Chats on Old Furniture Part 6

Table, Cromwell, oak, on spiral legs. Dowell, Edinburgh, March 12, 1904 11 0 6

Elbow-chair, oak, Scotch, back having carved wheel, "A. R., 1663." Dowell, Edinburgh, March 12, 1904 60 18 0

Cabinet, Jacobean oak, with drawer and folding doors below, with moulded rectangular panels and bal.u.s.ters in relief, 50 in. high, 46 in. wide. Christie, July 1, 1904 35 14 0

[1] By the kindness of the proprietors of the _Connoisseur_ these items are given from their useful monthly publication, _Auction Sale Prices_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CRADLE, TIME OF CHARLES I.

CARVED OAK; WITH LETTERS G. B. M. B. DATED 1641.

(_Victoria and Albert Museum._)]

IV

STUART OR JACOBEAN.

LATE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

[Ill.u.s.tration: (_After picture by Caspar Netscher_)

INTERIOR OF DUTCH HOUSE.

LATTER HALF OF SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.]

IV

STUART OR JACOBEAN. LATE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

Charles II. 1660-1685.

James II. 1685-1688.

William and Mary. 1689-1694.

William 1694-1702.

Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723).

Grinling Gibbons (1648-1726).

1660. Bombay became a British possession. Importation of Indo-Portuguese furniture.

1666. Great Fire in London. Much valuable furniture destroyed.

1675-1710. St. Paul's Cathedral built under Wren's direction.

1685. Edict of Nantes revoked. Spitalfields' silk industry founded by French refugees.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _By permission of the proprietors of the "Connoisseur."_

CABINET OF THE TIME OF CHARLES II.

With exterior finely decorated with needlework.]

After the Civil War, when Charles II. came into his own again, the furniture of the Restoration period most certainly took its colour from the gay Court with which the Merry Monarch surrounded himself. The cabinet which we reproduce has the royal arms embroidered on the cover, and is a beautiful example of intricate cabinetmaking. The surface of the piece is entirely covered with needlework. On the front stand a cavalier and lady, hand-in-hand. On the side panel a cavalier is leading a lady on horseback. On the back a man drives a laden camel, and on another panel is shown the traveller being received by an old man in the grounds of the same castle which appears all through the scenes. This suggests the love-story of some cavalier and his lady. The casket is worthy to have held the love-letters of the Chevalier Grammont to La Belle Hamilton.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _By permission of the proprietors of the "Connoisseur."_

CABINET OF THE TIME OF CHARLES II.

Showing interior and nest of drawers.]

As is usual in pieces of this nature, the cabinet contains many artfully devised hiding places. A tiny spring behind the lock reveals one secret drawer, and another is hidden beneath the inkwell. There are in all five of such secret compartments--or rather five of them have been at present discovered--there may be more. The ill.u.s.tration of the cabinet open shows what a nest of drawers it holds.

In the days of plots, when t.i.tus Oates set half the nation by the ears, when James solemnly warned the merry Charles of plots against his life, provoking the cynical retort, "They will never kill me, James, to make you king," secret drawers were no doubt a necessity to a fashionable cabinet.

Catherine of Braganza, his queen, brought with her from Portugal many sumptuous fashions in furniture, notably cabinets and chairs of Spanish and Portuguese workmanship. The cavaliers scattered by the Civil War returned, and as in their enforced exile on the Continent they had cultivated foreign tastes, it was only natural that Dutch, French, and Italian work found its way to this country and effected the character of the early furniture of the Charles II. period. From Portugal came the high-backed chair, having the back and the seat of leather cut with fine design, and coloured or gilded. This leather work is of exquisite character, and we reproduce a portion of a Portuguese chair-back of this period to show the artistic excellence of the design. With Catherine of Braganza came the marriage dower of Bombay, and from India, where the settlement of Goa had been Portuguese for centuries, were sent to Europe the carved chairs in ebony, inlaid in ivory, made by the native workmen from Portuguese and Italian models, but enriched with pierced carving and intricate inlay of ivory in a manner which only an Oriental craftsman can produce. Having become fashionable in Portugal, they made their appearance in England, and rapidly became popular. At Penshurst Place there are several fine specimens of this Indo-Portuguese work, with the spindles of the chair-backs of carved ivory; and in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford there is the well-known chair which was presented by Charles II. to Elias Ashmole.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _By permission of Messrs. Hampton & Sons._

PORTUGUESE HIGH-BACK CHAIR.

