palace of King MinosFrescoed throne room, palace of King Minos at Knossos, Crete, c. 1700–1400 bce.© Q/Fotolia
As seafarers, the Cretans could import a rich variety of materials for building and decorative purposes; a wealth of ideas can be seen in the fine pottery, carved ivories, and beaten gold, silver, and bronze with which their palaces were ornamented.
The pottery and metalwork of the Minoans was technically in advance of other Mediterranean peoples of the time, and they were especially expert in firing such large pottery objects as storage jars and baths. Some furniture, especially storage chests, was made of terra-cotta. A chalice made of obsidian, a volcanic glass about as hard as jade, could only have been shaped by grinding with an abrasive such as emery procured from Cape Emeri on the island of Náxos; the form was apparently based on metalwork. Excavations have proved the existence of an advanced sanitary system, with baths either of marble or terra-cotta. Greece
A period of so-called dark ages in Greece followed the destruction of Knossos in c. 1400 bc, but Cretan civilization had already influenced the mainland before then. Small terra-cotta models of furniture and fragments of tables and chairs dating from as early as 1350 bc have been found. Homer’s epic Odyssey, dating from the 9th–8th century bc, speaks of a chair inlaid with ivory and silver, and sheet copper was used to sheathe beams and architraves. The description of a bed reveals it to have been a rectangular wooden frame with coloured leather thonging, like the usual Egyptian bed, and inlaid with silver and ivory. At this time also, wooden vessels were decorated with sheet-gold ornament with repoussé work (ornament in relief made by hammering the reverse side).
Little or no Greek furniture survives from the classical period (5th century bc), but there is ample evidence that it was well constructed and elaborately decorated. The large number of surviving painted vases are a valuable source of information about many aspects of Greek life, and furniture of all kinds—chairs, tables, day couches used for dining, and a large number of accessories—can be identified. These paintings, in fact, were among the major influences on the French Empire style of the early years of the 19th century. Egyptian influence can be traced in some of the early pieces of furniture, an example being a type of chair having a single leg with a lion’s head at the top and a single paw at the bottom. This also was to be a favourite theme of the Empire style.
In the Hellenistic period (323–30 bc), domestic comfort and decoration were considered once more. Mosaic floors were an important decorative device, originally made of pebbles as at Olynthus but later developing into the black-and-white or coloured mosaics that were widely used throughout the Roman Empire (see the article mosaic). A central, finely designed panel with realistic motifs and a wide, more coarsely executed border of scroll or key patterns acted as a focus for the arrangement of furniture, which was still limited in quantity. Rome
Much more is known about Roman interior decoration, and Roman furniture was based on earlier Greek models. From the beginning of the Christian era the predominant Western style was that derived from ancient Greece by way of Rome. Classical styles were based on mathematically expressed laws of proportion that were applied not only to buildings as a whole but also to much of the interior decoration.
Roman interior decoration is known both from literary sources, such as Pliny’s Natural History and the Histories of Suetonius, and from excavations, such as those that uncovered the remains of the Golden House of Nero soon after 1500 and those at Pompeii and Herculaneum in Italy in the 18th century.
There are many misconceptions about the decoration of the period, most of which date from the 18th century and the classical revival that began soon after 1750. Many excavated bronze objects, including statues, and any bronze that remained above ground, such as the roofing of the Capitol, were melted during medieval times for new work, since bronze was a scarce and expensive metal. This led to the assumption that marble predominated, which is not necessarily true, especially in the case of statuary. Time and exposure to the weather has removed the colour from much of the marble that has survived, but in classical times it was commonly painted and sometimes gilded. Wall paintings at Pompeii and Herculaneum are ample testimony to this. Wall decoration began there about 150 bc, and, by about 80 bc, plastered walls were being made to look like masonry. Such decoration was combined with the true architectural features—e.g., doors and pilasters (flattened columns attached to the wall). The panels are painted variously in yellow, black, magenta, and red, with some imitation marbling indicating an earlier custom of applying marble veneers. Rich colour was also supplied by superbly executed mosaic floors, elegant couches with coloured cushions, and bronze tripods and lamps, such as in the cubiculum of a villa at Boscoreale near Pompeii preserved in the Metropolitan Museum in New York City.
Roman wall painting depicted columns, niches, and open windows with elaborate imaginary views and figures beyond. Painted ruins, such as those in the Villa of Livia, Rome, were the precursors of the 18th- and 19th-century Romantic taste in western Europe.
It has been said that Augustus, who was emperor from 27 bc to ad 14, found Rome of brick and left it of marble, and certainly the interior decoration of imperial Rome expressed the emergence of the city as a world power toward which flowed much of the wealth of the empire. Exotic marbles began to be imported, and brick walls were faced with polished slabs of white and coloured stone. In the more luxurious interiors or for special purposes, obsidian, a natural volcanic glass dark green or purplish-brown in colour, and copper-green malachite were occasionally to be found in the capital. A limited amount of window glass—mostly small, thick, and discoloured panes—was used, for sheet glass was difficult to manufacture. Large translucent crystals of selenite (a kind of gypsum) were sometimes employed to admit light.
Some of the large houses contained a picture gallery, known as the pinacoteca, for the display of easel pictures. These have now virtually disappeared, but mural paintings are fairly common. Pictorial decoration for floors and walls was supplied by mosaics, the picture built up of small fragments (tesserae) of coloured stones, mostly marble, or of small pieces of coloured glass backed by gold foil to increase its reflective power. The subjects are very diverse. Floor-mosaics in dining-rooms were sometimes decorated with simulated fragments of food, as though they had dropped from the table.
Roman furniture was made of stone, wood, or bronze. Villas were largely open to the air, and stone benches and tables were common. Wooden furniture has not survived, but bronze hardware for such furniture is well-known. Buffets with tiers of shelves were used to display silver. Tables were often made of exotic woods and veneers, with ivory, bronze, or silver trim. Tortoiseshell veneers were popular. The dining couches, which replaced chairs, were richly decorated, often with gilded silver or bronze. Chairs followed earlier Greek forms, and while no fixed upholstery was provided, cushions were plentiful.