Renaissance furniture is the furniture made in Europe during the Renaissance, from roughly the fifteenth century in Italy to the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries in northern Europe. It applied the newly revived vocabulary of classical antiquity, including columns, pilasters, pediments, acanthus, grotesques and architectural mouldings, to chests, cabinets, tables and seating.
In Italy walnut was the favoured timber, and characteristic forms include the cassone or marriage chest, the sgabello hall chair, the credenza and the massive refectory table, often richly carved, gilded or inlaid with intarsia. French Renaissance work, associated with the Loire châteaux and the designs of Jacques Androuet du Cerceau, adopted elaborate architectural cabinets, while Flemish and German makers developed strapwork and dense figural carving that strongly shaped English Elizabethan furniture. Genuine pieces are rare and largely confined to museums and major collections. Much of what appears on the market is nineteenth-century Renaissance Revival work, often incorporating older carved panels, so construction, timber, tool marks and the consistency of carving must be examined closely. Even so, good revival pieces have real presence and suit large halls and panelled rooms.
