Spanish Colonial and Spanish Revival Furniture: History of the Style and How to Identify Authentic Pieces

Spanish Colonial furniture and Spanish Revival furniture share a vocabulary — dark carved wood, hand-forged iron, leather, and a heavy, grounded stance — but they are separated by roughly three centuries. One is the working furniture of Spain and its American territories from the 16th century onward; the other is a 20th-century California-led revival that borrowed that look to furnish new stucco-and-tile houses.

This guide separates the two waves and dates them, introduces the great colonial forms — the sillón frailero and the vargueño — and explains the Monterey furniture of Los Angeles and its hacienda-style cousins. It closes with the practical question every collector faces: how to tell a colonial original from a period revival and from the decorator reproductions that followed.

Spanish Colonial Furniture: The First Wave

Spanish Colonial furniture is the furniture made in Spain and in Spain’s American territories from the 16th century into the early 19th. It descends from the Spanish Renaissance — itself shaped by centuries of Islamic (Mudéjar) geometry, which the Metropolitan Museum of Art notes persisted in Spanish design long after the Reconquest — and it traveled with colonists, missionaries, and officials to Mexico, Peru, and the northern frontier that is now New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and California. For the Renaissance backdrop, see our guide to Renaissance furniture.

Walnut was the premier wood in Spain and in much colonial work, with oak, chestnut, and pine also used; on the New Mexican frontier, local pine did the work. Pieces were rectilinear, joined rather than nailed, and built to be moved, locked, and lived with: chests, benches, stools, tables, cupboards, and the portable writing cabinet called the vargueño. Decoration was inlay, gilding, painting, and — especially — carving.

The Sillón Frailero and the Vargueño

The Sillón Frailero (Friar’s Chair)

The sillón frailero is the signature Spanish armchair: a simple linear frame in walnut with a leather seat and leather back held by rows of round metal tacks, and a wide stretcher low between the front legs, which is occasionally pierced in a fretwork pattern. Spain’s Museo Nacional de Cerámica y Artes Suntuarias explains that the name comes from its common use in convents, that the type flourished in the 16th and 17th centuries, and that it first arose in Italy before becoming iconic in Spain. Ornament is restrained; the chair’s authority is in its proportions.

The Vargueño (Bargueño)

The vargueño (also spelled bargueño) is a drop-front writing cabinet in the form of a box, fitted inside with an architecture of small drawers and compartments for documents and valuables. The interior is far richer than the plain exterior. Iron lock plates and drop handles made it portable, and the box rested on a matching chest or a trestle stand. Later stands adopted baluster legs joined by arcading. The Hispanic Society’s example is walnut with boxwood and inlaid ivory, made in Aragon c. 1575–1600, while the Metropolitan Museum’s 17th-century vargueño combines carved, gilded, and painted bone with wrought iron. The name is commonly traced to the town of Bargas, near Toledo; the derivation is traditional rather than firmly documented.

Hallmarks of Colonial Work

Chip Carving and Low-Relief Carving

Spanish colonial carved furniture often employs chip carving — geometric patterns cut by removing small wedge-shaped chips with a knife or chisel. On New Mexican chests (cajas), mostly assigned to the late 18th century, framed examples carry compass-drawn geometric chip carving, while board chests show heraldic low-relief carving of lions, pomegranates, vines, and rosettes drawn from Spanish tradition.

Turned Legs and Stretchers

Turned baluster legs, heavy stretchers, and thick mortise-and-tenon frames give colonial pieces their grounded look. The turnings are bold rather than delicate, and they often show slight irregularity from the lathe and the hand.

Wrought Iron and Clavos

Wrought-iron bracing on legs, chairs, and benches was common, as were metal nail heads (clavos) set side by side along edges or arranged in ordered formations on surfaces. Locks and hinges were forged by hand, and local blacksmiths sometimes made lock mechanisms when imported hardware was unavailable — so no two are quite alike.

Joinery and Wear

Look for hand-cut joints secured with pegs, board surfaces that show tool marks rather than machine uniformity, and wear exactly where hands, feet, and keys would have touched. Genuine colonial pieces are scarce and mostly institutional; most “Spanish colonial” furniture on the market is a later interpretation.

Spanish Revival Furniture: The Second Wave

The revival belongs to the 20th century. Spanish Colonial Revival architecture flourished from about 1915 to 1940, boosted by the 1915 exposition in San Diego and by Fred Harvey’s Southwestern commissions, and it followed the Mission Revival; Spanish Revival interiors are generally placed in the 1920s through the 1940s. Its sources were broad — Spanish Baroque, Moorish, New Mexican, and Mexican Churrigueresque — and its houses needed furniture to match: hacienda style pieces in heavy carved or painted wood, with iron strapwork, leather, and (on some chairs) rush seats.

Monterey Furniture of California

The best-known American revival furniture is Monterey, made by the Mason Manufacturing Company of Los Angeles (founded by Frank Mason and his son George) and sold through Barker Bros. It began in 1929–1930, with a “classic” period of about 1930–1932, and ran into the early 1940s. Mason built chiefly in Oregon alder, sanded and distressed to look old, glazed with asphaltum, and painted in Spanish Red, Spanish Green, Spanish Blue, and Old Wood tones, with hand-painted floral designs and — from about 1932 — whimsical caballeros, burros, and cactus by the artist Juan Intenoche. Wrought-iron straps and pulls accented many pieces, and many early examples carry a horseshoe brand with the name “Monterey,” though not all do. Rivals included Coronado (Angeles Furniture Co.), Imperial, and Sears’s La Fiesta line.

