Chapter IV: Part 4

In the Oval room, the hangings were of Venetian brocatelle with aurora background upon which large green bunches were outlined with white. There were four lounges in this room and eight oval tabourets. The frames of the latter were painted green picked out with gold. They were trimmed with gold fringe.

The Round room was adorned with a similar brocatelle, but the branches on the aurora-coloured background were red outlined in white. The four lounges here were 4½ feet long, and their frames were painted red picked out with gold.

The Octagon room was hung in crimson damask from Genoa. The seats were eight octagonal tabourets, painted red picked out with gold, and covered with crimson damask nailed to the wood.

In 1675, a little cabinet at Val was furnished with a _lit de repos_ with one back, two chairs, two _fauteuils_ and two _tabourets_. These were all covered to match the hangings with a brocade of gold and silver on a green satin background and trimmed with gold and silver fringe. There was a curtain of green taffeta and a curtain of white taffeta, and there were slip covers of green taffeta for all the seats. The entire furnishings were given by the King to Madame la Princesse de Conty.

The Salon (Plate XII.) is of fine proportions and gives an idea of the rich frame required for the kind of furniture we have been describing. The doors with two wings are of great importance. Their panels may be decorated with carved motives, or cartouches. The ornaments may be painted, if preferred. The chimney-piece is rarely of white marble: red marble, green marble and _breccia_ were the kinds most frequently employed in Louis XIV.’s time. The slabs of the tables and consoles should be of the same, unless they are of mosaic. Upon the chimney-piece, a Boulle clock, or one with a carved and gilded, or bronze frame, may stand. The candelabra, on either side, containing several arms, are carved and gilt. Andirons in the form of chimæra complete the furnishings of the chimney-piece, where a wood fire should blaze.

_Torchères_ should also be placed in the corners of the room, whose branching arms help to illuminate and decorate the room. The chandelier, in the centre of the room, is crystal and gilt bronze. The walls are arranged in panels for the reception of tapestry, or hangings of some rich nature. The mouldings surrounding the materials are often carved and covered with dull, or burnished gold. The hangings are frequently pictures of tapestry, as shown in Plate XII., or they are of damask, brocade, velvet, or silk. The wall space below the hangings should be wainscotted; it must never, however, attract attention.

Over the chimney-piece a mirror is placed; and directly opposite is another mirror of similar frame. Beneath the latter, a console may stand.

The floor is of parquetry, and in winter is covered with a large Persian or Smyrna rug, or it may have a velvet Aubusson or Savonnerie rug of sober colour, so as not to detract from the hangings.

The ceiling is usually made into _caissons_, or compartments, painted to harmonize with the draperies. Sometimes, however, these are painted white and gold, a deep oak, aurora, or a lilac grey. The window curtains match the hangings; sometimes they are of tapestry, sometimes of brocade, or damask, or silk, and beneath these heavy curtains white curtains of muslin or silk are hung. In the evening, the heavy curtains are always drawn. They are rarely suspended below a cornice. Sometimes the silk or brocade curtains are trimmed with braid and fringe, and sometimes with a wide border of silk or velvet forming a kind of frame all around the hanging. If _portières_ are used they are usually like the rest of the draperies. If lambrequins are used, they are cut and arranged in the shapes shown on Plate XIX, No. 1 and No. 4.

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Footnote 10:

Metal furniture, however, was known to the ancients. To quote a single
example, in the palace of King Ahasuerus, “the beds were of gold and
silver upon a pavement of red and blue and white and black marble.”
The Assyrian furniture was of gold, silver, and bronze, and splendid
furniture of gold, silver, and bronze, likewise adorned the Egyptian
and Roman palaces and villas. The _Romans d’aventure_ of the Middle
Ages contain descriptions of such rich furniture, inspired by Oriental
luxury.

Footnote 11:

In the anthemion, the springing point is the base, and the units
arrange themselves on either side of a central member, and form a
bi-symmetrical figure. This anthemion type of form is met with in
almost every style and period of art. The anthemion is sometimes
called the honeysuckle pattern. It is an old dogma that the decorative
form was suggested by this plant; but its more or less remote
resemblance to the buds of the honeysuckle is accidental, not
incidental; and the charm, both in nature and in art, is the inherent
beauty of a mass of radiating and upspringing forms, instinct with the
suggestion of vitality and growth. Hulme, _The Birth and Development
of Ornament_. London, 1893.

