Rustic furniture is furniture made to look deliberately natural and unrefined, using rough branches, roots, logs, bark, twigs or naturally shaped timber, or imitating them in other materials. The term covers both genuine country pieces made from local materials and fashionable designs that celebrate the picturesque idea of nature.
The rustic taste emerged in eighteenth-century England alongside the landscape garden, when Robert Manwaring published designs for rural chairs imitating branches for summerhouses, and William Wrighte illustrated rustic hermitages, grottoes and seats. It flourished in the Victorian period, with rustic garden seats, tables and planters made in wood, and also cast in iron or modelled in cement and terracotta to imitate tree branches, the effect known as faux bois. Black Forest carvers and the makers of the American Adirondack camps produced their own versions. Because rustic pieces were often used outdoors, survivals in good condition are scarce, and rot, insect damage and replaced elements are common. Collectors value bold, sculptural forms and original surfaces. Today rustic furniture suits garden rooms, conservatories, boot rooms and country kitchens, bringing an organic, characterful note to interiors.
