 Havana and the western half of Cuba was ceded to England as one of the consequences of the Seven Years` War (1756-1763). Havana became an open port, which changed the social, economic, and political landscape. As one historian has written: “During the British occupation, Havana’s residents had enjoyed their ability to purchase coveted consumer goods from the British merchants that had descended upon the city. With the return of Spanish rule, the government had instituted a degree of comercio libre, or free trade, which, while not the economic freedom of unrestricted laissez-faire, was a vast improvement over the previous system.”
With comercico libre, fashionable furnishings were now imported directly from France, England, or the Netherlands as well as from Spain. Consequently, Cuban furniture made during this period was quickly given foreign forms and styles such as the Queen Anne style, as well as French and Dutch baroque and rococo elements. In an article about English eighteenth-century furniture exports to Spain and thence, perhaps, to Cuba, Robert Wemyss Symonds wrote: “London since earliest times had possessed the reputation for the making of articles of the best quality and of the latest design. Not only to Englishmen at home and in the colonies, but also to many foreigners… For distinctive features of design, apart from the brighter coloring of the Japan grounds, the use of cane seats to chairs, stools and settees owning to their greater coolness in a hot climate, is one noticeable characteristic of this furniture.”
Like Cuba, Spain was inundated with foreign fashions in furniture design, and because of this many scholars maintain that any purity of form in Spanish furniture design disappeared with the eighteenth century.
“Spain gradually lost her national traits in furniture toward the end of the XVII century. In the XVIII they completely disappeared during the rule of the Bourbons, when the dominant styles were naturally those called ‘Louis,’ which in many cases were full of elegance and restlessness of line, whose curves and graces sharply conflicted with Spain’s characteristic robustness and simplicity.”
What some furniture aficionados considered a loss for Spain was a gain for colonial Cuba. While eighteenth-century foreign influences are considered a dilution of the integrity of traditional Spanish furniture, most Cuban baroque furniture forms are exuberantly vernacular interpretations. Cuban artisans blended some of the traditional elements of furniture from Europe with exotic local influences to create furniture with bold proportions and dramatic ornamentation (see Pl. V).
By the mid-eighteenth century, sugar had replaced tobacco as the source of Cuba’s wealth, and with these riches came imported furniture in the style of Louis XV from France, and Chippendale furniture from England, which was deemed more prestigious than the local product. However, the relatively soft woods of European furniture were no match for the humidity, tropical woodworms, and termites of Cuba. As a result, locally made reproductions and interpretations of the European imports came into fashion (see Pl. IX).
Among the elite the sacristy chest was considered the finest of all furniture forms to give to their local church and to adorn their private chapels. The smaller freestanding form of these extravagant chests with their undulating block front facades is believed to have possibly originated in Mexico or Brazil, but recent research points to a Cuban origin. These smaller chests were used in bedrooms and drawing rooms (see Pls. VI, VII). Adapting and commissioning what was originally a religious form increased the self-importance of the owner.
Originally, the block front was carved from a single thick piece of mahogany. As the eighteenth century progressed Cuban cabinetmakers created ever more exaggerated serpentine fronts, with the design continued on the sides and the feet protruding farther forward (see Pl. X). only in the nineteenth century was the raised surface glued onto a thinner board.
The Cuban sacristy chest inspired c