Footnote 12:

“A _cantonnière_ is a piece of material almost always of Gobelin or
Aubusson tapestry, which, hanging flat in the manner of a lambrequin,
has two hangings or tails falling down the sides and forming a kind of
frame for the curtains beneath. Sometimes these two hangings are held
back by hooks which give the effect of curtains; _cantonnières_ for
the decoration of beds are also made. The richness, the delicacy and
the good design of tapestry can give much value to this kind of
decoration. The narrow curtains of less fullness that are called
_bonnes grâces_ are an imitation of the _cantonnières_, an imitation
that is demanded by economy rather than the principles of decoration.”
Deville, _Dictionnaire du Tapissier_, Paris, 1878–1880.

Footnote 13:

In 1726, these curtains were used to upholster some furniture for the
Queen’s apartments at St. Cyr.

Footnote 14:

All of the draperies of this niche, like the alcove curtains already
described, were used in 1726 to cover a chair, a _lit de repos_ and
four folding-seats as well as three _portières_ for the Queen’s
apartment at St. Cyr.

QUEEN ANNE PERIOD

QUEEN ANNE PERIOD

The Queen Anne period is interesting on account of the favour in which it has been held of late years, particularly by a class that knows nothing at all about it. Queen Anne furniture, Queen Anne silver, Queen Anne cottages have been in great demand, in England particularly. When, however, the student asks the Queen Anne devotee for a list of objects that may fitly be included in an interior of that style, he usually meets with a bewildering jumble. Charles II. oak-framed cane chairs jostle others with cabriole legs and jar-shaped splats made of mahogany; marquetry escritoires, spindle-legged walnut tables, Frisian clocks, brass fenders, steel fire-irons and four-posted bedsteads are all brought together to produce the proper contemporary flavour. The result is certainly unsatisfactory for the searcher after truth.

Looking only at the manifest transitional features of the beginning and end of this short period, some scoffers have even gone so far as to deny that there is any Queen Anne style at all, but this is an extreme and unjustifiable view. The Queen Anne period, short as it was, possessed special characteristics.

First let us recall the dates. The easy-going lady who succeeded Dutch William occupied the throne for only twelve years, dying in 1714,—one year before Louis XIV. At this date, therefore, we are on the threshold of the Regency, the characteristics of which in decorative art are already established. For the beginnings of the Queen Anne style, moreover, we must revert to a date prior to her actual succession. This date is 1690, when the Glorious Revolution placed the Prince of Orange on the throne of England. William used England as a weapon of defence of the Netherlands against the aggression of Louis XIV., and on her accession Anne carried on his policy. England, therefore, from 1690 to the fall of Marlborough in 1711, might almost be regarded as a Dutch province. Considering the close dynastic, political, mercantile and religious ties between the two countries, it would be strange if Dutch taste did not predominate in England. It was a Dutch taste, however, tempered with French art. The French forced the highest development of the Louis XIV. style on England and the Low Countries by the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. In consequence of that edict, many thousands of the best workmen in the French arts and crafts were forced to go into exile, taking refuge in England, Germany and Holland. There they were welcomed by their co-religionists, and their labours had a great and immediate influence on the native styles. The artist who exerted the greatest influence in forming the Queen Anne style was Daniel Marot, who left France in 1686 and went to Holland. There he found immediate employment in the service of the Stadtholder, and when the latter became King of England in 1690, he appointed Marot his chief architect and master of works. Till his death in about 1718, Marot designed the interior decorations and furniture for many mansions and palaces in England and Holland. The names of many joiners, carvers and goldsmiths (who at that day designed many minor pieces of furniture) are to be found in the lists of Huguenot refugees in London. In that city, French artists and designers found ready employment. Among others we find J. B. Monnoyer (Baptiste), who died in London in 1699. Samuel Gribelin also found much encouragement in England. He had published three books of ornamental design before 1700. Thus, what the French call “_le style refugié_,” crossed the Channel.

