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                      DUTCH AND FLEMISH FURNITURE


[Illustration:

  FRONTISPIECE. _Bed by Daniel Marot._
]




                      DUTCH AND FLEMISH FURNITURE


                                   By
                            ESTHER SINGLETON
             Author of “French and English Furniture,” etc


                     _With numerous illustrations_


                               NEW YORK:
                          THE McCLURE COMPANY
                     44–60 EAST TWENTY-THIRD STREET
                                  1907




  _Butler and Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, France, and London_

------------------------------------------------------------------------




                                PREFACE


No special inducement need be held out to an educated Englishman at the
present day to take an interest in a particular field of the arts and
crafts of the Low Countries. Long before the nobles of Flanders, France
and England were associated in attempts to free the holy places from the
pollution of infidel possession, the dwellers on the opposite coasts of
England, Normandy and the Netherlands had been bound together by many
dynastic and trade bonds. As we follow the course of history, we find
that the interests of the English and the Flemings were inextricably
connected; and there was a constant stream of the manufactures of the
Low Countries pouring into English ports. The English supplied much of
the raw material upon which the Flemings depended for subsistence. In
mediaeval days the inhabitants of the Low Countries could always be
forced by English statecraft to help the Plantagenet kings in their
continental intrigues by the mere cutting off of the supply of wool.
Later, the community of tastes and interests in Reformation days drew
the races closer together; and all through Elizabethan days, and then
onwards till the close of the Marlborough campaigns, the inhabitants of
England and the Netherlands were on terms of intimate acquaintance,
socially and industrially.

In the following pages, therefore, constant evidence will appear of the
influence of the arts and crafts of the Low Countries on English
manufactures and importations. Trade rivalry frequently gave rise to
coolness between England and Holland, and to an inglorious war in the
days of the Merry Monarch. The latter period I have treated at
considerable length on account of the importance of the Oriental trade
on the interior decorations of Dutch homes.

On taking a general survey of the Decorative Arts of the Low Countries,
we notice several well-defined periods and influences.

Materials are too meagre for us to learn much about domestic interiors
during the Dark Ages, but we know that, in common with England and
Northern France, Scandinavian Art largely prevailed.

The feudal lords of the territories that now formed the Netherlands were
enthusiastic in assuming the cross; and for two centuries the arts and
crafts of Byzantium and the luxury of the East dominated Western Europe.

About 1300 the influence of Byzantium had waned, and the Gothic style
was bursting into full bloom. For the next two centuries it held full
sway, and was then pushed aside by the Renaissance, which made itself
felt at the end of the fifteenth century.

At the end of the sixteenth century we find the Renaissance fully
developed; and for the next fifty years Flanders is the willing slave of
Rubens and his school. The Decadence quickly follows.

The provinces that now constitute Holland and Belgium went hand in hand
in the Decorative Arts until about 1600. If there was any difference,
Holland was more influenced by German and Flanders by French Art. After
the establishment of the Dutch trade with the Far East at the beginning
of the seventeenth century, Dutch and Flemish Art diverge.

In the following chapters I have tried to trace these influences and
developments.

In illustrating the book I have gone to the original works of the great
masters of design—De Vries, Van de Passe, Marot and others. As for Dutch
interiors, nothing can convey a clearer idea of the home than the famous
pictures by the Great and Little Masters—Jan Steen, Teniers, Rembrandt,
Cocques, Metsu, Maes, Terburg, Dou, Weenix, Van Hoogstraten, Troost,
etc., etc., many of whose famous canvases are reproduced here.

I also include photographic reproductions of authentic examples of Dutch
and Flemish furniture preserved in the Cluny, Rijks, Stedelijk and other
museums.

In my attempt to reconstruct Dutch and Flemish interiors of past days, I
have consulted not only histories, memoirs and books of travel, but
w