Part 10 (1/2)

[Ill.u.s.tration: Carved Oak Chair, Jacobean Style. (_The original in the Author's possession._)]

Inlaid work, which had been crude and rough in the time of Elizabeth, became more in fas.h.i.+on as means increased of decorating both the furniture and the woodwork panelling of the rooms of the Stuart period. Mahogany had been discovered by Raleigh as early as 1595, but did not come into general use until the middle of the eighteenth century.

The importation of scarce foreign woods in small quant.i.ties gave an impetus to this description of work, which in the marqueterie of Italy, France, Holland, Germany, and Spain, had already made great progress.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Settle of Carved Oak. Probably made in Yorks.h.i.+re. Period: Charles II.]

Within the past year, owing to the extensions of the Great Eastern Railway premises at Bishopsgate Street, an old house of antiquarian interest was pulled down, and generously presented by the Company to the South Kensington Museum. It will shortly be arranged so as to enable the visitor to see a good example of the exterior as well as some of the interior woodwork of a quaint house of the middle of the seventeenth century. This was the residence of Sir Paul Pindar, diplomatist, during the time of Charles I., and it contained a carved oak chimney-piece, with some other good ornamental woodwork of this period. The quaint and richly-carved chimney-piece, which was dated 1600, and other decorative work, was removed early in the present century, when the possessors of that time were making ”improvements.”

[Ill.u.s.tration: Staircase in General Ireton's House, Dated 1630.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Pattern of a Chinese Lac Screen. (_In the South Kensington Museum._)]

In the ill.u.s.tration of a child's chair, which is said to have been actually used by Cromwell, can be seen an example of carved oak of this time; it was lent to the writer by its present owner, in whose family it was an heirloom since one of his ancestors married the Protector's daughter. The ornament has no particular style, and it may be taken for granted that the period of the Commonwealth was not marked by any progress in decorative art. The above ill.u.s.tration, however, proves that there were exceptions to the prevalent Puritan objection to figure ornament. In one of Mrs. S.C. Hall's papers, ”Pilgrimages to English Shrines,” contributed in 1849 to ”The Art Journal,” she describes the interior of the house which was built for Bridget, the Protector's daughter, who married General Ireton. The handsome oak staircase had the newels surmounted by carved figures, representing different grades of men in the General's army--a captain, common soldier, piper, drummer, etc, etc., while the s.p.a.ces between the bal.u.s.trades were filled in with devices emblematical of warfare, the ceiling being decorated in the fas.h.i.+on of the period. At the time Mrs. Hall wrote, the house bore Cromwell's name and the date 1630.

We may date from the Commonwealth the more general use of chairs; people sat as they chose, and no longer regarded the chair as the lord's place. A style of chair, which we still recognise as Cromwellian, was also largely imported from Holland about this time--plain square backs and seats covered with brown leather, studded with bra.s.s nails. The legs, which are now generally turned with a spiral twist, were in Cromwell's time plain and simple.

The residence of Charles II. abroad, had accustomed him and his friends to the much more luxurious furniture of France and Holland. With the Restoration came a foreign Queen, a foreign Court, French manners, and French literature. Cabinets, chairs, tables, and couches, were imported into England from the Netherlands, France, Spain, and Portugal; and our craftsmen profited by new ideas and new patterns, and what was of equal consequence, an increased demand for decorative articles of furniture. The King of Portugal had ceded Bombay, one of the Portuguese Indian stations, to the new Queen, and there is a chair of this Indo-Portuguese work, carved in ebony, now in the museum at Oxford, which was given by Charles II. either to Elias Ashmole or to Evelyn: the ill.u.s.tration on the next page shews all the details of the carving. Another woodcut, on a smaller scale, represents a similar chair grouped with a settee of a like design, together with a small folding chair which Mr. G.T. Robinson, in his article on ”Seats,” has described as Italian, but which we take the liberty of p.r.o.nouncing Flemish, judging by one now in the South Kensington Museum.

In connection with this Indo-Portuguese furniture, it would seem that spiral turning became known and fas.h.i.+onable in England during the reign of Charles II., and in some chairs of English make, which have come under the writer's notice, the legs have been carved to imitate the effect of spiral turning--an amount of superfluous labour which would scarcely have been incurred, but for the fact that the country house-carpenter of this time had an imported model, which he copied, without knowing how to produce by the lathe the effect which had just come into fas.h.i.+on. There are, too, in some ill.u.s.trations in ”Shaw's Ancient Furniture,” some lamp-holders, in which this spiral turning is overdone, as is generally the case when any particular kind of ornament comes into vogue.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Settee And Chair. In carved ebony, part of Indo-Portuguese suite at Penshurst Place, with Flemish folding chair. Period: Charles II.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Carved Ebony Chair of Indo-portuguese Work, Given by Charles II. to Elias Ashmole, Esq. (_In the Museum at Oxford_).]

