Biedermeier

ビーダーマイヤー / 1820s–1850s / Style / Furniture and Interiors

Biedermeier is a satirical label pinned on Central European art and interiors of the 1820s to the 1850s, which then stuck as the name of the style. The Getty vocabulary ties it to middle class taste, to uncomplicated and modest forms, and to emotional depictions of people and nature. The name came from those mocking the taste rather than from anyone who made the work.

Biedermeier — Biedermeier sofa, Austria, c. 1815–1825, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain — Biedermeier sofa, Austria, c. 1815–1825, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

Biedermeier — Spherical work table, Vienna, c. 1815–1820, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain — Spherical work table, Vienna, c. 1815–1820, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts — Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

Biedermeier — Biedermeier interior, Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte Oldenburg — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0 · © James Steakley — Biedermeier interior, Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte Oldenburg — Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · © James Steakley

At a glance

Visual cues

Furniture whose outline stays simple, with no carving or inlay laid over it
Plain figured wood facing forward, standing in for ornament
Subjects drawn from people close at hand and from nature, treated with feeling
Modest sizes made for a citizen's room rather than a court hall

Best used for

Finishing domestic furniture or fittings with plain wood surfaces and outline alone
Setting the subjects and tone of illustration or photography about middle class life

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Dictionary entry

Type: Keep lettering quiet, using a plain roman at small size and never a heavy display face.
Composition: Symmetrical, with one subject at the centre, and spacing that keeps the density of a lived-in room.
Material: Pale figured wood with an even sheen, small metal fittings, and a palette held to about three colours.
Caution: Stripping every last ornament in the name of simplicity leaves work indistinguishable from later functionalist furniture and drains out the domestic warmth that defined the style.
Further study: the point where the Getty description states outright that Biedermeier is a satirical name / how far the bracket of middle class taste reaches beyond furniture / the later reappraisal that happened outside the 1820s to 1850s bracket

Related entries

Shaker Design (シェーカー・デザイン)Same Furniture and Interiors lineage.Compare Biedermeier and Shaker Design
Bentwood (Thonet) (曲木家具（トーネット）)Same Furniture and Interiors lineage.Compare Biedermeier and Bentwood (Thonet)

Often confused with

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