English Furniture and its Setting: From the later sixteenth to the early nineteenth century 9781487571849

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English Furniture and Its Setting

Published for Roya l Ontario Museum by University of To ro nt o Press

ENGLISH FURNITURE AND ITS SETTING from the later sixteenth to the early nineteenth century ILLUSTRATED FROM THE COLLECTION OF THE ROYAL ONTARIO MUSEUM UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

Gerard Brett RESEARCH CURATOR OF THE EUROPEAN DEPARTMENT

© University of Toronto Press 1965 Printed in Canada Reprinted in 2018 ISBN 978-1-4875-7217-4 (paper)

PREFACE To A VISITOR to the European Department of the Royal Ontario Museum it quickly becomes clear that the collections are particularly strong in two fields-English furniture and English ceramics. The collection of English furniture was launched shortly after the founding of the Museum with the help of a small group of friends of the Museum, of whom the late Martin Langmuir was the most prominent. At about the time of the armistice in 1918, the Museum purchased a substantial quantity of furniture in London, and throughout the 1920's and into the 1930's, when growing interest in the field began to push prices out of reach, acquisitions continued in quite considerable numbers. Until his death in 1922, Sir John Eaton gave generously to the collection, and many of the seventeenth-century pieces that are discussed in this book belong to the T. Eaton Co. Collection. Many other individuals have made gifts and bequests of English furniture to the Museum, and thus, in spite of the fact that since 1945 few purchases have been possible, the collection has continued to grow. Perhaps the most important additions in recent years have been those bequeathed by the late Gerald R. Larkin. The catalogue descriptions at the end of the book indicate the donors of individual pieces, and thus the extent to which the collection has benefited from the interest and generosity of many persons. This book began as a list of the English furniture in the European Department, undertaken by a newly appointed Curator in V

the course of becoming familiar with the materials in his charge. It developed into its present form for the purpose of providing, for visitors to the European galleries and for others interested in the subject, as much as possible of the background of the objects in the Museum. The accession of Queen Anne in 1702 has been taken as the mid-point in the discussion, and each section contains a description of the setting against which the furniture of the period was usually placed, as well as a discussion of developments in design and construction and comments on individual pieces in the Museum collection. The exact dating of furniture is not possible unless either the maker has placed a date on the piece, or it can be dated from independent evidence such as a bill. Therefore the dates throughout the book are estimates, and the word "approximately" should be read before each.

vi

CONTENTS

PREFACE

V

PART ONE: The Later Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (1575-1702) THE SETTING FURNITURE

3

12

Chests, Chest-of-Drawers, and Cupboards, 16 Beds, 23 Stools, Chairs, and Day Beds, 24 Tables, 34 PART TWO: The Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries (1702-1825) THE SETTING

41

FURNITURE

50

Chest-of-Drawers and Commodes, 57 Chairs, 59 Tables, 70 Mirrors, 76 Clocks, 79 Writing Furniture, 81 Candlesticks, 83 vii

EPILOGUE

85

CATALOGUE DESCRIPTIONS OF FURNITURE IN THE MUSEUM COLLECTION

89

NOTES FOR PARTS I AND II

105

BOOKS FOR FURTHER READING

111

INDEX

113

viii

PLATES 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

Oak panelling, 1580-1600. Oak chest, late sixteenth century. Oak chair, late sixteenth century Oak door and doorway, probably fifteenth century Oak doorway, 1650-1700 (showing effect of Italian Renaissance) Oak chest, second half of sixteenth century Oak chest, 1600 Oak chest with drawers, 1650 Oak chest-of-drawers, 1685 Walnut-veneered oak chest-of-drawers on stand, 1695 Japanned beech cabinet on stand, 1695 Oak court cupboard, second quarter seventeenth century Oak bed, late sixteenth century Oak chair, late sixteenth century Oak chair, 1650 Oak Yorkshire and Derbyshire chair, 1650 Walnut chair, 1650 Oak chair, 1660 Walnut chair, 1665 Walnut chair, 1680 Walnut chair, 1695 Upholstered birch armchair, 1690. Oak table, 1700 Walnut day bed, 1670 Oak table, second quarter seventeenth century Oak table, 1650

5 6 7 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 25 26 29 29 29 30 30 30 31 32 33 34 36 ix

24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 X

Oak table, 1670 Walnut table, 1695 Oak and boxwood table, 1695 Detail of room with oak panelling, 1710 Detail of room with painted pine panelling, 1740 Mahogany chest-of-drawers, 1760 Marquetry commode, 177 5 Oak armchair, 1705 Walnut armchair, 1715 Mahogany chair, 1765. Walnut card table, 1720. Birch chair with walnut veneer, 1725 Walnut chair, 1735. Walnut desk, 1730 Mahogany "writing" chair, 1745 Upholstered walnut armchair, 1730 Beech armchair, 1790. Mahogany secretaire on stand, 1790 Birch armchair, 1790. Mahogany and satinwood table, 1790 Birch armchair, 1800 Mahogany chair, style of 1795 Upholstered mahogany armchair, 1800 Birch sofa, 1790 Pine table with marble top, 1730 Pine console table with marble top, 1740 Walnut table, 1765 Mahogany and mahogany veneer side table and pedestals, 1785 Mirror in gilt pine frame, 1710, reflecting deal ( walnut veneer) bureau bookcase, 1700 Mirror in gilt pine frame, 1760 Clock in walnut veneer case, 1700 Clock in japanned pine case, 1725 Mahogany candlestand, 17 60

37 37 38 42 45 57 58 60 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 66 67 68 69 71 72 73 74 77 78 80 80 83

PART ONE

The Later Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (1575-1702)

THE SETTING HENRY TuooR's accession to the throne of England in 1485 marked the beginning of a new era in English life which was to see the decline of the two main groups of large mediaeval landowners-the church and the nobility-in favour of the rising middle-class commercial interests. Henry successfully checked the power of the great families, already gravely weakened by the Wars of the Roses, and his son, Henry VIII, eliminated the church as a landholder by means of his dissolution of the monasteries beginning in the later 1530's. Thus, the sixteenth-century monarchy was both stronger and richer than ever before; the life of the ordinary citizen was more secure; and there was much building and rebuilding by the new landowners. Because life in the Middle Ages had often been unsettled, most houses had been designed primarily for defence. The two centres of the mediaeval house had been the chamber for the family and the hall, which in the later years was used principally by the servants and retainers. Houses built before the middle of the fifteenth century, such as Hurstmonceaux Castle in Sussex, begun in 1443, retained the mediaeval form, being constructed around a courtyard and surrounded by a moat, but in Ockwells Manor, Hampshire, begun about 1465, there is evidence that the motive was beginning to change from building for defence towards building for comfort. This trend is also visible in Compton Wynyates, Warwickshire, and in Thornbury, Gloucestershire, both begun 3

soon after 1510, as well as in Cardinal Wolsey's Hampton Court Palace of the 1520's. Many of the functions of the hall were now taken over by smaller rooms, each for one special purpose, and as a living space the hall was increasingly superseded. It lingered on for many years, being included in Chasleton House, Oxfordshire, begun in 1603, but, having lost its original purpose, it steadily decreased in size. An upper storey of rooms was often built over it, and it gradually developed into the entrance hall of today. One of the hall's chief features had been the fire, at first laid in the centre of the floor, with a hole in the roof through which the smoke was intended to escape. In contrast, many of the later castle buildings had a fireplace, built in the side wall, with a wood fire resting on iron fire-dogs to raise it above the brick base, and with a chimney to draw off the smoke. That the wall fireplace gradually became the general fashion is attested to by William Harrison who in his Description of England (1577) mentioned the presence of many chimneys as one of the new features of the countryside of his lifetime. The roof of the hall had generally rested on open timbers, and long remained so. The walls presented a special problem because the wind from the chimney tended to whistle around them. Thus, in earlier buildings the walls were often hung with tapestry, or with "steyned cloth," a cheaper imitation of it produced by painting on linen. The tapestry generally stood away from the wall for protection from damp. In Shakespeare's day this distance was generally about a foot, and there are many references in his plays to hiding behind the arras: Polonius in Hamlet was able to do so unobserved so long as he remained quiet ( act III, scene iv), whereas the fatter Falstaff (Henry IV, Part I, act II, scene iv), who tried to do the same, fell asleep on the floor and was discovered by the bulge his body made. 4

Although tapestry continued to be fashionable, by the sixteenth century it was usual to cover the walls, both of the hall and of many other rooms, with all-over wooden panelling. It might be plain (Plate 1) or have ornament in low relief, and would cover the walls up to some two or three feet from the ceiling; the strip at the top would be filled with painted or moulded plaster. Wooden panelling began to go out of fashion very slowly during the seventeenth century in favour of plastered walls of the modern kind, sometimes hung with pictures. Randle Holme, writing just before 1650, recommended that, for a gentleman's house, "the room [be] hung with pictures of all sorts as landskips, fancies, etc." Until after 1500 the clay or wooden floors of English houses were usually covered with rushes which the Dutch scholar Erasmus, PLATE 1. Oak panelling, 1580--1600. Oak chest, late sixteenth century. Oak chair, late sixteenth century

PLATE 2. Oak door and doorway, probably fifteenth century

in a letter written from England in 1518, described as being dirty and as spreading disease. We are told that rushes were still in use in the Royal Apartments in Hampton Court Palace as late as 1599, but they were old-fashioned by then, and in most homes had gradually been replaced by tiles or by matting. Knotted-pile rugs did not come into use as floor coverings until the first half of the seventeenth century, although they had earlier been used as covers for tables and other flat surfaces. 6

3. Oak doorway, 1650-1700 (showing effect of Italian Renaissance) PLATE

The sixteenth century saw the first impact of the Italian Renaissance on English building. Originally limited to the addition of supposedly Roman details to a late Gothic structure, this influence was gradually extended until the design of the house and its ornament had taken on a Renaissance character. (For the effects of the Renaissance, compare Plates 2 and 3.) The earlier stages of the change, when it was chiefly a matter of ornamental details, may be seen at Hampton Court, and later developments, when the 7

change was spreading from ornament to planning, at Longleat House in Wiltshire. The influence producing this change came partly from Italy itself, partly from France and Holland, the countries through which lay travellers' routes to Italy. Direct contact with Italy by English architects seems to have begun with John Shute, who was sent there by the Duke of Northumberland and who produced The First and Chief Groundes of Architecture ( 1563). However, the pivotal figure was Inigo Jones (1573-1651), who through his study of Italian buildings was responsible for much of the regularity and order which distinguished the seventeenth century from the sixteenth, and which formed the chief contribution of the Italian Renaissance to English building. Under Jones' influence the early seventeenth century saw the beginning of house design and interior layout as we know them today. The older system of rooms opening out of each other or out of a central courtyard surrounded by a gallery on each floor now gave way almost completely to the modern plan with interior corridors, and with the reception rooms below and the bedrooms above; the new layout was not quite universal, however, as the example of Coleshill House, Berkshire, begun in 1653, shows. Where wall panelling was used, the all-over type of decoration mentioned above was replaced by ornament on a much larger scale. Also, a new type of staircase came into fashion; although the old narrow, stone, spiral was still used as late as 1619 in the Queen's House, Greenwich, built by Inigo Jones himself, it had, since early in the century, been giving way to the wide wooden staircase circling round a newel-post. The seventeenth century also saw a great improvement in window planning. The use of glass in windows-paintings show that this was not usual in many mediaeval rooms-first became common practice for private buildings in the sixteenth century, 8

and according to John Aubrey was almost universal when he was writing (probably with some exaggeration) in 1671. At first, glass was in small panes with many lead bars, and was fitted into a frame of vertical mullions and horizontal transoms. Inigo Jones made some improvement, but the great step was taken by Sir Christopher Wren with the introduction, perhaps from Holland, of the sliding sash window. Wren first used this in his designs, dated 1685 but never carried out, for a banqueting hall in Whitehall Palace. The new type of window was in two balanced halves, each in a wooden frame and generally divided by two horizontal and three vertical glazing bars. Increased light was the result of this improvement, as it was of the Window Tax of 1685, which because it applied to the number of windows in a house, instead of to their size, tended to diminish the number and increase the size. The lighting in seventeenth-century rooms, however, must often have been poor. The rush light of the early years, dipped in wax and held in a metal holder, was supplemented and then superseded by the oil lamp and by the candle of wax or tallow. Candles were first impaled on pricket candlesticks, always unsatisfactory because the wax burned irregularly; but lighting was improved with a better clarification of the wax and with the introduction of the socket candlestick which became general in England in the sixteenth or seventeenth century. Candles were used in the wall sconce, in the single or multiple candlestick, and in the chandelier, at this time of gilt wood or of metal, possibly with a reflecting ball in the centre. The heating seems to have been more satisfactory. The huge open fireplace, brick-lined and with an iron fire back, was still in use, with the wood fire resting on iron bars of which the end irons, often more highly decorated than the rest, came to be known as "andirons." The new feature of the seventeenth century was the 9

use of mineral coal or sea coal and of an early type of bucket-grate to suit it; it was this change from wood to coal which began the great diminution in the size of fireplaces. The seventeenth century had a further and more general importance. It saw the first stage of the Age of Enlightenment and Reason which distinguished the eighteenth century; nowhere was this influence more visible than in the building of the house and in the layout of the garden. Further, the century introduced a far greater number of Europeans than ever before to the exotic wonders of China and the Far East. Ever since Vasco da Gama had reached India in 1498, thus opening a new and direct sea route to the Far East and breaking the Arab-held monopoly of the overland route, Europe's fascination with the Far East had steadily increased. In 1600 the English East India Company was founded, in 1602 the Dutch, in 1664 the French, and by the middle of the seventeenth century Milton could write in Book II of Paradise Lost of ... the wealth of Ormus and of Ind, Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand Showrs on her Kings Barbaric Pearl and Gold.

Also, during the reign of Charles II ( 1660-85) there was a wave of Chinoiserie decoration, the free imitation and interpretation of Chinese forms, first seen in the decorative arts in ceramics and in lacquering. Although oriental lacquer had become generally known in the West during the sixteenth century, importation did not begin in earnest until the early seventeenth century. European imitation followed soon thereafter. However, because the European workers were not prepared to undertake the immensely long and tedious preparation of lacquer, there developed the English "japanning" process, which was little more than one layer of painting, generally in gold or silver mixed with gum-lac, on a varnished black back10

ground. By the end of the seventeenth century the techniques of japanning had gained considerable popularity in England, as evidenced by the detailed descriptions of the process that appeared, for example, in John Stalker's and George Parker's Treatise of Japaning [sic] and Varnishing (1688), and in a French book of letters by Louis Lecompte, a French Jesuit, entitled Memoirs and Observations ... made in a Late Journey through the Empire of China (English translation published in 1697).