Traffic with the Far East, however, was probably a more important factor in the formation of the Queen Anne style than any other influence. The Oriental taste had reached Amsterdam and London before Paris felt it. Throughout the Seventeenth Century, the English and Dutch East Indiamen poured porcelain, lacquer, and other products of Oriental art into their respective capitals, and even the bitter trade rivalry between the two did not arouse the French from their indifference till the arrival of the Siamese embassy in 1690. Long before this, however, Mazarin had tried to bring Oriental goods into favour. The daughter of Gaston d’Orléans, La Grande Mademoiselle, notes in her diary (1658), that the Cardinal “took the two queens (Anne of Austria and Henrietta, wife of Charles I. of England), the princess (Henrietta’s daughter) and myself, into a gallery that was full of all imaginable kinds of stone-work, jewelry, and all the beautiful things that came from China, crystal chandeliers, mirrors, tables, cabinets of all kinds, silver plate, etc.” All these Oriental wares were given away by the magnificent Cardinal in a lottery in which every guest drew a prize.

Twenty-five years later, the same adventurous lady who wrote the above had a quarrel with her unrecognized husband, the Comte de Lauzan. To patch up peace, he sent her from England a cargo of Chinese wares.

Before the port L’Orient gained its name by its trade with that quarter of the world, Paris received its Chinese and Indian goods chiefly through London. Consignments from the distant Jesuit missions to their headquarters were largely instrumental in bringing Eastern art to the notice of the public. There is an entry in Evelyn’s _Diary_ (March 22, 1664):

“One Tomson, a Jesuite shewed me such a collection of rarities, sent from ye Jesuites of Japan and China to their order at Paris, as a present to be received in their repository, but brought to London by the East India ships for them, as in my life I had not seen. The chiefe things were rhinoceros’s horns; glorious vests wrought and embroidered on cloth-of-gold, but with such lively colours, that for splendour and vividness we have nothing in Europe that approaches it ... fanns like those our ladies use, but much larger, and with long handles curiously carved and filled with Chinese characters; a sort of paper very broad, thin and fine like abortive parchment, and exquisitely polished, of an amber yellow, exceedingly glorious and pretty to looke on; several other sorts of paper, some written, other printed; prints of landskips, their idols, saints, pagods, of most ugly serpentine monstrous and hideous shapes, to which they paid devotion; pictures of men and countries rarely printed on a sort of gum’d calico transparent as glasse; flowers, trees, beasts, birds, etc., excellently wrought in a sort of sleve silk very naturall.”

In England, porcelain had been a comparatively rare luxury confined to the tables and closets of rich collectors until about 1630. Cromwell laid a heavy duty on it. China-shops under the Restoration became one of the favourite lounging-places of fops and curiosity hunters, and the appointments made there caused them to fall into bad repute. Later, emporiums of Oriental wares were known as India houses. Queen Mary while only the Princess of Orange in Holland, had developed quite a craze for porcelain and Indian goods of all kinds. When she became Queen of England, Sir Christopher Wren designed cabinets and shelves for her china in Hampton Court Palace.

Lord Nottingham in his news-letter descriptive of Queen Mary’s movements (1689) says: “Her majesty being disappointed of her second play, amused herself with other diversions. She dined at Mrs. Graden’s, the famous woman in the hall, that sells fine ribbons and headdresses. From thence she went to Mrs. Ferguson’s to de Vetts and other Indian houses.”

With such tastes in high places, it is not astonishing to find a popular furore for China and everything Oriental, spurious and real. This Chinese taste affected everything in architecture and interior decoration.

With regard to architecture, the ill-understood Gothic had fallen into very bad odour. John Evelyn’s opinion of it (1697) is worth quoting. He says: “A certain fantastical and licencious manner of building which we have since called _Modern_ (or _Gothic_ rather) congestions of heavy, dark, melancholy and monkish piles without any just proportion, use or beauty.... So when we meet with the greatest industry and expensive carving, full of _fret_ and lamentable _Imagery_ a judicious spectator is distracted and quite confounded.... Not that there is not something of solid and odly artificial too, after a sort; but then the universal and unreasonable thickness of the walls, clumsy buttresses, towers, sharp-pointed arches, doors and other apertures without proportion; nonsense insertions of various marbles impertinently placed; turrets and pinnacles thickset with Munkies and chimæras and abundance of busy work and other incongruities dissipate and break the angles of the sight and so confound it that one cannot consider it with any steadiness.... Vast and gigantic buildings indeed but not worthy the name of architecture.”

Domestic architecture, however, was undergoing considerable changes under the new influences. These changes were in the direction of comfort and cosiness, to the sacrifice of grandeur and magnificence. Of course, novelty aroused opposition. Evelyn (1697) protests:

“As certain great masters invented certain new corbels, scrolls and modilions, which were brought into use; so their followers animated by their example (but with much less judgment) have presumed to introduce sundry baubles and trifling decorations (as they fancy) in their works.... And therefore, tho’ such devices and inventions may seem pretty in cabinet-work, tables, frames and other joyners-work for variety, to place china dishes upon; one would by no means encourage or admit them in great and noble buildings.”

