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
From the wealth of Jacobean furniture at Knole it is difficult to
make a representative selection, but the stool we reproduce (p. 90) is
interesting, inasmuch as it was a piece of furniture in common use. The
chairs evidently were State chairs, but the footstool was used in all
likelihood by those who sat below the salt, and were of less
significance. The stuffed settee which finds a place in the
billiard-room at Knole and the sumptuous sofa in the Long Gallery, with
its mechanical arrangement for altering the angle at the head, are
objects of furniture difficult to equal. The silk and gold thread
coverings are faded, and the knotted fringe and gold braid have
tarnished under the hand of Time, but their structural design is so
effective that the modern craftsman has made luxurious furniture after
these models.
[Illustration: _By permission of the proprietors of the "Connoisseur."_
JACOBEAN CHAIR AT KNOLE.
In the possession of Lord Sackville.]
[Illustration: _By permission of the proprietors of the "Connoisseur."_
JACOBEAN STOOL AT KNOLE.
In the possession of Lord Sackville.]
[Illustration: UPPER HALF OF CARVED WALNUT DOOR.
Showing ribbon work.
FRENCH; LATTER PART OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
(Height of door, 4 ft. 7 in.; width, 1 ft. 11 in.)
(_Victoria and Albert Museum._)]
Carved oak chests were not largely made in Jacobean days--not, at any
rate, for the same purpose as they were in Tudor or earlier times. As
church coffers they doubtless continued to be required, but for
articles of domestic furniture other than as linen chests their
multifarious uses had vanished. Early Jacobean coffers clearly show the
departure from Elizabethan models. They become more distinctly English
in feeling, though the interlaced ribbon decoration, so frequently used,
is an adaptation from French work, which pattern was now becoming
acclimatised. The French carved oak coffer of the second half of the
sixteenth century (illustrated p. 61) shows from what source some of the
English designs were derived.
In the portion of the French door which we give as an illustration (on
p. 91), it will be seen with what grace and artistic excellence of
design and with what restraint the French woodcarvers utilised the
running ribbon. The ribbon pattern has been variously used by designers
of furniture; it appears in Chippendale's chair-backs, where it almost
exceeds the limitations of the technique of woodcarving.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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