"Turkish" Parlor Set

Mavi Boncuk |

https://www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-research/digital-collections/artifact/145734


Platform Rocker from "Turkish" Parlor Set, 1885-1895

Settee from "Turkish" Parlor Set, 

Settee (Multiple-seating furniture)

Armchair from "Turkish" Parlor Set, 

Material: Damask, Velvet (Fabric weave)' Silk (Textile), Wood (Plant material)

By the late 19th century, people could afford to buy a roomful of factory-made, designed-to-match furniture. This was reassuring for those uncertain of their decorating skills. Owning such pieces helped confirm one's social standing. This platform rocker, part of a "Turkish" parlor[1] set, reflects Americans' fascination with the exotic, especially the near and far east, although sets of this type were never made there.

[1] The Parlor: https://www.americanheritage.com/parlor

Victorian Parlor Set. Beautifully upholstered double back settee and 3 armchairs; all pieces have matching fringed aprons with triple tassel pendant highlights

But, though no room in the American home in the nineteenth century was more tenderly cared for, fussed over, or jealously protected, no room came in for more abuse and criticism. It was at once the highly polished apple of the housewife’s eye, the butt of rude jokes, the pride of the family, and the target of the architect and the domestic reformer. It was the upholsterer’s and decorator’s gold mine, and, by the same token, the bottomless pit of the family budget. It set husband against wife, daughter against father, and swain against maiden. It was a chamber of horrors for restless children, a rack of boredom for tired men, a family chapel for the sanctification of the household lares and penates.

The parlor, a room in which to have conversation, not only derived etymologically from the French verb parler, but took its airs and graces from what was called in the early part of the last century “the French taste.” In polite urban circles anything French was considered more fashionable than anything English, and it was not until late in the century, when the word “parlor” had become the butt of ridicule and rich Americans were buying titled Englishmen as husbands for their daughters, that the British expression “drawing room” came into polite usage in America. In general the parlor meant a room set apart for formal occasions; for entertaining acquaintances, rather than intimate friends, and clergymen on their rounds of parish calls. The word was ubiquitous, and even in the log houses of the frontier, which consisted of two square cabins joined by a breezeway or dog-trot, the room in which the family entertained guests (as opposed to the “family room,” where the family cooked and ate and some of it slept) was called the parlor. In it were such treasures as had survived the trek from the East … a strip of Brussels carpet, a few pieces of real china, and a clutch of wax flowers in a bell jar.

Practical as well as cultural considerations helped restore a degree of balance as the nineteenth century drew to a close. For one thing, more and more people were living in cities, and a smaller and smaller percentage of city families were living in houses. In the East, by the 1870’s, the value of urban land had made the cost of building a “town house” prohibitive except to the rich, and as a result the apartment house began to appear. Only in expensive apartments was there a room that could be shut off exclusively for formal use, and the parlor became the sitting room for all of the family every day. Its furniture became more comfortable, its atmosphere more relaxed; the children were allowed to do their homework at the center table under a gas fixture which shed its bluewhite light from a ceiling chandelier. Even in large houses and expensive apartments the word “parlor,” identified with the parvenu wealth of the earlier part of the century, lost caste; now decorated with antiques imported from England and France and Italy rather than with American-made furniture, the parlor became the “drawing room.”

Turkish Parlor of “Mableton” (the McDonald Mansion, 1879), Santa Rosa, California.

Conceived in the 19th century Aesthetic Movement tradition of exotic smoking parlors, this newly created room features delicate Moorish-Revival millwork, and a unique Persian-style wallpaper scheme with a stepped central dome ringed by beveled mirrored panels.

Steve Rynerson Rynerson O’Brien Architecture; Paul Duchscherer, Historical Design Consultant; faux bois by George Shadow/Classic Art and Design, Inc.; Steve Bauer/ Bradbury & Bradbury Art Wallpapers; wallpaper installation by Heidi Wright. Mark Citret, Photographer

Peleș Castle  Romania. Salonul Turcesc (The Turkish Parlor) emulates an Ottoman "joie de vivre" atmosphere—a room full of Turkish Izmir rugs and copperware from Anatolia and Persia. It was used as a smoking room for gentlemen. Walls are covered in hand-made textiles like silk brocades from the Siegert shops of Vienna.