represented a reaction to the late Renaissance in its experimentation, its lack of structure and relationships, and its exoticisms. In the production of furniture, this tradition was epitomized by the elaborate 17th century cupboards of New England. Leone Battista Alberti, who wrote an important 15th century work on the theory of art, would not have approved the design of these monumental pieces because he defined the classical principles of beauty in very different terms: “Beauty is the harmony of all the parts, in whatever subject, fitted together with such proportion and connection that nothing can be altered but for the worse.”2
Some of the 17th-century elements of disharmony persisted into the new interpretation of Renaissance classicism, often referred to as the Baroque. Baroque was a French term denoting irregular shapes and was first used widely in the mid-19th century as a term of derision. Today, it is understood to mean a return to classical harmony and motifs but with an exuberant, plastic effect and a dynamic sense of movement. It was sometimes applied to the rococo elements of mid-18th-century furniture, although by then art and architecture as well as the decoration on furniture had become lighter and more delicate.
The changes that were sweeping art, architecture, and the decorative arts in England were the results of momentous events that ended English isolation both culturally and politically and propelled the island nation into the modern period. England began to 1660 with the death of Oliver Cromwell and the passing of the austerity in the decorative arts ended. Charles II, who had spent the preceding decade traveling around Europe, brought with him to England a taste for latest Continental styles. His wife, Catherine of Braganza, a Portuguese craftsman who surrounded her with the richest, most stylish furniture from her native country, which was at the height of its influence and power.
She, like all Europeans, was fascinated with the products of the Orient, where Portugal had been trading since the end of the 16th century. Catherine brought with her the first Oriental cabinets to reach England, and her bedroom at Hampton Court was furniture in the Oriental taste. As part of her dowry, she gave England the right to trade in the Oriental ports opened by Portugal. Queen Elizabeth had established the English East India Company in 1600 but it could not compete with the Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch, who were already dominating the trade with the Orient. Catherine’s dowry gave the English a foothold, and only after 1660 did the company begin to prosper.
England—and indeed all of Europe—was infatuated with the flood of Oriental goods, which included porcelain, lacquer work, painted fabrics, and rich wallpaper. Tea had been imported by the East India Company before Catherine ascended the throne, but it was considered “a rank poison far-fetched and dear bought.” Catherine, however, popularized the tea-drinking habit, and by the end of the century, 20,000 pounds of it