Historically, paintings were commissioned by size and the painter would have had been able to provide other handicrafts as home furnishings. A sculptor who worked in bronze or other metals would have provided metal ornaments for decorating and supplying the needs of the home. High-ranking artists would have owned studios staffed with apprentices who helped fill the need for home goods.
The use of antiques as a deliberate design choice is common now, but was unusual in previous eras. Older pieces of furniture and decor were typically relegated to the lesser-used rooms in the house, while the more frequently-visited rooms were laid out in the modern fashion of the day. Home owners sought out new and old artworks to furnish their homes, but the traditional trade in antique artworks has been confined to paintings by well-known masters and some valuable pieces made of gold.
Architects of the past (and present) included interior design elements in their work, including rugs, furniture, textile arts, pottery, wall hanging tapestries, ceramics and silver pieces in their designs. Cabinet pictures, paintings designed specifically to fit into a certain area such as the wall space above a couch, are incorporated into architectural plans. Mirrors have traditionally been included in interior spaces to make them appear more spacious than they actually are. Another architectural design element is the mural, which was often used during the 17th-century / the Baroque design era much like a mirror, to make a room look bigger.
For most of the history of interior design, only the homes of the rich, powerful and important were considered worthy of study. Only in the very recent past have art galleries, museums and scholars begun to consider the home furnishings of everyday people. Since the curators and scholars of these pieces studied them in isolation, however, the purposes of home objects was sometimes misunderstood. Furthering this particular problem is the division, in arts circles, between the fine arts and the industrial, or decorative, arts.
Since the 1840’s, collectors who specialize in particular categories of antique furnishings have helped preserve their meanings and uses. Collectors valued decorative objects such as silver furnishings and objects like Meissen porcelain figurines so highly that these objects began to be taken out of use for their original purposes and placed instead on shelves and in collections.