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In its sinuous lines and flamboyant curves inspired by the natural world, antique Art Nouveau furniture reflects a desire for freedom from the stuffy social and artistic strictures of the Victorian era. The Art Nouveau movement developed in the decorative arts in France and Britain in the early 1880s and quickly became a dominant aesthetic style in Western Europe and the United States.

ORIGINS OF ART NOUVEAU FURNITURE DESIGN

• Emerged during the late 19th century
• Popularity of this modernizing style declined in the early 20th century
• Originated in France and Britain but variants materialized elsewhere
• Informed by Rococo, Pre-Raphaelite art, Japanese art (and Japonisme), Arts and Crafts; influenced modernism, Bauhaus

CHARACTERISTICS OF ART NOUVEAU FURNITURE DESIGN

• Sinuous, organic and flowing lines
• Forms that mimic flowers and plant life
• Decorative inlays and ornate carvings of natural-world motifs such as insects and animals 
• Use of hardwoods such as oak, mahogany and rosewood

ART NOUVEAU FURNITURE DESIGNERS TO KNOW

• Charles Rennie Mackintosh
• Louis Majorelle
• Émile Gallé
• Antoni Gaudí
• Tiffany Studios

ANTIQUE ART NOUVEAU FURNITURE ON 1STDIBS

Art Nouveau — which spanned furniture, architecture, jewelry and graphic design — can be easily identified by its lush, flowing forms suggested by flowers and plants, as well as the lissome tendrils of sea life. Although Art Deco and Art Nouveau were both in the forefront of turn-of-the-20th-century design, they are very different styles — Art Deco is marked by bold, geometric shapes while Art Nouveau incorporates dreamlike, floral motifs. The latter’s signature motif is the "whiplash" curve — a deep, narrow, dynamic parabola that appears as an element in everything from chair arms to cabinetry and mirror frames.

The visual vocabulary of Art Nouveau was particularly influenced by the soft colors and abstract images of nature seen in Japanese art prints, which arrived in large numbers in the West after open trade was forced upon Japan in the 1860s. Impressionist artists were moved by the artistic tradition of Japanese woodblock printmaking, and Japonisme — a term used to describe the appetite for Japanese art and culture in Europe at the time — greatly informed Art Nouveau. 

The Art Nouveau style quickly reached a wide audience in Europe via advertising posters, book covers, illustrations and other work by such artists as Aubrey Beardsley, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Alphonse Mucha. While all Art Nouveau designs share common formal elements, different countries and regions produced their own variants.

In Scotland, the architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh developed a singular, restrained look based on scale rather than ornament; a style best known from his narrow chairs with exceedingly tall backs, designed for Glasgow tea rooms. Meanwhile in France, Hector Guimard — whose iconic 1896 entry arches for the Paris Metro are still in use — and Louis Majorelle produced chairs, desks, bed frames and cabinets with sweeping lines and rich veneers. 

The Art Nouveau movement was known as Jugendstil ("Youth Style") in Germany, and in Austria the designers of the Vienna Secession group — notably Koloman Moser, Josef Hoffmann and Joseph Maria Olbrich — produced a relatively austere iteration of the Art Nouveau style, which mixed curving and geometric elements.

Art Nouveau revitalized all of the applied arts. Ceramists such as Ernest Chaplet and Edmond Lachenal created new forms covered in novel and rediscovered glazes that produced thick, foam-like finishes. Bold vases, bowls and lighting designs in acid-etched and marquetry cameo glass by Émile Gallé and the Daum Freres appeared in France, while in New York the glass workshop-cum-laboratory of Louis Comfort Tiffany — the core of what eventually became a multimedia decorative-arts manufactory called Tiffany Studios — brought out buoyant pieces in opalescent favrile glass. 

Jewelry design was revolutionized, as settings, for the first time, were emphasized as much as, or more than, gemstones. A favorite Art Nouveau jewelry motif was insects (think of Tiffany, in his famed Dragonflies glass lampshade).

Like a mayfly, Art Nouveau was short-lived. The sensuous, languorous style fell out of favor early in the 20th century, deemed perhaps too light and insubstantial for European tastes in the aftermath of World War I. But as the designs on 1stDibs demonstrate, Art Nouveau retains its power to fascinate and seduce.

There are ways to tastefully integrate a touch of Art Nouveau into even the most modern interior — browse an extraordinary collection of original antique Art Nouveau furniture on 1stDibs, which includes decorative objects, seating, tables, garden elements and more.

Prints are works of art produced in multiple editions. Though several copies of a specific artwork can exist, collectors consider antique and vintage prints originals when they have been manually created by the artist or are “impressions” that are part of the artist’s intent for the work.

Modern artists use a range of printmaking techniques to produce different types of prints such as relief, intaglio and planographic. Relief prints are created by cutting away a printing surface to leave only a design. Ink or paint is applied to the raised parts of the surface, and it is used to stamp or press the design onto paper or another surface. Relief prints include woodcuts, linocuts and engravings.

Intaglio prints are the opposite of relief prints in that they are incised into the printing surface. The artist cuts the design into a block, plate or other material and then coats it with ink before wiping off the surface and transferring the design to paper through tremendous pressure. Intaglio prints have plate marks showing the impression of the original block or plate as it was pressed onto the paper.

Artists create planographic prints by drawing a design on a stone or metal plate using a grease crayon. The plate is washed with water, then ink is spread over the plate and it adheres to the grease markings. The image is then stamped on paper to make prints.

All of these printmaking methods have an intricate process, although each can usually transfer only one color of ink. Artists use separate plates or blocks for multiple colors, and together these create one finished work of art.

Find prints ranging from the 18th- and 19th-century bird illustrations by J.C. Sepp to mid-century modern prints, as well as numerous other antique and vintage prints at 1stDibs. Browse the collection today and read about how to arrange wall art in your space.