The changes in domestic architecture are noticed by Du Bois, who issued a new and sumptuous edition of Palladio (the plates engraved by Picart) in 1715. Among other things he says:

“We see so many bungled houses and so oddly contrived that they seem to have been made only to be admired by ignorant men and to raise the laughter of those who are sensible of such imperfections. Most of them are like bird cages, by reason of the largeness and too great number of windows; or like prisons, because of the darkness of the rooms, passages and stairs. Some want the most essential part, I mean the Entablature or cornice; and though it be the best fence against the injuries of the weather, it is left out to save charges. In some other houses, the rooms are so small and strait, that one knows not where to place the most necessary furniture. Others, through the oddness of some new and insignificant ornaments, seem to exceed the wildest Gothic. It were an endless thing to enumerate all the absurdities which many of our builders introduce every day into their way of building.”

The changes in interior decoration that contributed to form the Queen Anne style were largely due to the requirements of the effective display and preservation of porcelain. The chimney-piece, especially, was affected. As early as 1691, D’Aviler says in his book on architecture: “The height of the cornice (of the chimney-pieces) should be raised six feet in order that the vases with which they are ornamented may not be knocked down.”

A glance through Marot’s book of designs will show a most lavish use of china as an integral part of interior decoration. He piles up his chimney-pieces with tier on tier on shelves loaded with porcelain of all shapes and sizes, arranged, however, with an eye to symmetry. Brackets up the walls, in the corners, and between the panels, all along the cornice, and over the door are loaded with cups, bowls, and vases. The panels themselves are sometimes painted with Chinese subjects, or covered with real Oriental painted or embroidered fabrics. A glance at Plate XVIII., the walls and chimney-piece of which are reproduced closely from one of Marot’s designs, will show one of the more formal Queen Anne rooms, properly decorated in accordance with the taste of the day. This is a modest specimen of this style of decoration. One of Marot’s plates shows more than 300 pieces of china on the chimney-piece alone. The china craze was rapidly increasing. Addison writes: “An old lady of fourscore shall be so busy in cleaning an Indian mandarin as her great-grand-daughter is in dressing her baby.” In 1711, also he gives the following description of a lady’s library:

“The very sound of a _Lady’s Library_ gave me a great Curiosity to see it; and as it was some time before the Lady came to me, I had an opportunity of turning over a great many of her Books, which were ranged together in very beautiful Order. At the End of her Folios (which were very finely bound and gilt) were great jars of _China_, placed one above another in a very noble piece of Architecture. The Quartos were separated from the Octavos by a Pile of smaller Vessels which rose in a delightful Pyramid. The Octavos were bounded by Ten dishes of all Shapes, Colours and Sizes, which were so disposed on a wooden Frame, that they looked like one continued Pillar indented with the finest Strokes of Sculpture, and stained with the greatest variety of Dyes. That Part of the Library which was designed for the Reception of Plays and pamphlets and other loose Papers, was enclosed in a kind of Square consisting of one of the prettiest grotesque Works that I ever saw, and made up of Scaramouches, Lions, Monkies, Mandarines, Trees, Shells, and a thousand other odd Figures in China Ware. In the midst of the Room was a little Japan Table with a quire of gilt Paper upon it, and on the Paper a Silver Snuff-box made in the shape of a little Book. I found there were several Counterfeit Books upon the upper Shelves, which were carved in wood, and several only to fill up the number.”

As an example of the decorative use made of china by arranging it on brackets even above mirror or panel, the reader is referred to Plate XXIII., No. 2.

The Queen Anne room had its walls sometimes covered with tapestry and sometimes decorated with painted or carved panels. In accordance with the French and Dutch custom also, pictures were used with a conscious decorative effect. Sometimes they were hung on the tapestry, also, though not when the latter depicted a story of itself. In 1710, D’Aviler defines the word picture (_tableau_) as a subject of painting, usually in oil on canvas or wood, and contained in a frame or border. “Pictures greatly contribute to the decoration of the interior of buildings. The big ones figure in churches, drawing-rooms, galleries and other big places. Those of medium size called easel-pictures are placed in the spaces above the chimney-piece, above the doors and in the panels of the walls, or else on the tapestry against the walls. The small ones are symmetrically arranged in the chambers and cabinets of the curious.”