Monterey is revival, not colonial: factory-made, designed for modern houses, and in some pieces using ironwork with surfaces marked to simulate hand-forging. By the mid-1930s interest in the style waned and Mason simplified its designs, reducing the ironwork.

Two Waves, Dated and Compared

• Spanish Colonial (c. 16th–early 19th century): hand-made in Spain and the Spanish Americas, in walnut, pine, or other local woods, with chip carving, hand-forged iron, and leather.
• Spanish Revival (c. 1915–1940s): American, led by California, in workshops and factories — Monterey in alder or mahogany, hacienda-style carved and painted pieces, iron strapwork, leather and rush seats.
• Decorator reproductions (mid-20th century to today): “Spanish-style” furniture in new wood, often veneered or machine-carved, with stamped hardware and artificial aging.

The key distinction is intent. Colonial pieces were made for use in their own time. Revival pieces were made to evoke that time for people who admired it. Both can be collectible; only one is old in the sense a museum means it.

How to Tell Originals From Revival and Reproduction

Read the construction, not the ornament, because ornament is the easiest thing to copy. Our guide to dating antiques by construction methods covers the general tells; these are the ones specific to Spanish-style work.

• Iron: hand-forged hinges, lock plates, and clavos vary slightly; if every nail head and strap is identical, it was not made that way. Stamped, plated, or perfectly uniform hardware points to revival or later.
• Wood: colonial walnut and pine show real age, shrinkage, and tool marks; Monterey is alder (or, in some lines, mahogany) with a factory-applied antique finish; reproductions often use veneered panels or composition board.
• Joinery: pegged mortise-and-tenon frames with hand-cut dovetails suggest period work; staples, Phillips-head screws, and machine-routed carving suggest the 20th century or later.
• Marks: a Mason “Monterey” horseshoe brand, a Coronado crown, or a retailer’s label identifies a revival piece — and revival pieces are honest, collectible furniture in their own right.
• Finish and wear: distressing that repeats from piece to piece, or wear in the wrong places, is decorative. Genuine wear is logical, uneven, and deepest where hands and feet touched.

The terms matter, too: “antique,” “vintage,” and “reproduction” each carry a meaning, which we unpack in antique vs. vintage vs. reproduction. The 19th century already produced historicist copies of Spanish forms such as the friar’s chair, so an old-looking Spanish piece can be a century-old revival without being a colonial original.

At a Glance: How to Identify Spanish Colonial and Spanish Revival Furniture

• Spanish Colonial is the first wave: made in Spain and its American territories from the 16th century into the early 19th. Spanish Revival is the second: American, c. 1915–1940s.
• The sillón frailero is a walnut armchair with a leather seat and back, studded with round metal tacks and braced by a wide low stretcher.
• The vargueño is a drop-front writing cabinet with a richly fitted interior, iron lock plates and drop handles, and a chest or trestle stand.
• Colonial carving is often chip carving or low-relief heraldic carving; the iron is hand-forged and varies from nail to nail.
• Monterey furniture was made by Mason Manufacturing Co. of Los Angeles from 1929–1930 into the early 1940s, in Oregon alder with antiqued, painted finishes and iron straps, often horseshoe-branded.
• Identical hardware, veneered panels, staples, Phillips screws, and repeating distress marks point to revival or later decorator reproduction.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between Spanish Colonial and Spanish Revival furniture?

Spanish Colonial furniture was made in Spain and the Spanish Americas from the 16th century into the early 19th. Spanish Revival furniture was made in the United States, led by California, from about 1915 through the 1940s, to suit Spanish Colonial Revival houses. The first is hand-made period work; the second is a revival, often factory-made.

What is a vargueño?

A vargueño (or bargueño) is a Spanish drop-front writing cabinet — a box fitted inside with small drawers and compartments, secured with iron lock plates and carried by drop handles, and set on a chest or trestle stand. Examples at the Hispanic Society and the Metropolitan Museum of Art date to the late 16th and 17th centuries.

What is a sillón frailero?

A sillón frailero, or friar’s chair, is a Spanish walnut armchair with a leather seat and back, rows of round metal tacks, and a wide stretcher between the legs. The name reflects its use in convents, and it flourished in the 16th and 17th centuries.

What is Monterey furniture, and is it Spanish Colonial?

Monterey is a California line of Spanish Revival furniture made by Mason Manufacturing Co. of Los Angeles for Barker Bros., beginning around 1929–1930 and ending in the early 1940s. It is revival rather than colonial: factory-made alder furniture with antiqued, painted finishes and iron straps, often branded with a horseshoe and the name “Monterey.”

Conclusion

Spanish furniture rewards the collector who keeps the two waves apart. The colonial original — walnut, leather, hand-forged iron, chip-carved panels — belongs to the working households and convents of the 16th through 18th centuries. The Spanish Revival that followed, from the 1915 San Diego exposition through the Monterey furniture of the 1930s, belongs to a different story: a young California falling in love with an old Spain.

To bring a piece of that history home, explore our curated collection at The Eclection — chosen not for their shine, but for the craftsmanship and history they carry.

Resources & Further Reading

For deeper study, these museums are reliable, non-commercial starting points:

• The Metropolitan Museum of Art — Spanish furniture and decorative arts, including vargueños.
• Victoria & Albert Museum — one of the world's great furniture and design collections.
• Hispanic Society Museum & Library — Spanish and Latin American decorative arts, including vargueños.