Chats on Old Furniture: A Practical Guide for CollectorsHayden, Arthur
History
Chats on Old Furniture: A Practical Guide for Collectors
Hayden, Arthur
Collectors and collecting; Furniture -- History
It remained for many years at Deptford dockyard, and became the resort
of holiday folk, who made merry in the cabin, which was converted into a
miniature banqueting hall; but when it was too far decayed to be
repaired it was broken up, and a sufficient quantity of sound wood was
selected from it and made into a chair, which was presented to the
University of Oxford. This was in the time of Charles II., and the poet
Cowley has written some lines on it, in which he says that Drake and
his _Golden Hind_ could not have wished a more blessed fate, since to
"this Pythagorean ship"
"... a seat of endless rest is given
To her in Oxford, and to him in heaven--"
which, though quite unintentional on the part of the poet, is curiously
satiric.
[Illustration: _By permission of the Master of the Charterhouse._
OAK TABLE, DATED 1616, BEARING ARMS OF THOMAS SUTTON, FOUNDER OF THE
CHARTERHOUSE HOSPITAL.]
The piece is highly instructive as showing the prevailing design for a
sumptuous chair in the late seventeenth century. The middle arch in the
back of the chair is disfigured by a tablet with an inscription, which
has been placed there.
Of the early days of James I. is a finely carved oak table, dated 1616.
This table is heavily moulded and carved with garlands between cherubs'
heads, and shields bearing the arms of Thomas Sutton, the founder of the
Charterhouse Hospital. The upper part of the table is supported on
thirteen columns, with quasi-Corinthian columns and enriched shafts,
standing on a moulded H-shaped base. It will be seen that the designers
had not yet thrown off the trammels of architecture which dominated much
of the Renaissance woodwork. The garlands are not the garlands of
Grinling Gibbons, and although falling within the Jacobean period, it
lacks the charm which belong to typical Jacobean pieces.
At Knole, in the possession of Lord Sackville, there are some fine
specimens of early Jacobean furniture, illustrations of which are
included in this volume. The chair used by King James I. when sitting to
the painter Mytens is of peculiar interest. The cushion, worn and
threadbare with age, is in all probability the same cushion used by
James. The upper part of the chair is trimmed with a band of gold
thread. The upholstering is red velvet, and the frame, which is of oak,
bears traces of gilding upon it, and is studded with copper nails. The
chair in design, with the half circular supports, follows old Venetian
patterns. The smaller chair is of the same date, and equally interesting
as a fine specimen; the old embroidery, discoloured and worn though it
be, is of striking design and must have been brilliant and distinctive
three hundred years ago. The date of these pieces is about 1620, the
year when the "Pilgrim Fathers" landed in America.
[Illustration: _By permission of the proprietors of the "Connoisseur."_
CHAIR USED BY JAMES I.
In the possession of Lord Sackville.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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