Spanish colonial furniture of the West Indies

Magazine Antiques, March, 2002 by Michael Connors

Robert Wemyss Symonds describes West Indian mahogany from Santo Domingo, Cuba, and Jamaica as:

extremely hard with a smooth surface which allows it to be easily polished. Although much of this wood is plain, it is also found with a fine figure which adds considerably to its value. Logs of San Domingo mahogany are not of such large dimensions as those obtained from the mahogany trees of Cuba. (3)

Other tropical woods used in furniture making are ausubo (Manilkara bidentata), often referred to as bulletwood; satinwood (Zanthoxylum flavum); cedar (Cedrela odorata); sabicu (Lysiloma latisiliqua); and jacaranda (Jacaranda mimosifolia).

From the establishment of the first Spanish colonies until the late sixteenth century the majority of furnishings in the new world came from Europe. It was this imported furniture that was subsequently used as templates for locally made pieces (see Pl. VI). Other than the furniture itself, a few written journals, wills, and inventories, and even fewer eighteenth-century drawings and paintings survive to document early Spanish colonial furnishings.

Most surviving sixteenth- and seventeenth-century island-made furniture is ecclesiastical (Pl. V) and includes sacristy cupboards, or armoires, chests, and chairs (Pl. VIII). The earliest known reference to furniture on the Spanish islands is to sixteenth-century "Spanish stools" (taburetesm), which had leather seats and backrests secured to the wooden frame with copper or brass studs. All furniture forms were plain in design with simple or no surface decoration.

One particularly interesting feature on the earliest Spanish colonial cedar chests are the elaborate exposed dovetails, commonly referred to as step dovetails (see Pl. III), which are very similar to the dovetails on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Bermudian cedar chests. In his discussion of the origin of this construction feature on Bermudian chests, Bryden Bordley Hyde theorizes that it developed from Mudejar chests. (4) The step-dovetailed chest was probably brought to Bermuda from the Spanish islands. Indeed, the Spanish captain Juan de Bermudez is believed to have discovered Bermuda in the first decade of the sixteenth century.

During the eighteenth century, with the growth of the sugar industry the Spanish colonies became more than military and commercial outposts and began to prosper economically and socially. Unlike the French, Dutch, Danish, (5) and English islands, the most luxurious houses on the Spanish islands were built in the towns, away from the plantations from which their owners earned their livings. (6) Initially the Spanish sugar plantation owners filled their houses with imported furniture, some of which was inevitably copied by local craftsmen (see Pl. VII). Along with the sugar barons were the Spanish merchants who also acquired great wealth and whose houses (see Pl. XVI) were described in the nineteenth century as follows:

The entrances are very spacious, the staircases as regal as those in Stafford House in London [known today as Lancaster House], the floors are marble, the walls are covered in azulejos or small glazed tiles and the banisters are made of iron. The rooms are twenty feet high, with exposed beams, the doors and windows are huge, the furniture is elaborate and solidly made. Here the merchant or banker sits, in white trousers and elegantly shod. He undoes his white jacket, loosens his tie and smokes cigars, surrounded by luxury. (7)