In the ordinary house, in the reign of Queen Anne, there was a strange jumble of the old and the new. The late Jacobean carved oak, or walnut, cane-bottom chair had not yet gone entirely out of use, but the new styles were varieties of the chair and stool on Plate XXI., Nos. 1 and 4. These were usually of walnut, but mahogany was just coming into fashion as a cabinet wood, and Queen Anne chairs with the frames made of that wood still exist. The characteristics of this chair consist of the cabriole leg, with and sometimes even without stretchers, the club foot, and solid curved splat which very frequently assumes the jar shape. Later in the period, the stretchers were discarded altogether. There was very little carving except on the spring of the knee. The claw-and-ball foot was rapidly coming into favour, and the tendency was constantly towards increased lightness of frame. Even where the characteristic square tapering leg of the Louis XIV. style is preserved, increased lightness is noticeable. The turned stretchers, both of chairs and settees, are shown on Plate XIX., Nos. 5, 6 and 7, and Plate XXI., Nos. 1, 4 and 10. Marot clung to the flat curved stretchers of the Louis XIV. style, and his chairs are very large and heavy. The reason of this is that he paid great attention to the upholstery, and his large and brilliant designs required a correspondingly large surface for adequate display. Many of his plates are devoted entirely to patterns for materials for upholstery, and the geometrical flower-bed is the apparent inspiration of much of his work of this nature. Some of Marot’s chairs and stools are shown on Plate XXI., Nos. 2, 3, 5, 8 and 9. The chairs on either side of the bed on Plate XXII. are also Marot’s. No. 7 on Plate No. XXI. shows the lighter form of frame of this class of chair. The settees, numbered 5, 6 and 7, on Plate XIX. should also be carefully studied as types of this style. They are taken from contemporary prints of court ladies. On one of them, Anne herself is sitting in the original. No. 6, Plate XXI., represents the top of a chair back which is very characteristic of the Marot school. One of the favourite ornaments of this period was the urn in some form or other. The acorn was also largely used for feet, and the flattened bulb was not entirely superseded. The effect produced by the above-mentioned detail is found in several other pieces of furniture of the day, clocks and mirrors particularly. The urn is seen in No. 5, Plate XXIII., and the effect is repeated in Nos. 1 and 6, Plate XX. Nos. 5 and 6 on that Plate also show the combination acorn and flattened bulb employed as feet. No. 6 also shows another decorative feature of the period in the heavy _chutes_ of bell-flowers. The handsome clock, No. 6, Plate XX., from Marot’s design, shows many Louis XIV. features. The sun in splendour is noticeable and the winged cherub above the dial. The latter was made great use of in the Queen Anne style. The mascaron also was largely adopted. Another decorative feature which was carved on the centre lower rim of so many chests-of-drawers, and dressing-tables was the shell. The cabinet-makers were never tired of using the latter, and its constant appearance may perhaps be accounted for by the fact that it was the principal charge in the arms of the English company of cabinet-makers. It is seen on top of the mirror in No. 2, Plate XIX., and the mascaron is used to beautiful effect in the mirror No. 3 on the same plate. The mascaron appears as the chief ornament in No. 3, Plate XX. Strange to say, this is not a chair, as might be imagined, but a fire-back, as is also No. 4. The shape of this fire-back, however, is going to be that which will dominate in chair-backs in many styles and even to the present day holds its own. The chair No. 8, Plate XX., is transitional between Jacobean and Queen Anne. The couch (No. 9 of the same plate) is a fine example of the Queen Anne style with its scrolls, cabriole legs and stretchers. The winged effect of the scrolls connecting the legs is a very favourite feature of the day. This should be compared with the couch by Marot in Plate XVIII., which retains more of the Louis XIV. characteristics.

The bed on Plate XXII. is one of Marot’s designs and shows the Louis XIV. influence. The detail No. 3, on the same plate, exhibits another variety of head-board. No. 1 is a detail of a bed cornice and its drapery; and No. 2 shows the pattern of a valance. Specimens of lambrequin drapery, both for beds and windows, moreover, are shown in the details, Nos. 1 and 4 on Plate XIX.

