Restoration style

also: Carolean style

style 1660-c. 1690 England

Restoration style - also called Carolean style, after Carolus, the Latin name of Charles II - is the decorative and literary art that flourished in England from the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 until the late 1680s. The returning king and his court came home from Continental exile with a taste for magnificence and opulence that swept away Cromwellian severity and opened English taste to Dutch and French influence. Furniture turned from oak to walnut: floral marquetry, twisted turned supports, exotic veneers and cane seats appeared, upholstered in sumptuous tapestry and velvet, while silver was embossed with naturalistic tulips, fruit and leaves. New forms entered the English interior - cabinets on stands, chests of drawers, armchairs, wing chairs and daybeds - and growing East India Company trade brought Chinese and Japanese exotica. Prose shifted too, toward the polished gallantry of the age.

South facing front to Belton House
South facing front to Belton HouseCC BY-SA 3.0 (credit: Wehha) · source

Defining characteristics

  • Floral marquetry and figured walnut replacing the plain oak of the previous age
  • Twisted, turned supports and legs, with carved and gilded scrolling bases on cabinets
  • Exotic veneers, caned seats and backs, tapestry and velvet upholstery
  • Silver embossed with naturalistic tulips, fruit and leaves
  • Opulent, magnificence-seeking interiors absorbing Dutch and French decorative influence
  • New furniture types: cabinets on stands, chests of drawers, armchairs, wing chairs, daybeds

Key figures

  • Charles II (1630-1685) — King whose 1660 return brought the exiled court and its taste for magnificence back to England
  • Grinling Gibbons (1648-1721) — Anglo-Dutch master carver of naturalistic woodwork in Restoration interiors
  • Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) — Diarist whose vivid everyday prose exemplifies Restoration literary style
  • John Dryden (1631-1700) — England's first Poet Laureate and the dominant literary voice of the Restoration

Example works

Sources

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