11

THE FURNITURE

MEN IN THE later Middle Ages judged their possessions largely by the intrinsic value and outward appearance of the material used. The desire to display played a very important part in their lives, gold and silver, velvet and the more splendid textiles being the usual means. Furniture, being made of wood, was little thought of, and in the mediaeval house movable furniture was sparse in the extreme. One English Vocabulary of the fifteenth century mentioned only six pieces of movable furniture, a bed, a trestle, a board (for the trestle), a chair, a stool, and a long bench. Another slightly fuller work enumerated as the ordinary furniture of the hall a board and trestle, a banker and a dorser ( these two were cushions, the former to sit on, the latter for the back), a tablecloth, a table dormant ( a permanent table), a long settle, a chair, a bench, a stool, a cushion, and a screen. From what little we do know of English mediaeval furniture, it would seem that the chest and the bed were probably the most important pieces, and that the chair did not begin to become even moderately common until towards the end of the Middle Ages. Early mediaeval furniture seems to have been made by a carpenter, and so far as we know the chief characteristics of his products were strength and solidity. Late in the Middle Ages the carpenter's trade began to divide into two parts, that of heavy carpentry, concerned with house-building, and that of the joiner and later the turner. The last named were new figures, the success 12

of whose work depended on the accuracy of the joints and the smoothness of the surfaces. It must have been their presence that resulted in the popularity of the panelling process. In the later Middle Ages oak, either native or imported from the Baltic, was the most popular furniture wood, though probably not used as exclusively as its lasting powers-superior to those of most of its rivals, among them elm, ash, beech and chestnutwould suggest. The walnut tree, Juglans regia, was imported into England by the Earl of Pembroke in the 1560's, and throughout the next hundred years its wood became increasingly common for furniture, generally, though not invariably, used together with oak; the use of walnut as a wood for furniture was probably largely French in origin. There is one example of pre-1660 walnut furniture in the Museum collection. Whatever the wood, it was apparently used and maintained in a much more natural state than is usual nowadays, and we must picture the Tudors and Stuarts as living with furniture of a light, sometimes a golden tone. The almost black shade that much old oak has today is the result of age and generations of polishing with preservative linseed oil and wax. With these woods there went the techniques of ornament suited to them. Carving, often in a very flat relief, and an inlay of woods of a contrasting colour, especially box, holly, and sycamore. were most popular. The later techniques of veneer and marquetry are not found until after the Restoration ( 1660) . The furniture made between 1600 and 1660, though much of it is extremely rare today, was the first preserved in any quantity. It was simple and often austere in form, and any changes made were nearly all in ornament and were a reflection of the influence of the Italian Renaissance in England; in furniture, as in architecture and the other arts, the changes in form came later. Motifs in the popular flat carving gradually became freer and more naturalistic. Columnar legs began to appear on chairs and stools replacing the 13

trestle supports of the sixteenth century; ball turning, at first crude and heavy, rapidly became more finished. The type of strapwork interlace most often seen in stone and plaster was occasionally present on wooden furniture as well. Figure ornament, at first little used and heavy, ungainly, and rather ill-proportioned, became more common but was never popular in English furniture. The later seventeenth century, after the Restoration of Charles II, started a new period in English furniture as it did in most of the decorative arts. The lines of form were, in general, rather less severe, and the ornament somewhat more noticeable than before; with the French influence brought back by the returning exiles, a foretaste of the sophistication which distinguished the eighteenth century may be sensed. The keynote, however, was set by an event with no political connotations whatever: the popularity of walnut. At about the time of the Restoration it replaced oak as the most desirable wood for fashionable furniture, although the latter continued to be much used until at least 1700, as examples in the Museum show. The change in wood was a radical one and necessitated far-reaching technical developments. Oak had been the typical wood of a period of simple and plain furniture, and was always used in the solid. Walnut, on the other hand, was sometimes used solid, for instance in chairs and tables, but was also suitable for use as a veneer wood on drawer fronts and cabinet doors, when it was generally on a carcass of either oak or deal. Thus the cabinetmaker, whose craft depends on the use of veneers over a carcass of different wood, made his appearance during this period. When walnut was used solid, it was often turned, especially in the reign of Charles II; when it was used as a veneer, techniques of inlay and marquetry were general. Other changes were contemporary. The plain ball turning of the early years gave way to ring and ball turning; spiral rope turning was introduced, perhaps ultimately from the Far East, 1 14

and the variation in its size was achieved by the addition of the slide rest to the lathe. 2 At the same time, furniture ceased to rely on movable textile coverings for its ornament and appearance of richness. The old techniques of decoration took on a fresh form and new ones were added. Carving, both in relief and in the round, was a frequent feature of Charles II chairs. 3 Marquetry became popular during the second half of the century, and a development can be traced from naturalistic floral design in bright colours to more formal arabesques, almost always monochrome, and finally to the "seaweed" marquetry, always monochrome, which came into fashion in the reign of William and Mary ( 16891702). Oriental lacquer and the English imitation known as "japanning," both of which had become increasingly popular throughout the century, now appeared most strikingly in the India cabinet, generally on a silvered stand, and the Coromandel screen. The use of thin sheets of silver over a carcass of wood, which had been known under Charles I ( 1625-49), 4 was adopted on a large scale at Versailles under Louis XIV, and appeared occasionally at the courts of many of his imitators, Charles II included. The technique of upholstering was advanced, and the wing chair, upholstered all over and known at the time as an "easie chair," became popular, probably in the 1680's. Caning for the backs and seats of chairs was introduced, again probably from the Far East;5 it was practised in England from the early 1660's onwards and remained popular until far into the eighteenth century. 6 A division of labour was thus established in the furniture-making industry. Each new process involved new work, and now for the first time we have to deal with separate chairmakers, cabinetmakers, inlayers, lacquerers, and japanners, in fact with nearly all the trades involved in the much larger and more developed furniture industry of the following century. 7 Towards the end of the seventeenth century a different and 15

much less insular style was seen in English furniture, with the change of form, the disappearance of many of the existing techniques of decoration, and the heavy elaboration of ornament. In general, however, English furniture of this century showed only the first stages of change. New types of ornament did appear, but form was not seriously affected until almost 1700.

Chests, Chests-ofDrawers, and Cupboards The chest must have been one of the earliest and commonest of the few pieces of furniture in the mediaeval house, and was certainly the most important one. It served many purposes: it could be used for storage, for sitting, and for reclining. The earliest chests varied greatly in form and shape according to their main uses, from the small iron-bound to the large wooden type. Only in the sixteenth century does there appear to have arisen any uniformity, perhaps because chests are first preserved, though in moderate numbers, only from that time. 8 The earliest chest in the Museum collection is a long, low, narrow box resting on trestle ends which continue down to the floor to form legs (Plate 4 ). 9

PLATE

4. Oak chest, second half sixteenth century

It is ornamented only with very debased architectural carving and may date from the half-century after 1550. Approximately contemporary with it is another example in a completely different form (Plate 1); it is larger and very much higher, and is representative of the kind of chest which, at that time in the north of England, was known as an "ark." 10 Like the other remaining examples of the type, it is completely undecorated, but at some time the initials "A.H." were carved beside the lock hole. The framework is held together with heavy wooden pegs. In the later sixteenth and in the seventeenth centuries, the type of chest most common today came into use. It stood rather low, and although the exact shape varied the general length from side to side was about two-and-a-half times the depth from front to back and from top to bottom. In most examples the front piece appears to have consisted of three large panels with uprights between them and at each end. There was often carved or inlaid ornament that was confined to the front and usually covered either the panels or the uprights; occasionally it spread over both. In the most elaborate Museum example (Plate 5), the three panels in the front are ornamented with strapwork in low relief. Between the

PLATE

5. Oak chest, I 600

PLATE

6. Oak chest with drawers, 1650

panels are four full-length figures, 11 bulky and ill-shaped, which seem to betray an English carver working with a motif he did not fully comprehend. Another development of this period was the transition from the chest with an opening lid to the modern chest-of-drawers, already known for some time in Europe. The change began with a combination of the two principles, a chest of the mediaeval kind with an opening lid above, and one long or two short drawers below it. Although this stage of the development was known in England during the sixteenth century, the two Museum examples date from the next century; the one illustrated here (Plate 6) has flat carving of a much more formal character than that of any of the earlier chests. During the seventeenth century the opening lid lR

PLATE

7. Oak chest-of-drawers, 1685

was gradually forgotten, and the modern chest-of-drawers became more common. The earliest Museum example, perhaps dating from about 1685, is rather plain (Plate 7) whereas in another, unillustrated chest-of-drawers, probably made about 1695, the front of the centre drawer is ornamented in an elaborate style typical of the end of the century (some examples even had pearl and bead inlay), and the bun feet are much larger than in any of the pieces mentioned above. A chest-of-drawers of this kind, however, obliges the owner to bend down to the floor, and it is not surprising that towards the end of the centry various means of avoiding this necessity were adopted. One was the "lowboy," a chest on a low stand (not illustrated here), and another was the chest on a much taller stand,, 19

already in use in many countries of Europe in the first part of the century, if not sooner. The chest-of-drawers illustrated in Plate 8 rests on a stand which shows in full development the curious passion of the late seventeenth century for supports with many legs.

PLATE

8. Walnut-veneered oak chest-of-drawers on stand, 1695

Sometimes the drawers were enclosed by two outer doors, as, for example, in the cabinet shown in Plate 9. This piece is also an example of the English japanning technique; the cabinet is covered

20

9. Japanned beech cabinet on stand, 1695

PLATE

with a thick layer of black varnish and the fronts of the ten interior drawers of varying sizes are painted with japanned motifsin gold as in most English examples. The cabinet rests on a specially carved and silvered stand of a kind that seems to have been made in England for such cabinets, whether japanned in England, or lacquered and imported from the Far East. Late in the Middle Ages there came into use a cupboard that was an ancestor of the famous court cupboard: the word "court" was from the French word court, meaning "short," and the term "court cupboard" seems to have been in use at least by the 1580's 21

to describe various different kinds of cupboards. The top shelf, the board referred to in the name ("cup board"), held cups and objects of value, and the two lower shelves were used for dishes and platters. At an early stage a small cupboard, in the modern sense of the word, was placed between the two upper shelves and was used for napkins, candles, and other small chattels of the dinner table. This was the English dresser, a variant of the French dressoir, and is shown in manuscript illustrations of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. 12 It stood against the wall, the back uprights remaining plain, whereas the front ones gradually developed the "cup and cover" or "pineapple" bulge shown in the Museum

PLATE

22

10. Oak court cupboard, second quarter seventeenth century

example (Plate 10) and common in the cupboards of about 1600 and later. That the term "court cupboard" soon became common is shown by Randle Holme in the Academy of Armoury, written about the middle of the seventeenth century, in his description of the appurtenances of a gentleman's house; he mentions "court cubberts for cups and glasses to drink in."

Beds The other piece of furniture of really great importance in the Middle Ages was the bed. We know little or nothing about very early examples, because household interiors did not appear in drawings or paintings before the fifteenth century, and for a date earlier than that we are restricted to written descriptions. Also, there is an entire absence of fragments of early beds, which fact, along with other evidence, would seem to indicate that beds were of a somewhat flimsy character, perhaps especially put up for an occasion; for example, George Cavendish in his Life of Cardinal Wolsey says that fourteen score beds were set up in Hampton Court Palace on the occasion of a party given by the Cardinal. 13 We can be sure that one of the main features of the earliest bed was the curtain that surrounded it, for the night air was long considered dangerous, and in the mid-seventeenth century Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy referred frequently to it as a cause of melancholy. But the use of the curtain was sometimes hazardous. Reginald of Durham in the twelfth century, for example, told a story of a sacristan who was reading by candlelight with the candle placed so close to the curtains of his bed that a draught of wind was sufficient to set them on fire. 14 Nevertheless, the curtained canopy continued into the nineteenth century, long after the original type of bed for which it was used had passed out of fashion. Whatever the framework of these early beds, it is apparent that they were fully equipped with sheets and blankets. A will of 1424 23

went into detail on this subject: "I wul that ilke of my said childre haue a bed, that is to say, couerlid, tapite and blankettis, too peyre shetes, matras and canvas." The type of bed represented in Plate 11 seems to date only from the sixteenth century, the time when the bed proper and its surrounds of tester; head board, and curtains were being joined together, and when the term "bedstead" came into use to replace the earlier word "bedstocks." The curtains surrounding this type of bed were looped during the day and the bed used as an extra seat, a habit which lasted at least until the Restoration; for this reason sixteenth- and seventeenth-century beds, like the mediaeval ones before them, often appear to have been placed in living rooms. Beds of the later seventeenth century were surrounded by curtains which were fuller and hung from a much higher canopy; both bed and curtains were much more elaborate.

