Aesthetic Movement Cast Iron Tiled Fire Insert

In 1880, polymath designer William Morris declared: “If you want a golden rule that will fit everybody, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” His words encapsulated the Aesthetic Movement, which prized beauty above all and blurred the lines between fine art and the decorative arts, particularly through lavishly crafted furniture pieces.

The Aesthetic Movement, whose major proponents included author Oscar Wilde, flourished from the 1860s to the 1880s and was mostly popular in England and the United States. Design expositions like the 1876 Centennial International Exhibition in Philadelphia, as well as the publishing of how-to books for interior design, helped disseminate Aesthetic Movement bedroom furniture, serveware, coffee tables and other items, especially to the middle class.

The establishment of new art museums, art clubs and a rising passion for collecting at the time contributed to a growing appreciation for art. Morris’s founding of Morris & Co. in 1862 and the commercializing of this “cult of beauty” by the Liberty store in London, starting in the late 19th century, further disseminated the idea of a domestic space that was thoughtfully and floridly designed.

Leading Aesthetic Movement furniture designers included E.W. Godwin, who drew on Japanese influences and whose work reflected a wider enthusiasm for imported East Asian art. British designer Christopher Dresser created textiles, ceramics and more that were also inspired by Japanese decorative art but were representative of additional diverse design sources that ranged from Egypt to Mexico.

The Aesthetic Movement’s eclecticism resulted in dazzling interiors. Japanese fans were positioned on Renaissance-inspired cabinets with brass hardware, while mantels made of rich walnut or finely carved ebonized wood and adorned with painted Minton tiles mingled with cast-iron chairs against a backdrop of floral wallpaper. In 1881, in New York City, stenciled checkerboard motifs and painted floral murals could be found under an opalescent glass chandelier in a luxurious dressing room designed by German émigré cabinetmaker-decorator George Alfred Schastey. Amid the rise of the industrial age, the style’s promotion of art in everyday life would inform the Arts and Crafts Movement and Art Nouveau.

Find a collection of antique Aesthetic Movement seating, tables, decorative objects and other furniture and antiques on 1stDibs.

While we likely wouldn’t mourn the invention of home heating and air-conditioning, these innovations did tragically reduce the widespread need for fireplaces and mantels in our living rooms.

Once an essential fixture in all homes, the fireplace, which, along with the chimney, is as old as the Middle Ages, was actually rendered redundant with the advent of the cast-iron heating stove during the 18th century. Victorian-era heating stoves were popular in the common areas of a living space for their capacity to heat as well as for their lack of smoke compared to fireplaces. However, improvements in craftsmanship as well as the Industrial Revolution meant that fireplaces were evolving in form and functionality.

Even as HVAC systems would eventually see to it that fireplaces weren’t a necessity, no mechanically engineered thermal heating and ventilation technology can replicate the feeling of warmth and camaraderie that a flickering fire guarantees. We just love a good fireplace.

“With antique fireplaces, you get heart, soul, character and architecture,” says Tony Ingrao, a Manhattan-based interior designer who purchased an important 16th-century French limestone fireplace for a client’s Greenwich Village townhouse.

Vintage fireplaces and mantels have earned their coveted position as desirable focal points in any room over the course of a staggering evolution in design that has yielded everything from intricately carved works of limestone to sleek works of wood paneling and rolled steel.

As log after log turns into ash, these iconic designs prove their timelessness and value, monetarily and as prized decorative monuments. Whether you seek to simply warm a space or completely transform it, an eye-catching new mantel for your blazing hearth — be it an elegant neoclassical design, a marvelous work of marble in the Louis XV style or an unconventional contemporary variation — is the perfect solution.

Find a collection of antique and vintage fireplaces and mantels on 1stDibs today.