He was always buying porcelain and other Oriental wares “for dear wife.”
On July 6, 1689, he notes: “Paid to Katherine Scott for 12 leaves of cut
Japan skreens, 2 pieces of India damask and 6 Dutch chairs, £65.” In the
following July, he also bought from John van Colima, a Dutchman, who had
probably followed William III to London, “a parcel of old China for £3
2_s._ 6_d._” Though the Earl dealt more extensively with “Medina ye
Jew,” “Leeds ye mercer,” “Seamer ye goldsmith” and many “India houses”
in the New Exchange, we find him still patronizing the Dutchman after
the death of his first wife, as is shown by the following entries:
“1696, Jan. 11: Paid Calama, ye Dutchman in Green Street, for a parcell
of china for my dear wife, £31 8_s._ 4_d._ May 4: Calamar, ye Dutchman,
for another parcel of China, £10 4_s._” Two years later he also pays
“John Van Collema, for an Indian trunk, £35.” Another Dutchman who
enjoyed this nobleman’s patronage was “Mr. Gerreit Johnson, ye
Cabinett-maker,” who, on May 25, 1696, was paid £70 “for ye black sett
of glass, table and stands, and for ye glasses, etc., over ye chimneys
and elsewhere in my dear wife’s apartment.”
Gerreit Johnson, whom the Earl patronized, was a fashionable
cabinet-maker who made the china-cabinets for Queen Mary that were
placed in a room at Hampton Court called “the Delft Ware Closett.” It is
interesting to note that the mirrors and cabinets in the Countess of
Bristol’s boudoir had black japanned framework.
His diary and expense account shows that his purchases of furniture and
_bric-à-brac_ faithfully reflected the prevailing taste for Oriental
wares and the _style refugié_. He did not exclusively patronize
Dutchmen.
In 1688, he paid “to Frenoye, the silkman, for the fringe of the bed,
edgings for the window curtains, etc., £155”; “to the joyner who made
the chairs, stools and squabs for my wife, £19”; and “for gold and
crimson fringe for the India bed quilt, £17.”
In 1689, he bought “for dear wife” a white teapot and basin, £4 16_s._
9_d._; two china basins, £1 1_s._ 6_d._; an India trunk, £7; India quilt
for a bed, £38; a “brockadal hanging in my wife’s anti-chamber, £11
10_s._”; and “to a French varnisher for ten chairs, a couch and two
tabourettes, £12.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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