Typical contents of a fashionable home in England during the reign of Queen Anne are to be gathered from the will and inventory of La Marquise de Gouvernet, a French Protestant refugee, who was naturalized at Westminster in 1691, and lived for thirty years in English aristocratic circles, dying in 1722. She was very wealthy, and occupied a distinguished position in London society. To her grandson and heir, she bequeathed an immense quantity of jewels, furniture, pictures and porcelain. The mere enumeration of the pieces of furniture affords a good idea of a stylish interior of the Queen Anne period.

One small calico bed, 3 foot wide and 8 foot high, for the country,
being stitched with coloured flowers, with five armed chairs of
the same.

One suit of chamber hangings of cloth, painted with Indian figures,
nine pieces, 7 foot high.

One other suit of chamber hangings of cloth painted in the Indias,
drawn in porticoes, eleven in number, 7 foot high, very old.

One suit of chamber hangings of white damask, pillows of coloured
stuff fixed thereon.

One blue gauze Indian bed, worked with gold straw work, eight pieces
of tapestry, and the chairs of the same, very old.

A furniture of Indian damask of four colours, with the bed, 4 foot
wide, the door curtains, the window curtains and chairs of the
same, all very old.

One bundle of borders of old gold and silver brecard, with coloured
flowers embroidered thereon.

Two tapestry armed chairs.

Four pieces of blue damask hangings with borders of cross-stitch,
and three chairs.

Nine chairs of tent-stitch, the ground of gold colour.

Two couches, the ground violet with figures. Bottoms of Hungarian
Irish stitch chairs and two door curtains.

Two large Marselian quilts, and one Indian quilt, stitched in
colour.

One Indian quilt, stitched in yellow silk, basses and pillows of the
same, all old.

Two satin quilts.

One large India lackerd cabinet with figures.

One small ditto.

Two Indian lackerd boards, with varnished boxes and plates.

One table of Calambour wood, which encloses a toilette of the same
wood, ornamented with gold, containing two dressing-boxes and
looking-glass, one pin cushion, one powder box, and two brushes of
the same.

Two ditto cabinets upon tables of the same.

One Indian quilt stitched with coloured flowers.

Six pieces of tent stitch with figures.

One cloth bed worked on both sides, containing twelve pieces.

The lining of a bed of gold mohair, the counterpane, the head cloth
and the small valances.

One bundle of gold thread laces, very old.

Two pieces of cloth embroidered with silver and thirty-two pieces of
Tent stitch.

Thirteen breadths of dove-coloured silk serge 2¾ yards high,
embroidered in flowers with figures; 35 yards of the same in
several pieces, some of them drawn.

One four-leaf screen of the same damask, with the furniture of four
colours embroidered, and of the same embroidered damask sufficient
to make another four leaves at least.

One twelve-leaf lackered Tonquin screen with figures.

One four-leaf folding low screen, tent stitch, with antique figures,
and four pieces of the same work to add to it on occasion.

Two tables and two large stands of Calambour wood.

One small bureau of ditto wood, inlaid with rays of Prince’s metal
and one scrutoire of the same.

One little table and one glass cupboard of Calambour wood.

One lackered Tonquin coffer with figures.

Two small glass cupboards.

Two large looking-glasses with green ebony frames, and two other
large looking-glasses.

One bed of Spanish point, with festoons of gold and silver colour,
fixed upon white damask, four curtain valances and bases of the
same lined with white satin, the counterpane, headcloth and
tester, embroidered, five arm-chairs and two door curtains of the
same.

One suit of hangings, the ground white, half painted and half
worked, containing five pieces, one piece without a border.

One brown damask bed with gold coloured flowers, ten armed chairs,
one couch, one door curtain, eight chair bottoms and four pieces
of hangings of the same.

Two carpets of India velvet, the ground with red flowers.

One small tapestry carpet with gold ground.

One Indian carpet with gold ground and coloured flowers.

One damask bed with a violet ground and flowers of gold straw-work
and with colours with borders of velvet cut in Persian figures,
six pieces of hangings belonging to the bed, whereof the middle
are Persian carpets gold ground and the borders of gold coloured
silk serge, on which are fixed the same figures with the bed, nine
armed chairs, two door curtains, six borders, with figures and
birds.

Eight curtains of white damask and twelve yards of white mohair.

30 silver plates weighing 531 oz.

1 large silver dish, 66 oz.

4 small do., 125 oz.

1 silver pan, 36 oz.

1 do. basin, one deep dish, 33 oz.

1 silver kettle and cover, 107 oz.

1 do. chafing-dish or lamp, 47 oz., 9 dwt.

