The Decorative Arts Dictionary is a comprehensive guide that covers 150 years of the decorative and applied arts. These articles provide an in-depth exploration of the evolution of decorative arts from the mid-19th century to the present day. It covers various topics, including furniture, ceramics, glassware, textiles, metalwork, and jewellery.
It offers a fascinating insight into how art movements have influenced decorative arts over time and how they continue to shape contemporary design today. Whether you are a collector, designer, or art enthusiast, these articles will surely provide you with a wealth of knowledge on this fascinating subject.
An extension table is a table whose length can be increased by inserting a leaf or leaves. The Pulman Extension Table is made of durable solid wood and can be used in various settings.Read More →
The guilloche is a decorative element that encircles a line of bosses with two bands or ribbons intertwined. In the British Regency style, it was particularly well-liked and adopted by furniture designers from Renaissance to the Twenties and Fifties.Read More →
An acroter is a pedestal or ornament placed at the apex or lower corners of a pediment in classical and classically inspired architecture.Read More →
Mission-style furniture, inspired by a church chair found by Joseph McHugh, emerged from the Arts and Crafts movement, emphasizing utility and simplicity against Victorian excess.Read More →
The article discusses ecclesiastical and secular use of basins, including their significance and decorations. It also mentions specific examples and historical context.Read More →
Shagreen, known as galuchat or sharkskin, is fish skin used as furniture veneer. It became popular in the 1920s, and faux shagreen is now an eco-friendly alternative.Read More →
Fujina pottery is made at Matsue, Shimane. 19th-century products include bluish-green tea bowls and white, yellow, or bluish-green domestic pottery. Later urban work promotes folk art.Read More →
Amstelhoek was a Dutch pottery founded in 1897 by Willem Christiaan Hoeker. It produced dark-coloured vases and bowls with white in-lays, brown vases with blue decorations and small animal-shaped vases with white inlays on darkgrounds. In 1903 it went bankrupt, but was still producing earthenware until 1907, when it was taken over by the majolica tirm Haga, which merged with the larger De Distel plant in 1910.Read More →
Anthropometrics is a systematic study of human measurement that was increasingly used by designers dealing with design issues involving human movement in the decades following WWII. Their implementation of a more analytical and methodical approach to design problems had a lot in common with the techniques studied at the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Ulm from the mid-1950s to the 1960s, as well as the Design Methods trend.Read More →
The Abstracta Low Bookcase, designed by Poul Cadovius in the 1960s, features a modular system for constructing versatile metal structures for display and storage.Read More →