This cabinet filled with a wide variety of Aesthetic Movement transferware patterns in brown and black is located in a San Francisco house of the Victorian era – decorated in the Aesthetic style. The Aesthetic Movement in Britain (c. 1860 – c. 1900) aimed to transform the ugliness and materialism of the Industrial Age by focusing instead on producing art that was beautiful without needing a deeper meaning, Art for Art's sake. Items of Japanese origin or inspiration took pride of place. Japan's forced opening to foreign trade in 1853 triggered a veneration of all things Japanese, exemplified by England's passion for old 'Blue-and-White' Asian ceramics. Japanese design concepts such as asymmetry, flat patterning, simplified form and elegant surface ornament became foundational to the Aesthetic vocabulary. Scott Hanson photo.
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