Stools, Chairs, and Day Beds A common type of seating furniture in the Middle Ages was the stool, the seat of which varied greatly in shape. Examples of mediaeval stools are found in the rare manuscript illustrations that depict interior scenes, as well as in a Flemish drawing of about 1445, 15 although the rectangular stools shown in the latter are unusual for the period in having four separate legs rather than trestle end supports which were most common on sixteenth-century examples. In the seventeenth century the trestle support was succeeded by four slightly sloping legs bound together at floor level by stretchers. Throughout their history, stools seems to have been made and used as ordinary seating furniture so that the modern tendency to refer to them as "coffin stools" has no historical basis. Chairs in the Middle Ages seem at first to have been restricted to important or revered people; for example, the French twelfth24

PLATE

11. Oak bed, late sixteenth century

century carving from Chartres, now in the Louvre, shows St. Matthew seated on a chair composing his Gospel. 16 Although it would appear from manuscript illustrations 17 that chairs became more common in the later mediaeval period, the earliest existing English examples do not date before the sixteenth century. Among them are two chairs, both said to be Tudor, now in Westminster School, and the "Erasmus" chair in Queen's College, Cambridge. 18 Two types of chair that derived from the later Middle Ages are represented in the Museum collection. One is the triangular-seated chair (Plate 12) that developed from the type of triangular stool shown in the Flemish drawing referred to above. In depicting three different examples of the triangular stool, this drawing enables us

PLATE 12. Oak chair, late sixteenth century

26

to see clearly how the chair developed from the stool by extending one of the corner uprights to form the back post and then adding diagonal splats running outwards from it to a horizontal bar laid upon the top. This early form of the triangular chair is shown both in an engraving by Israel van Meckenem, The Virgin Ascending the Steps of the Temple (about 1490), 19 and also in a Dutch carving of an interior (probably rather later in date) .20 Only the addition of sloping side pieces for the arms between the horizontal bar at the top of the back and the front corners of the seat was necessary to reach the stage of development shown in the Museum example. This particular chair is without carving or indeed any ornament other than a rather coarse type of ball turning. That the type was popular seems to be because it could be taken apart very easily. English examples date from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, 21 but it was long-lived in country districts and seems to have been still in existence in the middle of the eighteenth century when Horace Walpole was furnishing Strawberry Hill. 22 The other type which visibly derived from the later Middle Ages is that with a box-bottom (Plate 1), a descendant of the earlier enclosed chair and, like it, seeming to show that the origin of the armchair was a chest used as a seat. The bottom of the enclosed chair was solid from floor level to the seat in front and to the arms at the two sides, and there was a high, often very high, back. The most usual type was four-sided, though variations of this are known. 23 The Museum chair, which dates from the second half of the sixteenth century, is a late example of the type. It is boxed in from the floor to the level of the seat, but the sides are open from the seat to the flat arms; the back is very moderate in height and is noticeably canted. There is low relief carving on the front of the box and on the back of the chair. The next chair (Plate 13) shows an early stage of development from the box-bottom chair towards the armchair of today. Here 27

the box-bottom has been replaced by four separate legs, and the flat or gently sloping arms of the late sixteenth-century examples have been replaced by the more steeply sloping and shaped arms seen at their extreme in chairs dated during the reign of James I ( 1603-25). Such chairs were made with little change throughout the seventeenth century; one of the few dated examples, from Thorpe Arch Hall in Yorkshire, bears on its seat the date 1682. 24 The ball turning of the Museum chair indicates a date probably in the second quarter of the century. The ornament of the backs of these chairs was the feature that varied most between one example and another, consisting sometimes of carving as in the Museum example, and sometimes of an inlay of woods of contrasting colours. The solid-backed chairs illustrated so far must always have been heavy and difficult to move, for which reason, it is suggested, 25 there was a gradual development of the side chair, known originally as a "back stool" because it was first constructed by the addition of a movable back to a stool. 26 Sets of side chairs are known from early in the seventeenth century, the first type now being called the "farthingale"; the earliest type in the Museum with an open back is the "Yorkshire and Derbyshire" chair, of which an example is known to have been used at Knowsley Hall in 1651 at the execution of the seventh Earl of Derby. The Museum has two chairs of this kind, one of which, dating from about 1650, is illustrated (Plate 14). Another type with an open back (Plate 15) was probably contemporary, although it is known to have existed throughout the reign of Charles I, and there is an example in the Victoria and Albert Museum dated 1649. 27 The Museum chair in Plate 15 is important in that it shows both the use of walnut and the first stage of upholstery, where the wooden framework was covered by padding and the padding by a stuff or leather material. The covering, whatever it was, was generally nailed to the framework

28

PLATE

13. Oak chair, 1650

PLATE 14. Oak Yorkshire and Derbyshire chair, 1650

PLATE

15. Walnut chair, 1650

PLATE

16. Oak chair, 1660

PLATE

17. Walnut chair, 1665

PLATE

18. Walnut chair, 1680

with large brass-headed nails. Leather as a covering for the seat was popular throughout the period, but particularly in the years of the Commonwealth and the Protectorate ( 1649-60). The first post-Restoration chair in the collection of the Museum (Plate 16) differs from the earlier examples in showing ring and ball turning instead of plain ball turning; it retains the hard wooden seat of the earlier period, but was always used in conjunction with a cushion. At about the same time two featuresrope turning for the wooden pieces, and caning for the backs and seats of chairs-were introduced, ultimately from the East through either Portugal or Holland. 28 The earliest type of English cane chair was probably made during the 1660's.29 In the Museum example in Plate 17, rope turning has replaced the plainer ball turning of the earlier period, and there are incised diamond motifs around the panel of caning on the back. A later chair (Plate 18), 30

PLATE

19. Walnut chair, 1695

dating from about 1680, reflects a great advance over earlier examples. The back panel is longer and is now crowned by an elaborate carved and pierced cresting. The seat has been lowered, and the open space between the bottom of the back and the level of the seat diminished. The front legs are much more elaborate and are scroll-carved. The high fore-rail is now developed greatly and carved to match the cresting of the back; the motif of the cherubim and crown, seen on many objects at the time, appears on both. The plain knobs on either side of the cresting are replaced by cherub heads. The wooden seat is a later replacement of a caned original. In the James II chair in Plate 19 we see a new type much more in line with our present-day ..ideas of what a chair should be, the shaped arms and the canting of the back being much better adapted to the human frame. The panels of caning on the back and seat, 31

PLATE

20. Upholstered birch armchair, 1690. Oak table, 1700

both with plain surrounds, show that the popularity of caning had not yet begun to diminish. The rope turning of the Charles II chairs, however, has disappeared and has been replaced by balusterturned arm supports, stretchers, and side rails of the back. The 32

front legs are angle-turned and scroll shaped, and an elaborate carved and pierced cresting rests on top of the back but does not extend sideways from it. The first stage of fixed upholstery has already been described. The next development in this technique-the attachment of thick layers of padding all over the framework of the chair, and the covering of the whole with wool, silk, or another material-is exemplified by the fully upholstered wing chair which seems to have come into use in England during the reign of Charles II. 30 Specimens of this period are uncommon, but those belonging to the 1690's and rather later are less so; the one shown in Plate 20 has the mushroom-capped legs and flat curving stretcher of the 1690's. The first day bed we hear of in England belonged to the then Countess of Shrewsbury shortly after her marriage to the Earl in 1568. 31 However, the type must have been something of a rarity at that time because it did not begin to be common until the seventeenth century. The first English examples shared the simple and Spartan character of early furniture; it was not until after 1660 that there was any real development, the first stage of which is shown in Plate 21. In the Museum example, as in many day

PLATE

21. Walnut day bed, 1670

beds of the time, a sloping and adjustable piece formed the back. The framework is caned, but mattresses and cushions would have been put on the frame when the bed was in use. In somewhat later examples upholstery replaced caning.

Tables The table we hear of in the mediaeval hall was long and rectangular; it consisted of boards laid on trestle supports similar to those of the early stool. This kind of table was evidently long in use, and is the type described and referred to in the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century English books of instruction and the few other early sources which mention the service of meals. During the hundred years from 1450 to 1550 it was gradually superseded by a more permanent table of the modern kind, the table dormant, 32 so called because it was actually nailed to the floor. It seems that in the earliest examples of the table dormant the boards and the trestles were nailed together, the trestles being then nailed to the floor; the use of four separate legs of the modern kind was a later development. 33 Although the Museum example illustrated in Plate 22 was probably built in the second quarter of the seventeenth century,

PLATE

22. Oak table, second quarter seventeenth century

it represents a type which first came into use during the middle or latter part of the previous century and which, along with the draw table with extending flaps, replaced the large mediaeval table. The table has a narrow top, an apron ornamented on one side, and four separate legs with stretchers just above the floor level. The legs are a very simple version of the common "pineapple" bulge, a variation which came into use during the second quarter of the seventeenth century. 34 Although its form is indistinguishable from that of dining tables of the same period, the Museum table was probably not used for this purpose. The height is much greater than that of chair seats of the period would lead us to expect; it is very narrow; the apron, though it is on all four sides, is carved on one side only, the other three being plain. These details seem to make it clear that this was not a dinner table but a side table standing against a wall. 35 Small tables were used during the later Middle Ages on a large scale. One type, evidently of some value, was referred to in wills and inventories as a "fold" or "folden" table. 36 At first, the top was either removable from the base altogether, or turned over on the base by means of a hinge to reduce the size of the top. 37 Then, in the later sixteenth or early seventeenth century, the gate-leg principle was introduced-with the moving part of the table lying vertically rather than horizontally. The basis of the earliest gate-leg tables such as that in Plate 23 was a rectangular framework enclosing a drawer and supported by four or more legs to which one half of the round top of the table was permanently fixed; there was a gate on the long side of the framework, against which the other half of the table, working on a hinge, could fall (vertically) when not in use. Later in the seventeenth century, the gate-leg principle was further developed into the type of table that we know today, that is, an oval top in three sections, of which the small centre one was permanently fixed to a rectangular framework, with gates on either side.

35

PLATE

23. Oak table, 1650

During the period after the Restoration, small tables became even more prevalent, replacing the large and ponderous ones. 38 Apart from the steadily rising standards of comfort and convenience in the household, there were two particular reasons for this trend and for the types of table which resulted from it. One was the prevalence of gambling games, which had been increasingly known and popular since at least the sixteenth century;39 the other was the introduction and popularity of the new hot drinks of tea, coffee, and chocolate, for which special tables were provided. The first post-Restoration table in the Museum (Plate 24) dates from about 1670; it is small, with a plain rectangular top, a drawer in one long side, and rope turned legs. In another example (Plate 25), 36

PLATE

24. Oak table, 1670

PLATE

25. Walnut table, 1695

37

about twenty-five years later and much more elaborate, the four legs have increased to six, an indication of the tendency so common to the end of the century. The table is walnut, inlaid with that variety of walnut cut across the grain known as "oyster wood." As in the earlier table there is a drawer opening on one long side of the apron and the legs are rope turned. Plate 26 shows a new and different type of table that was popular at the turn of the century, both late in the seventeenth and early in the eighteenth centuries. The stretcher indicates that this example belongs to the early part of this period ( about 1695), and the arrangement of drawers-a wide one in the centre and two squarer ones at the sides--coupled with other features, has given rise to the suggestion that this is really an early dressing table.

PLATE

38

26. Oak and boxwood table, 1695

PART TWO

The Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries (1702-1825)

THE SETTING THERE HAS always been a difference in scale between the mediumsized house of the well-to-do middle class and the large house of the aristocracy, but never was this difference as noticeable as in the first part of the eighteenth century. Many interior features, such as plaster ceilings, wainscotted or plastered walls with pictures, and wide board floors, were common to both houses, and both reflected many features of the Renaissance styles already discussed. But whereas the middle-class house (Plates 27 and 28) reflected the traditional aim of the English architect to include within a small space as many good-sized, conveniently placed, and welldesigned rooms as possible, the aristocratic house seems to have had a different purpose, that of expressing the grandeur and magnificence of the owner. This latter movement passed through two stages of architectural expression. The chief figure in the first phase was Sir John Vanbrugh, most famous as the architect of Blenheim Palace which was begun for the first Duke of Marlborough in 1711. Vanbrugh's influence was never wide, and was soon superseded by that of a group of architects known as the Palladians, who represented an attempt to Anglicize the style of the sixteenth-century Italian architect Andrea Palladio. Palladianism yielded nothing to Vanbrugh in splendour, but avoided some of Vanbrugh's architectural vagaries. The first period of Palladianism is seen at its best in the Thames-side villa at Chiswick, built for the second Earl of Burlington, the leader of the group; a rather 41

PLATE

27. Detail of room with oak panelling, 1710

later stage of the style is evident in the two East Anglian houses of Houghton and Holkham, begun in 1723 and 1734 respectively. Whereas Vanbrugh's houses seem to have aimed at splendour at any cost, even that of practical convenience, Palladian houses represented a slightly restrained form of the style, and reflected the influence of the Grand Tour in an archaeological flavour that distinguished them from their seventeenth-century predecessors. 42

Expressions of splendour began with the facade, and were continued inside the house, appearing most clearly in the entrance hall and in the saloon around which the rooms for entertainment were often grouped; the saloon at Holkham is one of the most magnificent rooms in any private house in England. A concession to archaeology is seen in the substitution of the sculpture gallery for the long gallery of an earlier period. Palladian interiors of the second quarter of the eighteenth century seemed often to reflect the fact that the chief designer of the style was the architect William Kent, who was a protege of Lord Burlington and who lived until 1748. Coloured marble, most of it imported from Italy, was now used on a much larger scale than before. Chimney pieces were high and often pedimented, and ceilings often very high and coffered in the Roman manner. It is not surprising that the style in its more extreme form was never a popular one, and was restricted almost entirely to large or very large houses. Palladianism, the English expression of the European Baroque, continued to dominate building until about 1760. In the decorative arts, however, Baroque began to give way as early as 1730 to the influence of the Rococo, the English version of the "Rocaille" which first appeared in France about 1700 in the work of Jean Berain. Rococo was not a continuation of Baroque, but a reaction from it, from the grandeur and the ordered regularity of all the Renaissance styles, towards a freer and much more varied inspiration, in which the casual, the incidental, and even the frivolous found full scope. It was not an architectural style pervading all forms of artistic expression, but rather a spirit informing those decorative manners which the designer Matthew Darly, in 17 51, named "the Chinese, Gothic and Modern Tastes"; to us, more than two hundred years later, they are known as Chinoiserie, Gothic, and Rococo, the latter name having been wrongly restricted to only 43

one of the three styles. Common to them all, apart from their generally light-hearted approach, was a preference for curved and wavy rather than straight lines, for pale colours rather than the bright hard shades of the earlier styles, and for natural forms of rocks, trees, flowers, and shells rather than formal designs. Of the three Rococo manners the first to be popular was the "modern taste." It began to appear in English silver soon after 1730, was popular throughout the years until 1760, and was manifest in many of the furniture design books of the period, especially in Thomas Chippendale's The Gentleman and CabinetMaker's Director ( 1754). The "Chinese taste" began to be popular in the 1740's. Although it was reflected in some English silver and in many of the furniture design books of this period, its greatest effect was on porcelain, for which it became one of the leading manners of the eighteenth century; indeed it was in porcelain figures that the fantastic, frivolous element in Rococo found its fullest expression. The third of the three manners, Gothic, was somewhat apart from the others in that its roots went back much further in time, and that it survived to inspire the Gothic Revival of the nineteenth century. Its mid-eighteenth century appearances, from Batty Langley to Horace Walpole, were decorative rather than architectural, and the furniture design books in which it appeared on a large scale all seemed to show that the word "Gothic" was used with little or no conception of its real meaning; that is, to connote anything strange or unusual in ornament. Only later did any idea of the full significance of the term become at all common, and only after 1800 did the Gothic become an architectural style, and were the foundations of the Revival laid. Decorative manners are seldom long lived, and although the Rococo was no exception it had an importance out of all proportion to its comparatively short life. It was a watershed which divided the earlier styles based on the Italian Renaissance from the later 44

