Bamboo

Few antiques can boast a history marked by as many twists and turns as that of bamboo furniture. Although some experts believe the Asian tradition of making furniture from the pliable plant may date back to the. The album recorded the various modes of architecture and decorations that Chambers witnessed during his travels to China, and it included a depiction of a pair of bamboo chairs and a table. However, not everyone heeded Chambers’ example of authenticity. Instead, some preferred furniture that imitated bamboo in showy fashion, including famed 18th-century English actor and aesthete David Garrick, who purchased a set of rush-seat chairs painted with lively swirls meant to suggest bamboo’s knots. But the Englishman who took the greatest liberties with Chinese design traditions was King George IV, who reveled in a slew of exotic decorations, such as European-made chairs with legs of turned wood meant to mimic the bamboo stem’s knots, as well as a cast-iron stair railing molded to imitate bamboo.