Seat and back formed of two panels of old stamped leather, studded with bra.s.s bosses.]

Both in this later Stuart period and in the days of the first Charles inlay was considerably used to heighten the carved designs on oak tables, chairs, and cabinets. The growth of commerce was responsible for the introduction of many varieties of foreign woods, which were used to produce finer effects in marquetry than the rude inlay of Elizabethan days.

The Frontispiece to this volume represents a very handsome cabinet of English workmanship, inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl. It is an unusually fine example of the middle seventeenth century, and bears the date 1653, the year when Cromwell forcibly dissolved the Rump Parliament and was declared "Lord Protector of the Commonwealth."

Up till now oak--the hard, tough, English variety, and not the more modern Baltic oak or American varieties now used--was the material for the tool of the carver to work upon. With the introduction of more flowing lines and curves, a wealth of detail, it is not unnatural to find that softer woods began to find favour as more suitable to the new decorations. The age of walnut was approaching when, under William the Dutchman, and in the days of Queen Anne, a newer style of furniture was to arise, made by craftsmen trained in the precepts of Grinling Gibbons and following the conceptions of Sir Christopher Wren. It must be borne in mind that in Italy the softer woods, such as lime, willow, sycamore, chestnut, walnut, and cypress, had long been used for the delicate carving during the height of the Renaissance and succeeding period, and in France and Spain chestnut and walnut were favourite woods.

In the central panel of the Restoration chair-back, canework began to be used instead of the Early Jacobean carving. Cane seats were frequent, and loose cushions, attached by means of strings, covered these cane panels and seats. The ill.u.s.tration (p. 122) shows a Jacobean chair of this period.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _By permission of Messrs. Waring_

OAK CHEST OF DRAWERS. LATE JACOBEAN.

(Height, 3 ft. 3 in.; width, 3 ft.; depth, 1 ft. 10 in.)]

Belonging to these later Jacobean days are chests of drawers of oak with finely panelled fronts. We ill.u.s.trate two specimens, showing the old bra.s.s metal work and the drop-handles. They are usually in two parts, and are very deep from back to front. These are two typical examples of this kind of furniture, which was in general use up to the days of Queen Anne, when pieces are frequently found supported on a stand.

In the picture by Caspar Netscher, showing a Dutch lady at her toilet, a good idea is conveyed of the kind of chair in use in Holland in the latter half of the seventeenth century, upholstered in brocade, and the rich tapestry tablecloth is a noticeable feature.

Before entering upon the last phase of Stuart furniture, and leaving the days of Jacobean oak with its fine carving and handsome appearance--the careful result of selecting the timber and splitting it to show the fine figure of the wood--the attention of the reader should be drawn to the fact that the appearance of the surface of furniture made subsequent to this period begins to approach the results of the modern cabinetmaker with his polishes and spirit varnishes and highly glazed panels and table tops. The lover of old oak abominates varnish. The Elizabethan and Jacobean carved oak furniture received only a preliminary coat of dark varnish in its early days, mixed with oil and not spirit, which sank into the wood and was not a surface polish, and was probably used to preserve the wood. These old pieces, which have received centuries of rubbing with beeswax and oil, have resulted in producing a rich, warm tone which it is impossible to copy by any of the subtle arts known to the modern forger. The collector should make himself thoroughly familiar with the appearance of this old oak by a careful examination of museum pieces, which, when once seen, cannot easily be forgotten.