PLATE

28. Detail of room with painted pine panelling, 1740

styles deriving from the eighteenth-century Renaissance. These thirty years ( 1730-60) saw a complete break in the continuity of classical inspiration in the decorative arts, a break in time during which literary and romantic elements came to supplement or supersede the classical influence. Thought not often susceptible of expression, these were never far from the artist's mind, and help to differentiate between all that preceded and all that followed the second quarter of the eighteenth century. 45

The style which began to dominate architecture and the arts in England about 1760 attempted a more "correct" classicism than had been characteristic of the Italian Renaissance. In England two early sources of this exactness were Robert Wood's books The Ruins of Baalbek (1753), and The Ruins of Palmyra (1757). The first actual building that was in this so-called Neoclassical style and that is still extant was the "Doric Temple" erected at Hagley in Worcestershire by the architect James Stuart in 1758. Neoclassicism differed from earlier styles in depending not on the Italian but on the second Renaissance which derived its first inspiration from excavations of the Roman sites of Herculaneum (begun in 1737) and Pompeii (begun in 1747), and from the multilingual literature about the findings. The Italian Renaissance had been one of spirit, and was presented in many different ways, languages, and countries; the second Renaissance was one of form only, which fact had two very definite results. First, Greek and Roman forms became the ideal, and accurate copying considered the ultimate goal; this movement probably reached its height in Thomas Hope's Household Furniture and Interior Decoration (1807), which, to prove the accuracy of a work of art, gave a list of the authorities copied. The second result was a far greater uniformity among the different countries and arts of Europe than had ever existed before. Robert Adam, the leading architect of the new style in England, set up in architectural practice in London in 17 61, after a number of years of study in Mediterranean countries. Adam avoided the chief defect of Palladianism, that it was suitable only for monumental houses; he owed much of his success to the fact that he made the classical style adaptable to a much greater variety of sizes and types of building than Palladianism had done, and in doing so succeeded in making antiquity much more popular than before; even greater than his own influence in this respect was that of the

46

large body of his imitators. Adam's manner was also evident inside the house in a new variety of sizes and shapes of rooms, and especially in the white plaster ceilings with low relief decoration. It is a mark of the new age that the period of Adam's greatest popularity followed the publication of the first part of The Works in Architecture of Robert and James Adam in 1773. After this date his work was in the hands of architects all over England, and was copied on a large scale. His later work tended often to be over-elaborate, and before his death in 1792 a reaction had set in against his influence, and in favour of the two younger architects James Wyatt and Henry Holland. The inspiration was still that of past styles, but whereas with Adam it had been confined to a small area and a few centuries in time it was now widened in scope to include Greece, Italy, Egypt, Persia, India, and in the case of Henry Holland even Renaissance and later France. Further, and more significantly, the influence of the Romantic and Picturesque movements was now seen in architecture, side by side and together with that of the Neoclassical. Earlier in the eighteenth century Romanticism had been expressed in the Chinese style; now China gave way to India. The Indian style is visible in the exterior of Sezincote House, Gloucestershire, built for a retired Indian nabob in 1803, and is coupled with Neoclassical and other elements in the Prince of Wales' Pavilion, Brighton, the present form of which was planned by the architect John Nash in 1817 and the years following. In many houses of 1780 onwards there was a curious discrepancy between the exterior and the interior. Such an inconsistency had existed before, but whereas in the earlier years, espcially those of the Rococo, a correctly Palladian exterior might have had Chinoiserie features and other fantasies inside, now the position was reversed, and a Romantic exterior such as that at Sezincote with its mushroom domes might and often did have Neoclassical

47

rooms within. In these later houses there was more unity about the inside than the outside. The ceilings, following the Adam tradition, were now almost invariably of white plaster with low relief floral decoration, and the earlier painted or grained wainscotting of pine or deal had given way to a wall covering of plaster, which in turn was covered either with textile materials or with wallpaper. The latter had been known in England at least since the reign of Henry VIII, but seems to have taken on a new popularity with a largescale import from China late in the seventeenth century. Even then its use was limited at first, probably because wallpaper came in long narrow strips which had to be fitted together with great care and accuracy to form the total design and might not then suit the architecture of the room for which it was intended. Imitation must have begun in England soon after 1700, but seems to have reached a stage of only moderate proficiency until the war which began in 1739 cut off imports and thus greatly increased the supply and variety in size of English-made papers. From then on, wallpapers were used on a much greater scale, at first in the upper rooms of houses, but towards the end of the century in the withdrawing and sitting rooms. On the floors there would be an example of the large woven carpet typical of the eighteenth century, in some cases made especially for the room. The metal or gilt wood chandelier of the earlier period had now given way entirely to the much more elaborate glass type which was larger and, with its myriads of hanging glass pieces, each of them reflecting all the candle lights separately, increased the light greatly. The fire grate was steadily replacing the open hearth, as coal replaced wood. The earlier grates had been either bucket- or hob-grates, but by the middle of the century a far greater variety of size and shape came into use, and many were designed by architects such as Robert Adam. There had been a great similarity in the work of Adam, Wyatt, and Holland, and all three had been in large part influenced by the

48

monuments then available, first in Italy and later in Greece as well. About 1800 the first wave of Neoclassicism passed on towards the second, a stage more Greek in inspiration, more archaeological, and at the same time grander and more imposing. The general difference between the two stages is illustrated by Sheraton's first two furniture design books, the Drawing Book ( 1791-94) and the Cabinet Dictionary ( 1803). This new wave of Neoclassicism appeared in Tatham's Designs for Ornamental Plate ( 1806), in Hope's book ( 1807), and in the work of the silversmith Paul Storr over a long period; in architecture it was most evident in the "Regency" style ( although this had little to do with the regency (1811-20) of the Prince of Wales, later George IV). Each monument of this style had a number of apparently conflicting characteristics: grandeur and magnificence, a romantic picturesqueness, and a gay and almost light-hearted quality, seeming to make it sometimes little more than an architectural style suitable for watering places like Brighton. This last characteristic was most clearly expressed in many of the painted stucco fronts of Nash houses in Brighton and elsewhere. Indeed, in many ways, John Nash, the favourite architect of George IV, can be considered as being typical of the second wave of Neoclassicism as Robert Adam was of the first. The arts of the Age of Reason had all been illuminated, more or less, by the light of classical inspiration, a light which had begun to flicker during the second quarter of the eighteenth century, and which by a date soon after 1800, with the great growth of machine production in the arts, and with the social changes heralded by the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, had grown very dim. As a continuing source of inspiration for the decorative arts we may say that this light went out some time between 1820 and 1830. What happened after that, important though it is for our own day, is a different story which cannot be dealt with here.

49

FURNITURE

A GREAT CHANGE came over English furniture about 1700, the result of foreign contacts and of the much higher level of sophistication that led to a greater taste for comfort. Two of these contacts were particularly important: that with Holland, strengthened by the presence on the English throne of the Dutchman William III (1689-1702), and that with France, re-enforced by the arrival in England of many French Huguenots fleeing from the economic depression and religious persecution which characterized later seventeenth-century France: a great many of the refugees were workers in the decorative arts. The most profound change in the furniture of this period was the replacement of the early form of straight leg by a variety of forms of furniture leg, of which the most important was the cabriole. The source of the latter's introduction is a matter of dispute: one suggestion is that it came from Roman Imperial through Italian Renaissance furniture, 1 but the more convincing explanation is that it developed from the curved leg which, although short-lived at the time, was sometimes seen during the 1680's and 1690's ( see, for example, Plate 18). In any case, early in the eighteenth century a furniture leg that was not completely straight reappared in what is now always termed the "cabriole," a word deriving through French from the Italian "capriola" and referring to the bent position of the knee in dancing. However, this is a modern meaning which is by no means applicable to early cabriole 50

legs. The word "cabriole" was used with other meanings during the eighteenth century, Hepplewhite, for instance, referring to chairs with upholstered backs and seats as "cabriole chairs." The early cabriole legs were plain and narrow; the curves at the knee and at the ankle were gentle; and in the earliest examples the foot was small. Furniture soon developed from the rather straight simplicity of the first years of the century, a change being visible as early as the later years of Queen Anne ( who reigned from 1702 to 1714). The principle of the curve was introduced into furniture for the first time, and the chair backs of the second and following decades were far more developed in every way than were those of the early years. With the accession of George I a trend towards an even richer type of furniture seems to have set in: carving, after a brief period out of fashion, again became popular as a form of decoration; the knees of cabriole legs became much wider, and the leg, which was curved downwards in a section far smaller than the knee, was frequently ornamented by a shell or other carved motif; the foot was now stressed much more than before, the simple Queen Anne pad and hoof giving way to larger and much more elaborate types such as the animal paw and the claw and ball. There seem to have been two special reasons for this development. One was the gradual evolution of furniture to accord with the opulence and splendour of the setting; the other, tending to the same end, was the introduction of mahogany. A Central and South American wood, mahogany seems to have been known from early in the century, and to have been brought to England first as ballast in ships returning empty from the West Indies. The chief factor in its slowly growing popularity was the repeal in 1720 of a heavy import duty on wood from America, and it was only after this date that mahogany gradually replaced walnut as the most popular wood for fashionable furniture. Mahogany had many qualities to 51

commend it to the cabinetmaker. It had a fine figure, and when darkened with alkanet, as was the usual custom during the eighteenth century, it gave an impression of sumptuousness which was in keeping with its setting. It was very strong and far more resistant to the worm than walnut, a strength that made possible the growing popularity of ribband-back chairs. The boards were of great width, another reason why the makers of case-furniture were attracted to it. Mahogany became and remained the most popular furniture wood in England throughout the rest of this period and long after; even now that popularity seems to be by no means exhausted. The middle years of the century saw the replacement of the late Italian Renaissance style by Rococo influence, but a glance at the furniture will show that structure was not affected. This fact is also borne out by the furniture design books, in that several of them devoted a plate at the beginning to the five orders of architecture (Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, Composite, and Tuscan); Chippendale described these as "the very soul and basis of his [the furniture-maker's] art." The only structural change, albeit important, was the replacement of the cabriole leg by the straight leg, usually in square section; this characterized much furniture of these years, especially that of the Chinese and Gothic waves of Rococo. Methods of ornament with the stress on carving were not affected either, but the Rococo did change ornamental motifs; the furniture design books displayed an immense wealth and variety of available ornament, among which were Chinese and Gothic motifs, although perhaps the strangest feature was the naturalistic imitation in furniture forms which accompanied the new kinds of outdoor furniture. The popularity of design books was one of the most revealing features of the Rococo period. There must always have been designs for furniture as for architecture, but none of an earlier

52

date than about 1700 are in existence today. Up to almost 1730, indeed, such designs for furniture as survive are single drawings preserved by chance; the first truly great name represented in these drawings is Daniel Marot, court designer to William 111; the second is William Kent. However, in the second quarter of the eighteenth century there seems to have developed a fashion for publishing books of design. In the earlier ones the furniture was always included with the architecture and considered as part of it, but these books do bring out both the importance of the word and the drawing as a means of the transmission of ideas, as well as the growing uniformity of production. The most famous book is Chippendale's The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, published in 1754, with a second edition, almost a reprint, in the following year, and a third, including significant changes, in 1762. It is especially important, both as one of the first books to deal with furniture only instead of with furniture as an appendage to architecture, and for its stress on the gentleman for whom the furniture was made, as well as on the cabinetmaker who made it. The beginning of the next period, marked for us by the third edition of Chippendale, actually came with the end of the Rococo, although during the 1760's there was to be seen a combination of the latter with Neoclassicism, as is exemplified by much of the early furniture designed by Robert Adam, 2 notably that made for Sir Laurence Dundas in 1764. However, Adam soon shook off the last traces of Rococo, despite the fact that its after-effects are probably to be seen in all his later work. The chief characteristics of Adam's style are evident in many of his furniture designs in the Soane Museum, as well as in the fine furniture which is still in existence-both that designed by or attributed to him and that designed by others, including Thomas Chippendale,3 in the Adam style. In particular, the Adam furniture displayed an easy grace and an absence of extremes of all kinds, a subtle preference for straight 53

lines rather than curves, and a strong inclination towards ornament of a generally classical character. In materials he preferred gilt soft wood to the harder mahogany, with carved rather than inlaid ornament. In George Hepplewhite's The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Guide ( 1788) many of the characteristics of the Adam style were repeated with little change; indeed, his work has been called "Adam in the vernacular." Hepplewhite tended to look back to the eighteenth rather than forward to the nineteenth century, noting in his preface that "though our drawings are all new, yet, as we designedly followed the latest or most prevailing fashion only, ... one principal hope for favour and encouragement will be, in having combined near three hundred different patterns for furniture in so small a space, and at so small a price." Sheraton, on the other hand, although he never worked in London as a cabinetmaker, was for most of his life a designer who looked to the future; his CabinetMaker and Upholsterer's Drawing Book (1791-94) was a much more original and enterprising book than Hepplewhite's. However, together the two men complete our picture of the furniture of the late eighteenth century, and both books, especially Sheraton's make clear that lightness and delicacy in design, often having a slightly lanky appearance, had come into fashion as the years of the first wave of Neoclassicism advanced. Sheraton's second work, The Cabinet Dictionary ( 1803), was the first important design book that showed the beginning of the second stage of Neoclassicism, and the substitution of a heavier, more florid, and more splendid kind of design for the earlier elegance. There was a gradual change in inspiration: there was a growing tendency to imitate the ancients more exactly, while the imitators claimed to be following Greek rather than Roman designs. An almost slavish imitation of the antique reached its height, so far as furniture design was concerned, in Hope's Household Furniture 54

and Interior Decoration (1807). 4 Furniture following Hope's designs is in existence today, but the style never seems to have been a very popular one; most early nineteenth-century furniture seems to follow the combination of Sheraton's and Hope's works as seen in George Smith's A Collection of Designs for Household Furniture and Interior Decoration ( 1808). In general, however, the furniture and the design books of the Regency and the 1820's show the amalgamation of the two branches of Neoclassicism (the earlier branch represented by Sheraton's first work, and the later branch by his second work and by the work of Thomas Hope), and the gradual but steady coarsening of techniques. About 1770 the popularity of mahogany came to be shared by a brief fashion for satinwood, in England almost always used as a veneer, and about 1800 by one for rosewood, found in both Asia and America and popular in Europe at an earlier date. Some pieces of furniture of the seventies were carried out in solid satinwood, but it never seems to have been generally popular. Rosewood, which with its sumptuous appearance and very dark red colour is often difficult to distinguish from mahogany, became popular in England during the Regency and the 1820's. During the 1820's, despite the gradual coarsening of technique, furniture was exuberant and florid in general character. Marble, ormolu, and polished wood were commonly used. Carving and the traditional modes of decoration, including both inlay and marquetry, were rare, being supplanted by a "stringing" of polished brass that formed a contrast with the dark wood of the body; this technique had been known early in the eighteenth century and now became almost the only kind of ornament. Pierced chair backs, long a favourite field for furniture designers, tended to be replaced by the open back with the broad horizontal top rail that looked forward to a common nineteenth-century chair. The straightness of furniture legs gave way first to the concave leg, and then to the

