Paper short abstract:

The Azores, in the 16th and 17th centuries, produced a furniture of excellence, made of local wood, that was only possible due to the geographical location of the islands, between the Old and New World, and the cultural and artistic influences generated by it.

Paper long abstract:

The Azorean furniture of the 16th and 17th centuries reached a moment of singular distinction and development. From boxes, cabinets, tables and other pieces, some with incised decoration and others with sausages, made of "cedro-do-mato", common name that designates the islands endemic botanical species, "Juniperus brevifolia", a tree from the cypress family that produces a reddish wood, stiff and strong with typical odor. The excellence of the design and construction of this furniture can be explained by the syncretism of influences that resulted from the Azores geographical location between the old Europe and the new worlds across the oceans. The islands, and more specifically, the city of Angra, on Terceira Island, acted as hinge point between these two reality, there sojourned the ships returning from the Portuguese and Spanish Indies, on their journey from east to west, towards Lisbon and Seville. There converged people from the kingdom - by them the dual monarchy of Portugal and Spain - occupied in governance and defense of the islands, merchants of several European nations seeking business opportunities and adventurers returning from the Americas, Africa and the East with exotic goods. The models and ideas they came with influenced the seventy-two wood workshops that by then existed in Angra and whose production was exported for Portugal and Spain and many other parts of Europe as the Portuguese historian Gaspar Fructuoso (1522-1591) testifies in his manuscript titled "Saudades da Terra".