1 do. water boiler, 42 oz., 10 dwt.

1 do. chocolate-pot, 24 oz.

1 do., do., 11 oz., 10 dwt.

1 do. sugar mustard and pepper castor, 41 oz.

2 silver salt-cellars.

12 forks and 12 spoons, 58 oz.

1 large soup-spoon, 10 oz., 10 dwt.

1 skimmer 7 oz., 19 dwt.

8 fruit knives, 8 forks and 8 spoons.

12 silver hafted knives, 22 oz.

2 German silver salvers, gilt, 21 oz., 7 dwt.

8 German silver salvers, gilt, 118 oz.

6 goblets and 3 vases of silver gilt, 78 oz., 15 dwt.

2 large salt sellars, 2 goblets, with covers of silver gilt, 91 oz.

1 silver teapott, gilt.

1 small silver skillet.

2 silver Indian teapotts, 30 oz.

2 pair silver branches, 138 oz.

1 pair Berlin silver candlesticks, 50 oz., 5 dwt.

3 pair small silver candlesticks, 26 oz.

2 pair silver candlesticks, gilt.

2 pair silver candlesticks, snuffers and snuff pan of same.

1 silver tea-table, 133 oz., 5 dwt.

1 silver bason on pedestal in form of stand, 79 oz., 8 dwt.

1 silver cistern pierced, supported by 4 dolphins.

1 small branched candlestick, silver gilt, 34 oz.

1 small German silver cistern, gilt, 33 oz.

2 Triangular German salt sellars, silver gilt.

1 small silver set half gilt, containing 3 small dishes, 4 plates, 1
goblet, 1 salt sellar, 1 knife, 1 spoon, and 1 fork of same, 58
oz., 2 dwt.

2 silver knobs for a grate and 5 handles for tongues fire shool,
&c., and four hooks to support the fire shool, etc., all of
silver.

1 German silver pott for broach and cover gilt.

1 small German barrell ornamented with silver.

1 silver clock.

2 greenish bottles with white flowers.

1 marble veind urn.

2 great beakes with serpents.

1 large beaker with colored flowers.

6 green goblets.

2 marble veind ditto.

1 large pott and cover and 2 small ones.

2 coruetts and covers.

2 coruetts without covers.

2 large coruetts.

3 large water pots.

2 bottles.

3 small bottles with colored flowers.

2 bottles, Phillimot with colored flowers.

1 pot, Phillimot and white.

8 urns.

1 large beaker.

2 small beakers.

2 beakers with figures.

2 bottles.

2 bottles of new China.

2 beakers of new China.

1 bottle all of one colour.

2 potts and covers of new China.

1 piece red china ware.

2 coruetts blew and white.

1 large dish.

2 Japan bowles.

2 green bottles.

2 coruetts and 2 beakers, blew and white.

4 green cupps.

2 small muggs.

1 small coffee colored urn with white flowers.

2 blew and white cisterns.

1 marble veind cisterns.

4 small marble veind cisterns.

1 large colored dish.

2 large green dishes.

17 green plates.

1 large blew and white dish.

6 dishes, white and colored.

11 plates, white and colored.

1 bowle of the same sort.

1 blew and white bason, dragons at the bottom.

1 large blew and white pott and cover.

1 large blew and white urns.

2 blew and white bottles.

2 yellow cupps.

1 large brown tea pott, covered with a lyon.

1 other large brown tea pott.

2 colored tea potts.

2 colored sollet dishes.

2 colored beakers with roses.

2 cupps and covers of the same.

1 bowle of the same with roses.

2 black urns with colored flowers.

2 mustard potts.

2 potts and covers.

2 large blew and white urns.

1 blew and white bowle.

1 colored Japand dish.

20 plates, the ground green with colored flowers.

2 beakers, the ground white with circles.

1 bowle, the ground white, with colored circles.

1 teapot, the ground white, with colored circles.

2 other tea potts.

4 salvers with vine blossoms.

6 green dishes.

The above inventory deserves most careful study, since it reveals so minutely the character of the objects that were to be found in the house of a noble lady who moved in the highest court circles during the reign of Queen Anne. The list of pictures that she left to her grandson has not been reproduced here; they were principally family portraits, and other pictures by the celebrated French painters of the early part of the reign of Louis XIV. These pictures, of course, had been brought over to England when the Marquise was exiled. Considering, however, that she had lived for thirty years in London till her death in 1722, the great bulk of the furniture in the above inventory must have been “Queen Anne.”