55

"sabre" leg; in the latter type, the front legs usually curved forward and the back ones either backward or sideways. The sofa tended increasingly to be replaced by a couch or chaise longue. The table also developed into nineteenth-century forms: the pedestal and claw supports, known since before 1800, now became popular; the Pembroke table became the sofa table; and the small round-topped tea table of about 1750 gave way to a Regency type with a far larger and heavier top. Furniture was losing formality and grace in its arrangement as well as in its design. Until about 1800, when not in use the various pieces had been ranged around the walls of the room; it must be supposed that when a chair was required a servant was summoned to place it for the visitor and to remove it after he had gone. This impression is borne out by Hepplewhite's and Sheraton's designs of complete rooms (Hepplewhite's rooms were imaginary; Sheraton's claimed to be those of the Prince of Wales' Pavilion at Brighton) in which the furniture was shown not in use. Also, in Chapter 11 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, written in 179697, though not published until 1813, Miss Bingley invited Elizabeth Bennet to take "a turn" about the drawing room of Netherfield House, and it must be assumed both that the room was large and that the furniture stood against the wall to make this walk possible. A change, however, was at hand, and the nineteenth- and twentiethcentury scattering of furniture about the room was heralded by Louis Simond, who visited Osterley in 1810, and wrote: "Tables, sofas and chairs, were studiously deranges about the fireplace, and in the middle of the rooms, as if the family had just left them. . . . Such is the modern fashion of placing furniture, carried to an extreme . . . and the apartments of a fashionable house look like an upholsterer's or cabinet-maker's shop." This change and the great increase in the amount of furniture that accompanied it were the main features of the nineteenth-century room; no further change of importance can be dated to the first quarter of the century. 56

Chests-of Drawers and Commodes The late seventeenth-century chest-of-drawers shown in Plate 8 was a type much used in the eighteenth century, and despite a far greater variety in size there could have been little change in basic construction. Many examples of the first half of the century were raised above the floor level, as their predecessors had been, by a low and often elaborate stand. 5 The straight front of the Museum example of about 1715 ( not illustrated here) was common, although the serpentine front of a later Museum specimen (Plate 29) came into popularity with the Rococo in the second quarter of the century. 6 The example in Plate 29, probably dating from about 1760, also has four drawers; the hardware shown in the photograph is modern. PLATE

29. Mahogany chest-of-drawers, 1760

PLATE

30. Marquetry commode, 1775

The French type of commode chest, said to have been invented by the great Andre Charles Boulle, and popular in France since the days of Charles Cressent, came into fashion in England with the first wave of Neoclassicism; its graceful form and long swinging lines made it a more suitable medium for the new style of decoration than was the chest-of-drawers. The example illustrated in Plate 30 dates perhaps from about 1775, and has the two cupboard doors and the bow-shaped front characteristic of its period. 58

Chairs About 1700 the chair of the later seventeenth century changed completely. The front legs, which had in general been straight, now developed a cabriole curve of the type that has been discussed above. At about the same time the chair back was replaced by a new form. The chair that was popular during the reign of William and Mary had generally had a rather high back, either with vertical panels of caning and carving side by side, or with a filling of turned rails; it had been crowned by a carved and pierced cresting. The filling of the back had ended a short distance above the seat, which was set low and was small in size. 7 The back of the eighteenthcentury chair, on the other hand, was not high, but was considerably broader and consisted of side and top rails with a broad central vertical splat. A chair intermediate between the late seventeenth- and the early eighteenth-century types is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, 8 and shows a curious mixture of features, having the tall back, small and low seat, and very short legs of the earlier period, as well as the open back, broad central vertical splat, and narrow, plain side and top rails of the later period. In the earliest examples of eighteenth-century chairs, the rails were round, straight, and plain, 9 and the central splat was usually vase-shaped. Accompanying these features was a seat of moderate width, almost always upholstered; cabriole front legs; back legs that were round close to the seat and square nearer the floor, and were beginning to slope gently backwards; and the stretcher of the later seventeenth century, although it went out of fashion fairly early in the eighteenth century. The immediate source of these changes seems to have been Holland where a similar form of chair back had been in fashion for some years. It is, however, unconvincing to regard the Dutch chair of the 1690's as the sole reason for the introduction. Indeed, 59

what seems to be the early form of the Queen Anne chair bears so striking a resemblance to the Chinese chair as the latter appeared in seventeenth-century illustrations 10 and in actual examples that it is impossible not to suppose that this similarity represents another case of Far Eastern influence on Europe through the European residents in the Orient ( the Dutch Colonial Empire was mainly situated in the Far East) ; in the Chinese chair the side and top rails were plain and round as in the English type, and there was a central splat that was generally straight-sided. Also, the apparent suddenness of the change from the late seventeenth-century type to the Queen Anne chair perhaps indicates that an already existing type was introduced in a complete form rather than that there was a gradual development from one type to another; the intermediate chair already referred to seems to confirm this view. There is no positive evidence of any kind for this suggestion that China was the source of the Queen Anne chair, but at the same time we cannot help imagining that it was. Plate 31 shows a chair typical of the first ten years of the eighteenth century. It has the upholstered seat that has already

PLATE 3 J. Oak armchair, 1705

32. Walnut armchair, 1715

PLATE

PLATE

33. Mahogany chair, 1765. Walnut card table, 1720. Birch chair with walnut veneer, 1725

been mentioned, and cabriole legs with the narrow knee and graceful curves of the early type, while the stretcher is retained. The vaseshaped splat is a departure from Chinese chairs. Plate 32 shows the first stage of development away from this original. The rails are now flat rather than round, and are much more curved; the centre splat is more shaped, in some other examples far more so than here. The chair as a whole shows an attempt to achieve grace and elegance that was quite lacking in the earlier example. A chair of about 1725, with rails elaborately curved and the edges of the splat even more shaped, is shown in Plate 33 (right).11 Plate 34 61

PLATE

62

34. Walnut chair, 1735. Walnut desk, 1730

is a chair of about 1735 and shows a fairly early stage in the development of the ribband-back, while Plate 33 (left), of approximately thirty years later, gives some indication of how much more elaborate this type of back became. 12 The latter chair is very close to designs in Robert Manwaring's The Cabinet and Chair-Maker's Real Friend and Companion (17 65), having a top rail that, while shaped and carved, is in general lying straight and is much longer than before; also we see that the cabriole curve has given way to the plain straight vertical leg that came into fashion in the 1750's. The sophistication of the eighteenth century is partly shown in a much greater variety of chairs than were in use before. For example, the chair in Plate 35 has been identified as a writing chair,

35. Mahogany "writing" chair, 1745

PLATE

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although it has recently been claimed as a chair in which women could display their very elaborate costumes. 13 It has a round back and a square seat in such a position that there are points in the centre of back and front; of the four legs only one has a cabriole knee. Chairs of this kind were first referred to in 1734, and seem to have reached their full development about 1750; the type of pierced back and the curve of the cabriole leg suggest that this example dates between 1740 and 1750. The eighteenth century also witnessed developments in existing types of chairs; for example, the fully upholstered chair in Plate 36, when compared to that in Plate 20, has a new robustness as well as the grace and sophistication of the early part of the century, and has back legs which are cabriole-curved like the front ones and which extend backwards in a reflection of the way the front ones extend forward. Plates 37-41 show a selection of some of the chair designs of the latter part of the century. In these the seat is smaller than before ( a change that usually reflects changes in costume), and is frequently bow-curved rather than straight in front. At first, the

PLATE 36. Upholstered walnut armchair, 1730

PLATE 37. Beech armchair, 1790. Mahogany secretaire on stand, 1790

front legs are straight and the back legs often curve sideways, whereas later both pairs of legs curve, culminating in the sabre leg of the early nineteenth century. The main variations in these chairs are in the shape of the back and the method of ornament. The earliest is the shield-back ( Plate 3 7), a type which is associated with Hepplewhite and which appeared in Plate 11 of the third edition of his Guide; he described it as a "cabriole" chair presumably because the back was upholstered, and said that it was a new design, although we know that shield-back chairs dated from as early as about 1780.14 The next chair (Plate 38) is an example of the pierced open-back type of the period, here with a distinctly shield-shaped back. It is ornamented by painting in very small designs, a new feature on the chairs of this period that is sometimes considered to have been a cheaper method of producing the effect 65

38. Birch armchair, 1790. Mahogany and satinwood table, 1790 PLATE

PLATE

39. Birch armchair, 1800

PLATE 40. Mahogany chair, style of 1795

of inlay. The latest of this small group of chairs is the oval-backed (Plate 39), a type associated with the name of Robert Adam, although it was used by a number of other designers both before and after him; 15 the Museum piece is a late example, the ornament suggesting its date as about 1800. The type of chair that appeared in Sheraton's Drawing Book and in the third edition of Hepplewhite's Guide is shown in Plate 40, reflecting the rather thin elegance of design which was so very different from the chairs of the earlier period. The prototype of the chair in Plate 41 is what Hepplewhite, in Plate 15 of his Guide ( third edition), called a "Saddle Check or Easy Chair." Quite unlike any earlier chair, the design was taken over by others. Sheraton in the Cabinet Dictionary ( 1803) 16 illustrated an armchair which was a moderately close replica of the Hepplewhite design. The Nicholsons in 1826 also showed a chair which differed from the earlier examples only in having a slightly longer leg; it was described as "the chair on which the late Duke of York died." 17 67

PLATE 41. Upholstered lnahogany armchair, 1800

The large drawing room seat passed through three stages during the eighteenth century, the latter two showing a growing stress on comfort. First, and closest to the seventeenth-century chair, was the settee with the tall and fairly upright back and sides, which appeared in many of the early "conversation piece" pictures. Both the other two, the sofa and the chaise longue, appeared in France 68

during the popularity of the Rococo. In England the sofa (Plate 42) succeeded the earlier settee, and normally had a shaped back and curved corners and was upholstered all over; Hepplewhite gave designs indistinguishable from the Museum example. 18 The latest development of the three was the chaise longue ( most famous as the seat used by Mme. Recamier in David's portrait dated 1800). PLATE

42. Birch sofa, 1790

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Tables The development from the seventeenth- to eighteenth-century furniture is evident in several types of tables, perhaps most clearly in the small table with three drawers that was probably used as a dressing table. An eighteenth-century example is shown in Plate 20 ( an earlier table is illustrated in Plate 26). However, the type seems to have gone out of fashion as the century advanced, for the design books of the middle years show a far larger and more elaborate dressing table. 19 Another development in the early years of the century was the square card table. Although playing cards had been known in England since the fifteenth century, and cards and gambling games of many types had long been in fashion, no special kind of table seems to have been designed for them until about 1700. 20 An example of the developed form of card table that came into use soon after this date is shown in Plate 3 3; it has a shaped top which folds over to close, three fixed legs and a fourth that moves outwards to support the folding half of the top, a green baize cover which is a modern replacement for the original cloth one, corner slides for candlesticks, and wells for counters. Plate 43 is an example of a side table, a type that became popular in the second quarter of the century. The purpose it served is suggested in the title given it ( Chippendale called it a "sideboard" table). The Museum specimen was bought in London many years ago, and came with a dealer's attribution to William Kent and with a statement that it had originally been in Ki1tlington Park, Oxfordshire. It is hard to reconcile these stories, however, for Kent died in 17 48 before Kirtlington Park or its furnishings were anything like complete. 21 Moreover, the outspokenly decorative quality of the filling of the apron of this table, especially the Putto head in the centre, is unlike Kent's work, even in its last period. Many 70

PLATE

43. Pine table with marble top, 1730

features, in fact, are much more akin to a very Rococo table in the third edition of Chippendale's Director (1762) 22 than they are to anything in the designs of Kent. It is likewise impossible to believe that this table came from Kirtlington Park, because it belongs in type to about 1730. Plate 44 is an example of the console table, which was of French origin and which seems to have come into use in England about or just after 1700. This type of table was first used in reception rooms, where it stood against a wall ( as its name implies), generally with a mirror above it and between two tall windows. Its gradual development as a serving table for use in a dining room perhaps explains why the marble top present in all the later examples became a regular feature. 23 In the Museum table the scrolls at the 71

PLATE

44. Pine console table with marble top, 1740

bottom and the bent female forms above are supported by a plinth; female forms of this kind were common features in such tables, and eagles or other birds even more so. Console tables remained in use throughout the century and beyond; many were illustrated in the design books of the middle years. 24 Two other small tables are illustrated. Plate 45 shows one that is altogether different in every feature. It has a very small folding top and a leg which moves outwards to support it. Nicknamed a "handkerchief table," it is likely to date from the 1760's. The 72

other table is in Plate 38. Made of mahogany and satinwood, it has a square top which has slightly curved corners and which folds over to close, the opening part being supported on two moving legs. When the table is open, the top is covered with blue cloth. The development of the sideboard as a replacement for the earlier forms of cupboard which had served the same purpose ( that of storing dishes) belonged to the last half of the eighteenth century. In the earliest examples, two urns on square pedestals were placed at either end of a sideboard table to form one unit. The table itself generally had a plain, rectangular, flat-fronted top 25 and four legs ( often increased to six in some of the later examples). The first urns were quite clearly intended to be made in stone, and as such they appeared in Vardy's book in 17 4026 and again in Robert

PLATE

45. Walnut table, 1765

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Adam's designs for Syon House published (in the first part of The Works of Architecture) in 1773,27 although by the latter date the change to wood had already been made. 28 This combination of sideboard table and separate urns on pedestals ( as in Plate 46) appeared in a set of about 1770 in Harewood House attributed to Chippendale, and in Adam's designs of 1774 for furniture at Kenwood House. In the latter, the tops of the urn pedestals were much lower than the surface of the table, and the urns themselves were not knife cases as they became in

PLATE

46. Mahogany and mahogany veneer side table and pedestals, 1785

later examples but merely ornaments;29 as with most of Adam's designs, the table had a plain, flat front. The same grouping, but with round, still lower pedestals, appeared again in the Adam design of about 1780 for Osterley. 30 Hepplewhite (who died in 1786) devoted a number of designs to sideboards, pedestals, urns, and knife cases, 31 but treated each one separately. He seems to have intended urns merely for decoration, and although the knife cases were shaped like urns it was evidently optional which of the two was used. 32 He discoursed at length on the value of the sideboard, 33 but both his words and his designs show that what he had in mind was a grouping of three separate pieces. In Plate 124 of his book he gives a design of an imaginery dining room, with the sideboard in separate units. The next significant step in the development of the sideboard occurred when the three pieces were made as one, as they were in 1788 in a design by Thomas Shearer. 34 The sideboard here had a plain, rounded front and a solid, upright, wooden back, and the pedestals were no longer simply for knife case urns but were cupboards on open legs with knife cases above them. However, this new type did not supersede the earlier one, for Sheraton's Drawing Book (1791-94) 35 and his Cabinet Dictionary (1803) 36 showed designs for both. Also, in 1826 the Nicholsons gave both an example of the single-unit type with a plain centre-piece and slightly protruding pedestals at each end, 37 as well as designs for "Pedestals for Sideboard Tables," seeming to indicate that the three units of the earlier type were still being made separately. In the Victorian period, which is beyond the scope of the present study, the united type was adopted but in a manner and for reasons which we cannot discuss here.

