices for a set appear to vary from £1,300 to £180, and individual paperback reproductions are available for a few pounds. Interesting!

HÅG chair: Sony Cybershot DSC-RX100: ISO 400: 10.4 mm F1.8: 1/30
Mahogany Writing Chair - Plate IX (Age of Mahogany): Sony Cybershot DSC-RX100: ISO 800: 20mm: f3.5: 1/30