Probably the ill.u.s.trated suite of furniture at Penshurst Place, which comprises thirteen pieces, was imported about this time; two of the smaller chairs appear to have their original cus.h.i.+ons, the others have been lately re-covered by Lord de l'Isle and Dudley. The spindles of the backs of two of the chairs are of ivory: the carving, which is in solid ebony, is much finer on some than on others.

We gather a good deal of information about the furniture of this period from the famous diary of Evelyn. He thus describes Hampton Court Palace, as it appeared to him at the time of its preparation for the reception of Catherine of Braganza, the bride of Charles II., who spent the royal honeymoon in this historic building, which had in its time sheltered for their brief spans of favour the six wives of Henry VIII. and the sickly boyhood of Edward VI.:--

”It is as n.o.ble and uniform a pile as Gothic architecture can make it.

There is incomparable furniture in it, especially hangings designed by Raphael, very rich with gold. Of the tapestries I believe the world can show nothing n.o.bler of the kind than the stories of Abraham and Tobit.[11]

... The Queen's bed was an embroidery of silver on crimson velvet, and cost 8,000, being a present made by the States of Holland when his majesty returned. The great looking-gla.s.s and toilet of beaten ma.s.sive gold were given by the Queen Mother. The Queen brought over with her from Portugal such Indian cabinets as had never before been seen here.”

Evelyn wrote of course before Wren made his Renaissance additions to the Palace.

After the great fire which occurred in 1666, and destroyed some 13,000 houses and no less than 80 churches, Sir Christopher Wren was given an opportunity, unprecedented in history, of displaying his power of design and reconstruction. Writing of this great architect, Macaulay says, ”The austere beauty of the Athenian portico, the gloomy sublimity of the Gothic arcade, he was, like most of his contemporaries, incapable of emulating, and perhaps incapable of appreciating; but no man born on our side of the Alps has imitated with so much success the magnificence of the palace churches of Italy. Even the superb Louis XIV. has left to posterity no work which can bear a comparison with St. Paul's.”

[Ill.u.s.tration:

Sedes, ecce tibi? quae tot produxit alumnos Quot gremio nutrit Granta, quot. Isis habet.

_From the Original by Sir Peter Lely, presented to Dr. Busby by King Charles_ ”Sedes Busbiana” From a Print in the possession of J. C. THYNNE, Esq. Period: Charles II.]

Wren's great masterpiece was commenced in 1675, and completed in 1710, and its building therefore covers a period of 35 years, carrying us through the reigns of James II., William III. and Mary, and well on to the end of Anne's. The admirable work which he did during this time, and which has effected so much for the adornment of our Metropolis, had a marked influence on the ornamental woodwork of the second half of the seventeenth century: in the additions which he made to Hampton Court Palace, in Bow Church, in the hospitals of Greenwich and of Chelsea, there is a sumptuousness of ornament in stone and marble, which shew the influence exercised on his mind by the desire to rival the grandeur of Louis XIV.; the Fountain Court at Hampton being in direct imitation of the Palace of Versailles. The carved woodwork of the choir of St. Paul's, with fluted columns supporting a carved frieze; the richly carved panels, and the beautiful figure work on both organ lofts, afford evidence that the oak enrichments followed the marble and stone ornament. The swags of fruit and flowers, the cherubs' heads with folded wings, and other details in Wren's work, closely resemble the designs executed by Gibbons, whose carving is referred to later on.

It may be mentioned here that amongst the few churches in the city which escaped the great fire, and contain woodwork of particular note, are St.

Helen's, Bishopgate, and the Charterhouse Chapel, which contain the original pulpits of about the sixteenth century.

The famous Dr. Busby, who for 55 years was head master of Westminster School, was a great favourite of King Charles, and a picture painted by Sir Peter Lely, is said to have been presented to the Doctor by His Majesty; it is called ”Sedes Busbiana.” Prints from this old picture are scarce, and the writer is indebted to Mr. John C. Thynne for the loan of his copy, from which the ill.u.s.tration is taken. The portrait in the centre, of the Pedagogue aspiring to the mitre, is that of Dr. South, who succeeded Busby, and whose monument in Westminster Abbey is next to his.

The ill.u.s.tration is interesting, as although it may not have been actually taken from a chair itself, it shews a design in the mind of a contemporary artist.