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Mirrors Mediaeval mirrors, like their Greek and Roman predecessors, were small and made of highly polished metal; they were round with a handle and made for carrying in the hand. Wall mirrors were very occasionally shown in late mediaeval manuscript illustrations, but they cannot have been common at the time. The development of the modern kind of glass mirror depended both on the growth of the glass-making industry and the discovery of a suitable preparation for backing the glass to make it reflect. The modern mirror originated in Venice where it has been made since the fourteenth century. After Henri II of France granted a patent, in 1552, for the making of mirror glass in the Venetian manner, the process seems to have become known guite quickly. It was established in England early in the seventeenth century, probably by the entrepreneur Sir Robert Mansell; the best known person who later engaged in making mirrors was the Duke of Buckingham at the Vauxhall Glass-house, referred to by John Evelyn. The mirror in the seventeenth century had generally been square or nearly so, although often designed with an elaborate cresting piece of semi-circular form ( missing in many extant examples). The panel of glass which measured between twelve and fifteen inches was enclosed by a border generally either carved, inlaid ( tortoiseshell was a favourite material), or embroidered. About 1700 this mirror began to give way to a new type which was more varied, less restricted in ornament, and soon very much larger, and in which the straight lines of the earlier form were gradually forgotten. Plate 4 7 illustrates an early stage of the process, and another later example (Plate 48) of about 1760 shows that as the century advanced the mirror grew steadily larger and more important in the usual scheme of household decoration. Rococo

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47. Mirror in gilt pine frame, 1710, reflecting deal (walnut veneer) bureau bookcase, 1700

PLATE

mirrors such as the second Museum example were normally very large and had a bewildering variety of shapes. It was not until the last third of the century that uniformity began to return, first in the oval mirror with a gilt surround, which we connect with Robert Adam, and then in the round type with an eagle at the top, which seems to have been a popular feature of rooms from 1785 to 18 15. This form of decoration is often believed to be in some way connected with the eagle of Napoleon I, but the type was being made in England long before his enthronement.

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PLATE 48. Mirror in gilt pine frame, 1760

Clocks The purpose of the earliest clocks was to strike the hour on a bell rather than to "tell the time" by a dial and hands. The face, therefore, was always small and quite unimportant, and the hour hand, the only hand, was short. These clocks normally stood on brackets high upon the wall to allow space for the heavy iron weights and the long chains by which the clock worked. In England the body was square and generally covered with brass, and had a dome at the top. The making of this kind of bracket clock continued in England until far into the seventeenth century. There are three late examples in the Museum, one by the famous clockmaker Joseph Knibb. The two discoveries on which the more modern kind of clock depends were the pendulum and the anchor-shaped escapement. The scientific principle of the pendulum was discovered in Italy by Galileo early in the seventeenth century, but only in 1657 was brought to practical use in clockmaking by the Dutchman Christian Huyghens; improvements on Huyghens' work were made almost immediately by others including Dr. Robert Hooke in England. The escapement is a small moving part which enables the retention of the correct amount of energy for the accurate working of the clock and the escape of the remainder; the anchor shape, an improvement on its predecessors, was applied to the escapement at approximately the same date as the pendulum came into use. The long case clock, the case protecting both pendulum and weights, thus became possible, and cabinetmakers were quick to seize on the new opportunities it offered. Such clocks survive in very large numbers from about 1680 onwards, and two early examples are shown in Plates 49 and 50. The former, dating from about 1700, has the square face with twisted side pillars which was 79

49. Clock in walnut veneer case, 1700

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80

50. Clock in japanned pine case, 1725

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universal in the early examples. The case is ornamented with an elaborate arabesque design in marquetry. The dial shows an advanced stage of a movement which began soon after long case clocks were first made; both the dial and the Roman numerals are larger, and the latter much clearer than before. The accuracy of the clocks was so much improved that a minute hand was universal, and the striking mechanism gradually lost its earlier importance. The name of the maker, the addition of which had become compulsory in 1698, appears on the dial; this clock was made by W. Bird Segrave. Plate 50 shows a long case clock of about 1725. Most of its features are similar to those of the clock just described, although the twisted pillars have now given way to very elongated plain ones. On the dial appears the maker's name, John Tetlow, London. Perhaps the chief interest of this clock is the fact that the case is covered with a japanned landscape scene painted in gold and red on a black ground, heralding the second wave of the popularity of Chinoiserie. In the centre of the case is the inscription "God save King George."

Writing Furniture The earliest writing furniture of which we know, other than the portable writing desk, was a plain table with a structure of small drawers and other receptacles at the back. The type is known to have been in existence in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. 38 One of the features brought back to England by Charles II and his courtiers was a new kind of specially made writing desk, of which two types were made regularly. The first, and probably the earlier, was the small kneehole desk with a flat writing surface, a superstructure of small drawers at the back and larger ones at the writer's two sides below the writing surface. It seems to have come 81

into use late in the seventeenth century; Plate 34 shows a rather late example which dates perhaps from about 1730. The second type, which appears to have been introduced in the 1690's, was a bureau bookcase, a combination of bookcase, desk, and chest-of-drawers. Examples varied chiefly in the design of the upper part: some had a flat pediment, a glass front, fluted Corinthian pilasters on either side, and a side opening; some had a triangular pediment, sometimes in rather fanciful form, 39 and two wooden doors; and others, such as that reflected in Plate 47, had a hooded top and a centre opening, generally with wooden doors, although occasionally as here with glass ones. A later unillustrated Museum example which must date from about 1750 has a broken pediment and two wooden doors, but its chief interest is the ogee curves which ornament the doors. First appearing late in the 1730's, 40 such curves were a favourite motif of the Clerkenwell cabinetmaker Giles Grendey, 41 and are seen on several pieces made by him about 1750. Examples of the large bureau bookcase or bureau cabinet were still displayed in a number of design books of the second part of the century, 42 but the type seems to have begun to lose favour soon after 1760. The separate bookcase began to appear late in the century, and was a plain, upright, and fairly narrow piece of furniture, usually with a glass front. The bureau shrank greatly in size and finally became a smallish secretaire on four tapering legs. The Museum example (Plate 37) is probably to be dated in the 1790's and is typical of the furniture of that time. There is a cloth-covered writing surface with a structure of drawers behind it which moves up and down by means of a lever, recalling Sheraton's "Harlequin" table. The whole is closed in by the kind of desk covering known at the time as a "tambour," an ancestor of the roll top desk and perhaps a distant imitation of the imposing kind of desk produced in France for Louis XV. Shown in various forms in the design

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books of the end of the eighteenth century, 43 the tambour worked by a series of narrow strips of wood held together by tapes, the ends of the wood fitting into the grooves in which the whole top moved. The roll-top desk, an improvement of this principle, made its appearance soon after 1800. 44

Candlesticks There could be little change or development in most forms of lighting by candlelight; thus the chandelier, the wall sconce, and the candlestick in one form or another were all in use for a long time. The eighteenth century witnessed the brief popularity of a

PLATE

51. Mahogany candlestand, 1760

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new addition to these types, the candlestand, of which there are few examples extant and for which we depend largely on the furniture designs of the period. 45 It appeared in almost all of those produced during the century, but seldom after 1800, perhaps a reflection of new methods of lighting then becoming popular ( the oil lamp became very fashionable in France during the Empire, and was rapidly followed by gas lighting). The earlier examples of the candlestand, such as that in Plate 51, had an extremely curved appearance. Later, for example in designs in both Hepplewhite's Guide46 and Sheraton's Drawing Book, 47 the candlestand was much straighter and more upright, although, as in the earlier examples, there were included the alternatives of the flat plate in the centre for a separate candlestick, and the arms with sockets for the candles.

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EPILOGUE THE TWO hundred and fifty years covered in this book, the period to which almost all the Museum's present collection belongs, are central in the development of modern English furniture; they form the period in which furniture is most in touch with the other decorative arts. As we go backward from 1575 we come into a period of which little can be said with certainty save that the number of different types diminishes rapidly. By the time we reach the thirteenth century, the furthest point to which anyone has dared to push back the date of the earliest surviving pieces, we seem to be at a stage in which the chest, the bench, and the stool are the only permanent pieces, while the bed and the table were known but put up specially as and when required. If, on the other hand, we follow the development from 1825 on, we enter a period in which the reverse is true. The number of types multiplies rapidly and where, during the eighteenth century, one kind of chair may be dominant at any given time, during the nineteenth there are likely to be half a dozen or more together, few of which may yet be regarded as "antique."

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APPENDIX

Catalogue Descriptions of Furniture in the Museum Collection

CATALOGUE DESCRIPTIONS OF FURNITURE IN THE MUSEUM COLLECTION

The following list of catalogue descriptions covers the same time period (that is, later sixteenth to early nineteenth centuries) and follows the same division into sections (that is, chests, chairs, tables, and so forth) as do Parts I and II of this book. Both illustrated and unillustrated pieces of furniture are described, the former denoted by a plate number in parentheses. The catalogue number comes at the end or close to the end of each entry. PART I

Oak panelling (Plate 1). 1580-1600. From a room in a house in Norwich. 912.5. Oak door and doorway (Plate 2). Probably fifteenth century. From a house in Robertsbridge, Sussex; total height 7 ft. 2 in., width 5 ft. 2 in. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 927.23.6. Oak doorway (Plate 3). 1650-1700. Putti holding a shield at the top, and fluted Corinthian pillars on the outside; maximum height 11 ft. 4 in., width 5 ft. 10 in. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 920.12.34.

Chests, Chests-of-Drawers, and Cupboards Chest, oak (Plate 4). Second half sixteenth century. Long and narrow, the front decorated by interlaced pointed arches in very low relief carving; the ends plain, continuing to the floor and V-notched to form legs; top badly warped; ends partly restored; height 22 in., length 45 in., depth 16 in. Langmuir Collection. 915.6.1. Chest front, oak. Sixteenth century. Three plain vertical strips separating four panels of floral carving; height 28Jf in., length 58½ in. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 921.22.4. Chest, oak (Plate 1). Late sixteenth century. The whole held together by heavy wooden pegs; broad uprights which are the outer pieces of front and back and also form the legs; all four sides sloped towards a hipped

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top; signs of a lock-plate attachment, and beside them the initials "A.H."; height 38 in., length 39 in., depth at top 24 in. and at floor 28 in. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 924.21.17. Chest, oak (Plate 5). 1600. The front decorated with three panels of strapwork in low relief and four full-length figures; iron lock with keyhole but no escutcheon; height 32½ in., length 60½ in., depth 24 in. Langmuir Collection. 915.6.8. Chest, oak. Seventeenth century. Front with top strip and three panels, all with flat incised motifs and separated by plain vertical strips; height 27¾ in., length 49)~ in., depth 19½ in. Langmuir Collection. 915.6.2. Chest with drawers, oak (Plate 6). 1650. The front ornamented with two square panels and three vertical strips with strapwork; panelled top with carving on front and ends; locks with plain escutcheons on chest front and drawer front; drop handles on the ends; plain short legs; height 30 in., length 373i in., depth 25 in. Langmuir Collection. 915.6.4. Chest with drawers, oak. Second half of seventeenth century. Ornamented strip at the top, four panels below; at the bottom two drawers side by side; height 313{ in., length 54¾ in., depth 22¾ in. National Art Collections Fund Gift. 921.30.20. Chest-of-drawers, oak (Plate 7). 1685. Three drawers, each with applied mouldings and ring handles; bracket feet; the top divided lengthwise, the broader half folding forward on two hinges to lie flat on a supporting slide at each end; lock-plate on each drawer and keyhole in the centre of the top; height 28 in., length 30)f in., depth 18)~ in. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 920.12.25. Chest-of-drawers, oak. 1695. Three drawers with applied bead mouldings and strips of beading on the top and bottom of the centre drawer; front of centre drawer elaborately ornamented; projecting octagonal panels; large bun feet; height 37J~ in., width 36 in., depth 23 in. 960x33. Chest-of-drawers on stand, walnut veneer on oak-(Plate 8). 1695. The chest with three small drawers above and three long ones below; three shallow drawers in apron of stand; all drawers with ring handles and shaped lock-plates; six straight mushroom-capped legs, scalloped flat stretcher, and bun feet; height 54 in., length of stand 42 in., depth of stand 24 in., said to be from the Bishop's Palace, Cuddesdon, Oxfordshire. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 919.9.43. Chest, oak inlaid with box. 1695. The type known as a "lowboy"; three drawers in the chest and two side by side in the stand below; five rope turned legs and curving stretchers; height 47 in., length 39 in., depth 21¾ in. The T. Eaton Co. Collection. 920.12.29. Cabinet on stand, japanned beech ( Plate 9). 1695. Two doors in front and elaborate lock-plates, hinges, and corner pieces; ten small drawers of

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varying sizes inside; the doors, the sides of the chest, and the fronts of the drawers are varnished black and painted in gilt with chinoiseries; the stand silvered, and carved with naturalistic motifs and a pair of putti holding a basket of flowers; height 64 in. length 42 in., depth of chest 18¾ in. 960.13. Court cupboard, oak (Plate 10). Second quarter seventeenth century. Three shelves, the middle one containing a drawer; the space between the top two shelves containing a cupboard, that between the lower two open; pineapple supports to the fronts of the two upper shelves; low relief floral carving on front and sides of the cupboard and of the two top shelves; height 48 in., length 51½ in., depth 22 in. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 920.12.10.

