Victorian & Queen Anne Style (2024)

FAQs

What is the difference between Victorian style and Queen Anne style? ›

The Queen Anne style draws from many different aesthetic historical eras, such as Middle Ages Gothic and Elizabethan Renaissance. Victorian architecture draws from only one era, such as the Gothic Victorian house being influenced by the Middle Ages alone.

Queen Anne homes are identifiable for their eclectic style, marked by wide wraparound porches, decorative wood trim, elaborate rooflines, asymmetrical lines, and bold patterns and colors. With its roots in Britain during the 18th century, the American Queen Anne style spread via magazine features and pattern books.

Queen Anne style is all about refinement and elegance, whereas Victorian style is known for its modesty, privacy, and orderliness. Victorian design has been accused of employing excessive ornamentation at times.

Queen Anne buildings almost always have a steep roof with cross gables or large dormers, an asymmetrical front façade, and an expansive porch with decorative wood trim. A round or polygonal front corner tower with a conical roof is a distinctive Queen Anne feature on many buildings of this style.

Queen Anne furniture is "somewhat smaller, lighter, and more comfortable than its predecessors," and examples in common use include "curving shapes, the cabriole leg, cushioned seats, wing-back chairs, and practical secretary desk-bookcase pieces." Other elements characterizing the style include pad feet and "an ...

Though more modern themes welcomed simplicity and straight lines, Queen Anne style furniture continues to be in demand for those homeowners who want a design with a little extra oomph.

The Queen Anne style, popular in American from 1880 to 1910, evolved out of the Colonial Revival style; the two styles were fashionable at the same time. The Queen Anne style was imported by English architects who were inspired by the half-timbered walls and patterned masonry of Medieval and Jacobean style-buildings.

The Queen Anne style is characterized by an asymmetrical façade, steeply pitched roof of irregular shape, textured shingles or other decorative elements, such as false half-timbering, which are used to avoid a smooth-walled appearance.

The Queen Anne style of architecture is easily recognized with its crossed gables, turrets or cupolas, wrap-around porches and porticos. It is called a cottage because of its smaller size. During the Victorian period in Texas, roughly 1870 to 1905, the architecture tended to be ornate.

Victorian Period Color

Victorian colors were rich and dark. Ruby red, forest green or blue, with heavy damask patterns were prominent.

Why are they called Queen Anne chairs? ›

The Queen Anne style of furniture or late baroque furniture is named for Queen Anne of England, who reigned from 1702 until 1714.

Queen Anne homes are typically embellished with bay windows and oriels, sometimes as part of a turret. Lower window sashes usually have only one pane of glass. The upper sash may follow suit or feature multi-paned glass.

Some Queen Annes even featured second- and third-story porches. “Gingerbread” architectural elements, such as elaborate trim and embellishments. They can have hand-carved latticework on the undersides of roof eaves and ornate wood balusters and spindlework on porches.

The difference, in a nutshell, between a Queen Anne Victorian and a Folk Victorian is that the Queen Annes were built by the upper class and the Folks were built by the middle class. Hence, the smaller size, less ornate details and lack of towers in the Folks.

By the 1880s, when the exuberant Queen Anne style became popular, synthetic pigments allowed for vivid blues, greens, purples, and yellows; also common were multihue schemes that celebrated the style's diverse architectural details, such as turned porch spindles and fish-scale shingles under the eaves.

The peak period for Queen Anne-style architecture was 1880 to 1900, although the style persisted until around 1910. The style was named and popularized in England by the architect Richard Norman Shaw (1831-1912) and his followers. The term inaccurately implies aesthetic ideas from the reign of Queen Anne (1702-1714).

Georgian: A more decorative version of the Queen Anne style with heavier proportions, elaborately carved cabriole legs terminating in a pad or ball-and-claw foot, ornate carvings, pierced back splats, and the use of gilding. Named after George I and George II who reigned over England from 1714-1760.

This new style, variously called Late Baroque, Early Georgian, or Queen Anne, was a blend of several influences, including Baroque, classical, and Asian. Boston was the leading colonial city in the early eighteenth century and the first to implement aspects of the new style.

For example, colonial-style homes appear crisper, while Victorian-style homes appear more ornate. In addition, as per Realtor Foster, colonial-style homes include several architectural types, such as First Period English, French Colonial, Colonial Revival, Dutch Colonial, and Spanish Eclectic styles.