The Regency period in England was named for the Prince of Wales, the Prince Regent from 1811 to 1820, and later King George IV, whose patronage naturally led the tastes and fashions of the age (hence it was also known as a sub-period of the Georgian era). While the prince’s regency technically only lasted for nine years, the Regency era more generally refers to the first few decades of the 19th century, beginning with King George III's madness and ending with George IV's death in 1830. It was a period when the English country home reigned supreme, and a new, distinctly English version of the French Empire style emerged in both architecture and home decor.
The Prince Regent: Tastemaker
While previous periods of design also bear the names of their respective monarchs, the Regency period stands out because the true influence of the prince as a tastemaker was unparalleled in recent history in England. Not only did his influence extend to home decor, decorative objects, furniture and architecture, but he also influenced new social innovations that changed the day-to-day lives of the English nobility. The aristocracy no longer dines at 3 PM but closer to 7 in the evening. Service à la française fell out of fashion during meals, while service à la russe (in the Russian style), wherein dishes were served by footmen, became the preferred dining method. Even the form of the dinner service itself began to change thanks to the prince’s patronage of Rundell, Bridge, and Rundell, the goldsmiths to the Crown who championed a neoclassical style.
Indeed, the Regency era was one of the most creative, inventive, and expensive periods of English Regency design for any furniture maker, fueled and paid for by the rapid growth of industrialization in Western Europe. Wealthy patrons in England delighted in following the Prince’s eclectic taste for neoclassical design and a range of stylistic revivals, including the Indian and Gothic revival styles. While his indulgent lifestyle eventually took a toll on his health, his lavish commissions still form much of the present-day Royal Collection.
Naturally, the Regency furniture style evolved from the previous decades to reflect these trends. Craftsmen in London were the first to respond to the new styles, though gradually, the prince’s influence also spread to more rural regions. Now, many pieces of Regency furniture, like Regency chairs, are considered valuable antiques.
Neoclassicism and the French Empire Style
While at this point in each country’s history, the French and English were considered enemies on the political stage (the Napoleonic wars began in 1803), the French still had a massive influence on the styles and fashions of the English. Naturally, the Prince Regent wished to match, and even exceed, the design achievements of his rival.
First, a little history about the Empire style itself: its emergence was largely thanks to the aspirations of Napoléon and the Napoléon legacy. The young general’s campaigns in Egypt, though unsuccessful in achieving his military aims, served to bring the world of the ancients to France and, eventually, England.
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Napoléon approached his Egyptian campaign in an unprecedented way — to mount the first comprehensive scientific expedition to the region to study both ancient and modern Egypt. For this purpose, he invited 150 scholars on his campaign to systematically study the region and its inhabitants. The final result of their exhaustive research was the 34-volume Description de l'Égypte, which contained 844 highly detailed engravings and remains, to this day, among the most influential scientific and anthropological studies ever made.
The volume’s influence was immediately felt in French furniture design as Napoléon sought to emulate the great civilizations of antiquity. It was just a few short years before their influence similarly crept into London, and the British aristocracy embraced the new, opulent brand of neoclassicism with open arms.
Regency Design in Practice
One distinguishing aspect of Regency Era furniture is how it was influenced by Neoclassicism. While the French reveled in the opulence of antiquity, the English took a more nuanced approach to neoclassicism, remaining true to a classical simplicity of form. Exact replicas of ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman motifs, such as sphinxes, ancient gods, griffins, and lions, were often used as decoration. However, some designers would explore their own interpretations of these motifs.
This was the age of heavy woods, and almost all pieces of Regency-style furniture were crafted from mahogany or rosewood. However, the art of marquetry and carving in wood, decorative practices for which British craftsmen were once renowned, had fallen out of fashion. Instead, a new emphasis was placed on the wood’s surface and extraordinary patinas, as well as elegant silhouettes. Beautiful saber or concave legs echoed similar silhouettes from antiquity, and a particular emphasis was placed on quality and execution.
Classical motifs were incorporated through brass metalwork on corners, legs, hinges, and handles. These often featured elaborate motifs such as shells and acanthus leaves juxtaposed with their simplistic yet beautiful wooden structures.
Regency Architecture and Thomas Hope
Born in 1769, Thomas Hope was a Scottish-Dutch banker and art collector who would become one of the most influential designers of the Regency period. He purchased his famed house on Duchess Street in London in 1799 and immediately set about decorating it to his specific tastes. His collection of ancient Greek vases, which he had acquired on his extensive Grand Tour, was proudly on display. It was on his tour that he first gained an interest in interior design; he returned home determined to reform contemporary taste by returning architecture, design, and furniture style to a state of classical purity.
By 1806, Hope had published his highly influential Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, a text that included engravings of his own designs and interiors. In fact, it was this very text that introduced the term “interior decoration” into the English language. The following year, he acquired his country home, the Deepdene estate in Surrey, which became an important part of his aesthetic campaign.
With the help of the architect William Atkinson, Hope transformed his new home in phases, adding two side wings, an entrance hall, offices, stables, and a soaring tower. All of the brickwork on the exterior was stuccoed in the Italian style. At the same time, the interior was richly decorated with marble walls, Corinthian columns, ancient statuary, and gilding with neoclassical furniture style and characteristics. By 1831, when Hope died, the estate had been transformed into the perfect archetype of Regency taste, reflecting the eclecticism of styles — Greeks, Egyptian, French, Italianate — that dominated the era.
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So great was Hope’s lasting influence that his work on The Deepdene estate was largely responsible for the Regency Revival of the early 20th century. The 1917 Christie’s sale of Hope’s heirlooms sparked the interest of the British-American collector Edward Knoblock, who purchased a number of pieces that formed the basis for the first 20th-century Regency Revival country house, The Beach House in Worthington. Today, the collection represents the lasting influence of the Regency style in the realm of architecture and interior design.
Shopping for antique furniture from the Regency era? Browse M.S. Rau’s entire collection of Regency-period furnishings.
And if you’re interested in different furniture periods in history, explore our blog to learn everything you need to know, from Victorian furniture styles to federal style furniture.