Beds Bed, oak (Plate 11). Late sixteenth century. The canopy partly restored and in the centre a panel carved with a human bust surrounded by heavy mouldings; carved head board with two panels, the bust of a man in one and of a woman in the other, formal mouldings, half-length figures, and masks; melon bulges in upper parts of pillars supporting the canopy; lower parts restored; sides partly restored, with holes for the rope which supports the mattress; height 6 ft. 8 in., length 7 ft., width 5 ft. 2 in.; said to be from Baldon Manor House near Oxford. Gift of Mrs. W. H. Clemes. 914.11.3.

Stools, Chairs, and Day Beds Stool, oak. Sixteenth century. Shaped trestle ends; height 19)i in., length 23 in., width 13 in. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 924.21.9. Stool, oak. 1650. Four baluster turned legs sloping outwards; low stretcher; height 22}~ in., length 17}~ in., width 10)4 in. Gift of Mrs. W. H. Clemes. 914.11.1. Chair, oak (Plate 12). Late sixteenth century. Three verticals forming legs, arm supports, and centre-piece of the back; stretchers between each pair of legs; turned spindles projecting diagonally from either side of the centre vertical to form the back and support a bar; turned diagonals connecting this bar with the two front verticals; seat and framework canted backwards; height of back 32)~ in., of front verticals 26 in., of seat front 16¾ in., width 25 in. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 925.19.7. Chair, oak (Plate 1). Late sixteenth century. Box-bottom with low relief carving on the front panel showing a nude female figure. Flat curved

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arms with plain arm supports; canted back with panel of floral carving in low relief; carving of the cresting incomplete; height of back 41 in., of arms 26 in., of seat 16 in., width 18 in. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 925.19.6. Chair, oak. 1630. Solid back; turned legs and arm supports; ornament largely of guilloche mouldings; the wooden seat modern; height of back 40 in., of arms 29 in., of seat 13 in.; seat (front) 24 in., (back) 18)f in. x 14)f in. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 925.19.8. Chair, oak (Plate 13). 1650. Solid back with two panels of flat carving; scrolled cresting with supports on either side; sloping arms; ball turning on front legs and arm supports; plain stretchers, the front and side ones set very low, the back one slightly higher; ball feet on front legs; height 47 in., height of arms in front 26 in., of seat 18 in.; seat (front) 22½ in., (back) 19 in. x 14)f in. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 919.9.34. Chair, oak. 1650. Solid back with panels of low relief floral carving and arms sloping downwards; height 42)f in., height of arms 28)f in., of seat 18)f in.; seat 25 x 16)f in. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 919.9.38. Chair, oak (Plate 14). 1650. "Yorkshire and Derbyshire" type of openwork back with two curved crossbars carved with guilloche design and with pendant knobs; ball turning on front legs; height of back 40 in., of seat 19 in.; seat 18 x 14 in. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 919.9.36. Chair, walnut (Plate 15). 1650. The back and seat upholstered with separate panels of leather nailed to the framework with large-headed nails; high front stretcher, front legs and H-stretcher all with ball turning; back legs plain; ball feet on front legs; height of back 35)f in., of seat 20 in.; seat 21 x 17 in. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 924.21.14. Chair, oak (Plate 16). 1660. Open back, ornamented with ring and ball turning; solid seat; high stretchers between each pair of legs; H-stretcher set low; ball feet; finial knobs at each side of back; height of back 38 in., of seat 16)f in.; seat 19 x 17 in. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 923.20.4. Chair, walnut (Plate 17). 1665. Caned panel in back and seat; the panel in the back surrounded by a line of incised diamond patterns; rope turning on legs and stretchers and on the side rails of the back; knob finials on side rails; ball feet; height of back 43 in., of seat 19)f in.; seat (front) 20 in., (back) 18 in. x 16 in. 929.14.31. Chair, walnut. 1680. Tall back with cresting; cane panels in back and seat; height of back 46½ in., of seat 19 in.; seat (front) 19)f in., (back) 17 in. x 15)f in. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 919.9.45. Chair, walnut (Plate 18). 1680. Tall back with a vertical strip of caning on either side of a wooden centre strip carved in low relief; scroll-carved pieces surround this; cresting with cherubim and crown motif; scroll

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front legs, with high stretcher carved like cresting; rope turned side rails with finials carved as human heads; rope turned back stretcher and H-stretcher; low relief carving on the tenon blocks; wooden seat replacing the original caning; height of back 44)f in., of seat 17)~ in.; seat (front) 20 in., (back) 17 in. x 17 in. Gift of Mrs. F. F. Dalley. 948.233. Chair, walnut (Plate 19). 1695. Tall canted back with cresting; back and seat with panels of caning; the arm supports, back stretcher, Hstretcher, and side rails of back baluster turned; the arms shaped and curving outwards to a scroll front; front legs angle turned, with high stretcher carved and pierced to match the cresting; height of back 54 in., of arms 26 in., of seat 15 in.; seat (front) 22 in., (back) 18 in. x 17 in. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 920.12.24. Chair, birch, 1695. Tall narrow back with caning in back and seat; height of back 54 in., of seat 19 in.; seat 17)f x 13Ji in. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 921.22.10. Chair, birch (Plate 20). 1690. Tall back with arched top and wide curved wings; scalloped apron; walnut legs and stretchers, the front legs straight with mushroom caps and small animal paw feet, the back legs curving backwards in square section, the two stretchers flat and curved; fully upholstered; height of back 54 in., of arms 27)f in., of seat 20 in.; seat 19 x 18 in. Gift of Mrs. Edgar J. Stone. 954.28.4. Chair, birch. 1695. Tall narrow back with filling of plain vertical spindles; small upholstered seat; height of back 52% in., of seat 17 in.; seat (front) 19 in., (back) 15 in. x 17 in. 921x43. Day bed, walnut (Plate 21). 1670. The back and surface caned; six rope turned legs; the stretchers set high on the long sides, low between the pairs of legs; the back adjustable, held by a chain between two sloping rope turned rails with knob finials; cresting on the back; height of back 37½ in., of surface 14 in.; surface 60 x 22 in. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 924.31.24. This example or one very similar is illustrated in P. Macquoid, History of English Furniture, vol. II: The Age of Walnut ( London, 1925), fig. 15. Tables

Table, oak ( Plate 22). Second quarter seventeenth century. The top of three planks held together by strips at the ends; the apron with floral carving on one long side; the legs with plain bulges; the stretchers low; height 29 in., top 87 x 25 in. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 920.12.8. Table, oak (Plate 23). 1650. Round top in two equal parts, one half supported on a framework having one long and three shorter sides; the

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other half hinged to hang down, and can be supported by the gate attached to the long side; in the apron a drawer; four legs supporting arches; low-set stretchers and ball feet; height 33 in., diameter of top 41 in. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 920.12.20. Table, oak. Late seventeenth century. Gate-leg type; the top in three sections; the framework with a gate on either side; height 27 in., top 35 x 29 in. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 920.12.19. Table, oak (Plate 24). 1670. Plain top with one drawer; low set H-stretcher; higher stretcher on the two long sides; legs and stretchers rope turned; height 27}~ in., top 27 x 22 in. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 919.9.44. Table, walnut (Plate 25). 1695. The top inlaid with "oyster wood"; plain apron with one drawer; six rope turned legs, the ropes of varying diameters; flat scalloped stretcher set low; ball feet; ( one of the legs a replacement in oak); height 29 in., top 41 x 28 in. Bequest of Mrs. Josephine Eaton Burnside. 941.6.4. For variations in the size of the rope turning see P. Macquoid, The History of English Furniture, vol. II: The Age of Walnut (London, 1925), e.g. plate V. Table, oak and box (Plate 26). 1695. Rectangular top; three drawers in apron; lower edge of apron finished with three arches and two pendants; baluster turned legs with mushroom caps; shaped stretcher in X form; bun feet; perhaps an early dressing table; height 28 in., top 30 x 19 in. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 922.24.6. Table, oak. 1695. Rectangular top with three drawers; perhaps a dressing table; height 29% in., top 31 x 20 in. National Art Collections Fund Gift. 921.30.17. PART II

Detail of room with oak panelling (Plate 27). 1710. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 921.22.11. Detail of room with painted pine panelling (Plate 28). 1740. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 920.12.28.

Chests-of-Drawers and Commodes Chest-of-drawers, walnut. 1715. The top and drawer fronts of walnut veneer inlaid with boxwood; straight front; three large and two small drawers; height 33¾ in., top 32)4 x 19 in. Bequest of Gerald R. Larkin. 961.123.74. Chest-of-drawers, mahogany (Plate 29). 1760. Four drawers with serpentine fronts; panels of Chinese fret design at the front corners; pull out

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writing flap above the top drawer; hardware modern; height 32¼ in., top 39 x 23 in. Bequest of Mrs. Josephine Eaton Burnside. 941.6.6. Commode, pine (Plate 30). 1775. Marquetry of satinwood, sycamore, box, and a banding of tulip wood; the top inlaid with garlands of leaves and a shell form; the front divided vertically into three sections which are again subdivided horizontally into two; a large centre section, the door which is inlaid with a vase within a wreath and corner emblems and which opens to reveal a cupboard; similar ornament on the false doors at the two sides of the lower section; above, wreaths in looped form; short tapering legs; height 35 in., length 66 in., depth 22¼ in. Bequest of Gerald R. Larkin. 961.123 .84. Chairs

Chair, oak (Plate 31). 1705. Narrow side rails; top rail and broad central vase-shaped splat; slightly curved arms and- arm supports; narrow cabriole front legs with small scroll at the join with the seat; back legs square with high turned stretcher; turned H-stretcher; height of back 39 in., of arms 27 in., of seat 17), in.; seat (front) 23½ in., (back) 17)~ in. x 16)~ in. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 920.14.l. Chair, walnut. 1705. Shaped back with round rails and shaped central splat with inlaid design; cabriole front legs; square back legs with stretcher; H-stretcher; height of back 42 in., of seat 19)~ in.; seat (front) 19¼ in., (back) 15 in. x 16 in. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 925.19.12. Chair, mahogany. 1715. Upholstered, with loose cushion seat; flat top; arms curving outward; narrow cabriole legs; pad feet; height of back 44 in., of arms 26 in., of seat 19½ in.; seat (front) 26 in., (back) 17 in. x 19¼ in. 959.206. Chair, walnut (Plate 32). 1715. Waisted sides, the rails narrow and flat in section, curving at the top; broad central splat, the top rail thickened above it and decorated with relief carving; shaped arms, continuous with the front supports; cabriole front legs, slightly swelling knee with trefoil at the join with the seat; back legs square and sloping backwards; leather upholstered seat with framework raising its front; height of back 44 in., of arms 26¼ in., of seat 17 in.; seat (front) 22 in., (back) 18 in. x 18 in. Said to be from the Bishop's Palace, Cuddesdon, Oxfordshire. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 919.9.46. Chair, walnut. 1720. "Queen Anne shield-back" type; upholstered seat and spreading arms; cabriole front legs and pad feet; height 34:14 in., of arms 25 in., of seat 16¾ in.; seat (front) 29 in., (back) 23 in. x 18½ in. 961.102.

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Chair, birch with walnut veneer (Plate 33 right). 1725. Waisted back with rails in flat section; central splat with elaborately shaped edges; leather covered seat; cabriole front legs with a shell carved on the knee; claw and ball feet; the back legs slope backwards; height of back 39 in., of seat 20 in.; seat (front) 21 in., (back) 14 in. x 18 in. 925x42. Chair, walnut (Plate 34). 1735. Vertical side rails with scroll curves at the top corners; central splat in three sections above a low set waist; cabriole front legs with small knees and scroll curves; pad feet; the back legs squared with high stretcher; H-stretcher; height of back 38 in., of seat 17)f in; seat (front) 19)f in., (back) 14 in. x 16)f in. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 924.21.23. Chair, mahogany. 1750. Straight sides, curved top rail, and pierced central splat; curved arms and arm supports; straight square front legs; Hstretcher; floral carving in low relief on the top of the back and on the arms; height 37 in., of arms 27)f in., of seat 18 in.; seat (front) 22)f in., (back) 18 in. x 18)f in. Bequest of Gerald R. Larkin. 961.123.66. Chair, mahogany. Style of 1765. Shaped and curved top rail; central splat pierced and carved; cabriole front legs with claw and ball feet; height of back 37)f in., of seat 17)f in.; seat (front) 21 in., (back) 16)f in. x 17 in. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 928.16.6. Chair, mahogany (Plate 33 left). 1765. Top rail shaped and carved; carved and pierced central splat; straight square front legs, the back legs square and sloping backwards; back stretcher; H-stretcher; height of back 37 in., of seat 17)f in., seat (front) 21)f in., (back) 16)f in. x 16)f in. 959xl83. In the style of Robert Manwaring, The Cabinet and ChairMaker's Real Friend and Companion [ 1765] (London, Tiranti reprint, 1937), plate 9. Chair, mahogany (Plate 35). 1745. "Writing chair." The top rail three-sided, the centre section raised and with flat carving, the other two plain; the back divided by three baluster turned uprights, a pierced splat in the middle of each part; square seat; cabriole leg with carved knee and claw and ball foot in front; the other three legs straight with pad feet; height of back 31 in., of seat 17½ in.; seat 17 in. sq. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 920.12.1. Chair, walnut (Plate 36). 1730. Upholstered, with rectangular back; arms with flat tops and curved supports; the supports carved with scale pattern; four cabriole legs: the front ones with relief carving on the knees and claw and ball feet, the back ones plain with pad feet; height of back 37 in., of arms 25)f in., of seat 17 in.; seat (front) 24 in., (back) 21 in. x 20 in. Gift of Mrs. Edgar J. Stone. 956.8. Chair, beech (Plate 37). 1790. Shield-back; arms dropping in a quarter circle from a short top piece; bowed seat; painted pale blue and gold;

