Étagère

In 1897, America's premier wicker concern, the Wakefield Rattan Company of Wakefield, Massachusetts (established in 1855) was consolidated with Heywood Brothers and Company of Gardner, Massachusetts (established in 1826), one of the country's largest importer in the world of rattan and its byproducts, cane, pole, reed, and peel. These comprise the main materials used to create wicker, a generic term referring to woven furniture. The new firm advertised this Victorian étagère in its 1899 illustrated trade catalogue at a time when wicker was one of the most popular types of furniture in America. Between 1890–1910, with the rise of industrialization and the middle-class consumer, the demand for fanciful, affordable, and individually crafted wicker pieces reached its peak. During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the artistic decoration of the home was of paramount importance to the Victorian housewife, who used wicker to enliven the interior and to contrast with wood paneling and heavier pieces of solid wood furniture. Wicker captured the attention of both wealthy and middle-class consumers with its allusions to the Orient. It came in a variety of shapes, ranging from elaborate scrolls and curves inspired by the French Art Nouveau style to the straight lines of Arts and Crafts furniture. A wicker étagère such as this, acted as a fancy display cabinet that could be placed in a parlor where, along with the furniture mantel, it displayed objects that illuminated the personalities, tastes, and social standing of the householders; it might contain curios and exotica acquired through inheritance, gift, or travel. A fancy wicker étagère of this sort also might have been placed in a lady's boudoir to hold diminutive keepsakes, such as photographs, books, needlework, dried flowers, or hand-painted china.