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seat and back upholstered with a modern material; height of back 36 in., of arms 26){in., of seat 17 in.; seat (front) 23 in., (back) 15 in. x 19 in. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 924.21.22. Chair, birch. 1790. Shield-back; painted splat in the shape of the Prince of Wales' feathers, with emblem and motto; upholstered seat with bowed front; square tapering front legs, back legs curving inwards; height of back 37 in., of arms 28 in., of seat 18 in.; seat (front) 19½ in., (back) 14 in. x 17)f in. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 928.16.5. Chair, birch (Plate 38). 1790. Open shield-back with three narrow strips; curved arms dropping to low front supports; caned seat with bowed front; tapering front legs with thimble feet; back legs curving in sideways; painted in olive green and brown with small floral motifs; height of back 37 in., of arms 27)f in., of seat 16 in.; seat 22½ x 1% in. 929.14.25. Chair, birch (Plate 39). 1800. Upholstered oval back and seat; the seat with bowed front; flat arms with high vertical front supports; reeded front legs, back legs curving gently inwards; the wood gilt, with reeding and motifs of ribbons, honeysuckle, and husks; height of back 37 in., of arms 26 in. of seat 17 in.; seat 23 x 19)f in. Gift of Miss L. Aileen Larkin. 943.25. Chair, mahogany (Plate 40). Style of 1795. Square back, shaped top, four columnar splats; seat with slightly bowed front; tapering square front legs with sunk line ornament and thimble feet; plain square back legs; height of back 34)f in., of seat 17)~ in.; seat (front) 20Jf in., (back) 14)f in. x 17)f in. Bequest of Mrs. Josephine Eaton Burnside. 941.6.36. Chair, mahogany (Plate 41). 1800. Tall back with shaped top and large side pieces joining the top of the arms proper; straight front legs, back legs curving slightly backwards; back stretcher; H-stretcher; the frame fully upholstered and covered with a modern material; height of back 47 in., of arms 28)f in., of seat 17 in.; seat (front) 23 in., (back) 19 in. sq. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 923.20.7. See George Hepplewhite, The CabinetMaker and Upholsterer's Guide, 3rd ed. (London, 1794), plate 15. Chair, birch. 1810. Back and arms in one continuous line; arm supports rising from carved animal feet; vertical splat painted in gilt with a palmette and scrolls; upholstered seat; short sabre legs; height of back 35 in., of arms 23 in., of seat 17 in.; seat 22 x 21 in. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 924.21.25. Chair, birch. 1810. Round back and sides in one curve, the sides sloping down to the front of the seat; short sabre legs; the wood gilt and ornamented with Greek motifs; the seat and back upholstered in a modern material; height of back 33)f in., of seat 17 in.; seat 23Jf x 19½ in. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 924.21.26.

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Sofa, birch (Plate 42). 1790. The line of the back continuous from a scroll curved front piece at each end to a high point in the centre; the sides very short; four short columnar front legs and four square back ones; the wood gilt; upholstered in a modern material; height of back 37 in., of front of arms 18 in., of seat 16 in., length of seat 68 in., maximum depth 24 in. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 924.21.19. Tables

Table, oak (Plate 20). 1700. Three drawers in the apron, as in the earlier examples; cabriole legs with narrow knees and very slight curves, pad feet; original thin ring handles on the drawers (that on the central drawer missing); probably used as a dressing table; height 27Jf in.; top 30 x 19 in. National Art Collections Fund Gift. 921.30.19. Table, walnut (Plate 33). 1720. Card table, square folding top with shaped edges; half the top is supported by the fourth leg which moves outward; corner slides for candlesticks and wells for counters; shaped apron with drawer; long slender legs; pad feet; the top originally covered with cloth now replaced by green baize; height 27 in., top 31 x 27Jf in. 911.23. Table, mahogany. 1725. Rectangular top with raised edge; legs with slight curves at the join with the apron; pad feet; height 26½ in.; top 30 x 19Jf in. Bequest of Mrs. Josephine Eaton Burnside. 941.8.17. Table, pine with marble top (Plate 43). 1730. On the front side of the apron a cupid's head with a bow and quiver in the middle, and festoons at the sides; similar motifs on the short sides of the apron; no apron on the back long side; the legs have male heads at the top; height 36 in.; top 85 x 36 in.; said to be from Kirtlington Park, Oxfordshire. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 922.24.4. Table, gilt pine with marble top. 1730. Deep shaped apron; in the middle of the front a female head between festooned garlands of oak leaves; winged putto busts at the top of the four legs; height 34%: in.; top 60Jf x 32 in. Bequest of Gerald R. Larkin. 961.123.59. Console table, pine with marble top (Plate 44). 1740. Apron with concave ends, egg and dart moulding above, and formal carving below; two carved supports with female busts at the top and scrolling below; height 34}f in.; top (front) 4Bf in., (back) 54Jf in. x 13}f in. 941.18.3. Console table, pine with marble top. 1740. The top supported by an eagle of gilt pine standing on a shaped base; height 36½ in.; top 38% x 21% in. Bequest of Gerald R. Larkin. 961.123.73. Table, oak. 1750. Gate-leg type with oval top in three sections and central

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framework with one swinging and one fixed leg on either side; pad feet; height 28 in.; top 48 x 42 in. National Art Collections Fund Gift. 921.30.18. Table, mahogany. 1765. Gate-leg type; rectangular top in three sections; very thin pieces are used, and the type nicknamed a "spider leg table"; height 28 in.; top 30 x 29 in. Bequest of Mrs. Josephine Eaton Burnside. 941.6.10. Table, walnut (Plate 45). 1765. Triangular when closed, with top opening to form a square, the opening half supported on a swinging leg that fits into the long side of the triangle; three compartments in the apron; narrow square legs tapering to thin ankles and small feet; height when top closed 28 in.; top 20 x 20)~ in. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 919.9.40. Table, mahogany and satinwood (Plate 38). 1790. Square top with rounded corners, folding over in the middle and supported by four tapering columnar legs, two stationary and two moving to support the opening half of the top; thimble feet; the inner surface of the table covered with blue cloth; height 28)f in.; top 36 in. sq.; said to be from the Royal Pavilion at Brighton. 929.14.9. Table, satinwood. 1800. Banded with kingwood and box; round top closing to half-moon shape; the opening half supported by two moving legs; height 28 in., diameter 35)~ in. Bequest of Mrs. Josephine Eaton Burnside. 941.6.12. Table, mahogany. 1800. Dining table with semi-circular ends, one with four and one with two legs; the centre formed by inserted leaves; straight tapering legs; height 28 in., length (with one leaf) 70 in., width 52 in. Bequest of Mrs. Josephine Eaton Burnside. 941.6.17. The present leaves not of the same date as the rest of the table. Table, mahogany. 1820. Round table of the type known as a "drum table"; four drawers with brass handles in the top; tripod legs of rectangular section; brass claw feet; height 30)i in., diameter 37¾ in., depth of drum 6)~ in. Gift of Mrs. F. F. Dalley. 956.30.1. Side table and pedestals, mahogany and mahogany veneer (Plate 46). 1785. Table with serpentine fluted front and apron; the front legs six sided and the back ones five sided, all fluted; the pedestals surmounted by urns enclosing knife cases; a door with rosette ornament on each pedestal; one pedestal zinc lined for a cellarette, the other containing a cupboard; locks on the urn tops, which lift off to reveal the knife cases; height of table 32)~ in., top 72 x 35 in.; height of pedestals 38 in., 18 in. sq.; height of urns 28 in., diameter 12)~ in. Bequest of Mrs. Josephine Eaton Burnside. 941.6.22, 23a,b, 24a,b. Table, mahogany. 1790. Octagonal top lifting to reveal a shallow receptacle; four square tapering legs; low cross stretcher; the type described by

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Hepplewhite as an "urn stand"; height 30)4 in., top 17 x 14 in. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 920.12.13.

Mirrors Mirror in frame of gilt pine (Plate 47). 1710. Straight sides and bottom; curving top and elaborate scrolling piece above; leaf and formal feather ornament all over; height 39 in., width 20 in. Bequest of Gerald R. Larkin. 961.123.76. Mirror in frame of gilt pine (Plate 48). 1760. Large mid-eighteenth-century form; pagoda shape at the top, bearded human face at the bottom; formal curving shapes and three birds decorating the frame; height 100 in., width 50)f in. Bequest of Gerald R. Larkin. 961.123.90.

Clocks Clock. 1670. Thirty-hour bracket clock in brass case, by Thomas Dyde, London; height 15)4 in., width 6%, in., depth 6 in. Gift of Mrs. F. N. G. Starr. 950.82.20. Clock. 1670. Thirty-hour bracket clock in brass case; height 14¾ in., width 6 in., depth 7 in. Gift of Mr. E. R. Rolph. 942.30. Clock. 1670. Thirty-hour bracket clock in brass case, by Joseph Knibb; height 15)~ in., width 5Jf in. depth 5Jf in. Gift of Mrs. Arnold Matthews. 952.95. Clock (Plate 49). 1700. The case oak with walnut veneer; marquetry of box and sycamore in small formal arabesque designs on the front; square-topped with a twisted column at either side of the face; the face gilt, with formal leaf ornament applied to the corners; signed "W. Bird Segrave"; height 84 in., height of base 23 in.; base 18 x 10 in., dial 12 in. sq. Bequest of Gerald R. Larkin. 961.123.58. Clock (Plate 50). 1725. Pine case japanned in black and red to resemble tortoiseshell lacquer; painted in gold with chinoiseries, and in the centre a European figure on horseback above the words "God Save King George"; flat top and straight narrow columns at either side of the face; the face showing hours and minutes and with formal leaf ornament applied to the corners; signed "John Tetlow, London"; height 85 in., height of base 17 in.; base 17Jf x 9 in., dial 12 in. sq. Bequest of Miss Vivian Bowles. 954.117. Clock. 1730. Ebonized case and domed brass top, inscribed "Dan Quare & Ste. Horseman, London"; height 28 in., width 16 in., depth 10 in. George Crofts Collection. 921.21.124.

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Clock. 1740. The case japanned in gold on a black ground; signed "John Ogden, Sunderland"; height 92 in., width 19 in., depth 9)f in. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 911.7.1. Clock. 1750. The case of walnut veneer with stepped and domed top and a brass knob at either side; the face signed "Tho Shindler, Canterbury"; height 94 in., width 20 in., depth 10½ in. 929.14.32. Writing Furniture

Desk, walnut (Plate 34). 1730. The top and drawer fronts of burled walnut veneer inlaid with box; kneehole desk with flat top over a long drawer; the drawer front hinged to fall forward level with the bottom and form a writing surface; at the back of this small drawers and pigeonholes; behind the kneehole a large cupboard; at each side three small drawers arranged vertically; height 31½ in.; top 32Jf x 19Jf in. Bequest of Gerald R. Larkin. 961.123.83. Bureau bookcase, walnut veneer on a deal carcass (Plate 47). 1700. Fall front on the bureau supported by narrow pull-out slides; drawers and pigeonholes within; two short and two full-length drawers below; the bookcase with double hood, mirror-fronted doors, and three shelves inside; height 85 in., width 40-42 in.; depth of bookcase 13½ in., of bureau 23 in. Said to be from the Bishop's Palace, Cuddesdon, Oxfordshire. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 919.9.47. Bureau bookcase, mahogany. 1750. Broken pediment above the bookcase; four drawers in the bureau below; height 97 in., width 40 in.; depth of bookcase 13)f in., of bureau 2m in. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 922.24.2. Secretaire on stand, mahogany (Plate 37). 1790. Desk covered with green cloth and containing two drawers and the false front of a third at the back; square tapering legs with small casters; a superstructure of drawers and pigeonholes is raised from the back by a lever; tambour cover; height of desk 31 in., of drawers when raised 36 in.; top 30 x 23)f in. Gift of Mrs. F. F. Dalley. 951.136.3. Candlestands

Candlestand, mahogany (Plate 51). 1760 One of a pair; curving form with low relief carving rising from three feet; three arms with holders for candles; round central disk for a candlestick; height 51 in. T. Eaton Co. Collection. 923.4.71.

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Notes and Bibliography

NOTES FOR PARTS I AND II

PART I R. W. Symonds, "The English Cane Chair Industry," Connoisseur, CXXVII (1951), p. Sf. 2 H. Cescinsky, English Furniture from Gothic to Sheraton, 2nd ed. (New York, 1937), p. 102. 3 Many are illustrated by V. Slomann, "Indian Period of European Furniture", Burlington Magazine, LXV (September 1934), p. 112f. 4 M. Jourdain, English Decoration and Furniture of the Early Renaissance (1500-1650) (London, 1924), p. 195, n. 2. 5 Symonds, "The English Cane Chair Industry," p. 8. 6 Ibid., p. 91, notes that A General Description of All Trade in 1747 referred to cane chairs as being "now almost out of use." 7 Samuel Pepys redecorated part of his house just after 1660, and he refers in his Diary to a number of these trades. All the workmen appear to have been under the orders of a person then known as the "upholsterer." 8 Some early examples which illustrate this point are collected in F. Roe, Ancient Church Chests and Chairs in the Home Counties round Greater London ( London, 1929). 9 A number of similar examples are in the Victoria and Albert Museum Catalogue of Furniture and Woodwork vol. I (London, 1929), pis. 46, 47. A late example dated about 1625 is shown in Ralph Edwards, The Dictionary of English Furniture from the Middle Ages to the Late Georgian Period, 2nd ed. (London, 1954), "Chests," fig. 24. 10 Edwards, Dictionary, "Ark"; a seventeenth-century example from Aston Hall is illustrated. See also R. W. Symonds, Furniture Making in Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century England (London, 1955), fig. 21, p. 21. 11 A chest with similar figures and dated about 1590 is shown in Edwards, Dictionary, "Chests," fig. 22. 12 Compare Thomas Wright, A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England during the Middle Ages (London, 1862), p. 380f. and fig. 249f.

1

105

George Cavendish, Life of Cardinal Wolsey (New York, 1887), p. 100. Another instance is perhaps referred to in Thomas Malory, Marte d'Arthur, book 7, chap. 22: "But Sir Gareth said plainly he would go no further than the hall ... so there were ordained great couches, and thereon feather-beds, and there laid him down to sleep." 14 I take this, which I have not been able to check with a text of Reginald of Durham, from Wright, History of Domestic Manners, p. 110. 15 Illustrated in F. Davis, A Picture History of Furniture (London, 1958), p. 9, and thought to be a working drawing for the ornament of the capital of one of the columns in the Hotel de Ville at Brussels. 16 This carving was most recently illustrated in ibid., fig 5. 17 Louise Lefran