A study of the items, however, shows that some of them, especially those marked very old, were purely Louis XIV. Others, especially the chairs that matched the beds, were probably of the Marot school.

The Oriental goods are particularly noticeable, especially the lacquer screens and Indian stuffs. The china also shows that the Marquise followed the prevailing taste. It is to be noted that there is no mention of mahogany, and the wood that appears to be most in favour is the Calembour. This is otherwise known as eagle wood, a sweet-scented species of aloes that comes from the East.

The Dutch influence that prevailed during this period naturally resulted in marquetry coming into very high favour. The ordinary cabinet woods were inlaid in geometrical, floral and animal patterns with the warmer and more beautiful tints of the exotic woods. Complete pictures were often formed on broad surfaces, such as table tops, and narrower surfaces were also decorated in this manner. Plate XXIII., No. 7, shows a small chest-of-drawers, or dressing-table, of this period, with inlaid floral ornamentation on the legs. This dates from about the beginning of the Queen Anne period. Typical objects of this class, dating between 1690 and 1710, are described as follows:

A dressing-table veneered with walnut containing three drawers with brass handles has the faces of the drawers inlaid with boxwood and ebony. A band of inlay also ornaments the top. The four legs are cabriole with web feet. A dressing-table, contains two deep drawers and a central one with brass key-plates and handles. On the lower side the front is cut into three cusps with two pendants between them. A chest-of-drawers, veneered with walnut, contains two short drawers and three long ones, inlaid on their faces with narrow strips of sycamore and rosewood. Around the top is a deep cornice, below which is a deep rounded moulding forming the face of a drawer in front. The chest is placed on a stand, containing three drawers, upon short turned legs. The front is cut into cusps and curves on the lower side. Another chest-of-drawers veneered, contains three long drawers below and two small drawers above, and a shallow drawer in the stand upon which the chest rests. The chest is surmounted by a cornice and the stand by a moulding. The lower part is cut into three circular arches, with a decorative beading. The feet are four square piers resting upon turned discs. Each side is cut into a flat arch without beading. Another chest-of-drawers contains five drawers, with handles and key-plates of _or moulu_, the whole of walnut decorated with inlaid arabesque ornaments in oval medallions. A combination dressing-table and secretary with a swinging glass, the whole of walnut, decorated with beading and moulding. The dressing-table stands on four cabriole legs carved with a shell ornament. The looking-glass of walnut slightly carved and gilt, the glass bevelled at the edges.

Of cabinets, we may note a walnut cabinet supported on four spirally turned legs with curved stretchers, opening with two doors and furnished with brass lock-plates. A cabinet of oak standing on large turned feet. It has a flat top with a slightly overhanging moulded edge. At the top is a drawer and below it two doors shutting in six drawers. The drawers and doors are panelled and moulded, with turned ebonized handles in the centre of each panel. The sides of the cabinet are also panelled. A cabinet of various kinds of wood, on a stand of oak with four spirally turned legs and stretchers of the same. The outside doors veneered with pollard oak, the centre with hexagonal pieces of thorn acacia. Eleven drawers are enclosed within. The cornice is of pear-wood at the sides and walnut in front, the drawers at the top below the cornice are of burr walnut.

Two dressing-tables from engravings of the day are shown in Nos. 1 and 3, Plate XXIII. No. 1. is properly draped with the toilet, usually muslin, but often of richer material. On the same plate, Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, are details both of simple and more ornate mirrors of this style. No. 5 is especially good with its carvings, gildings and inlaid leaf ornamentation. The glasses in the mirrors were gradually increasing in size as the manufacturers became more skillful. Nos. 2 and 3, Plate XIX., show two oval mirrors of different proportions. No. 3 is a specially fine example, as it shows so many of the contemporary decorative motives, including the mascaron, shell, _chute_, swag, scroll and wings.

The handles for cabinets, chests-of-drawers, etc., were of various shapes, but the brass drop-handle was the most usual. Its length for average drawers was two inches. The ordinary model is reproduced in No. 6, Plate XXIII.

The tables still retained the late Jacobean characteristics shown in No. 8, Plate XXIII. Far more common, however, were the so-called “thousand-legged” tables with round or square leaves and horse legs. The legs were becoming slimmer and still connected with the centre frame by stretchers close to the ground.

The display of china had developed a new piece of furniture. Dyche thus defines it in 1748: “Buffet, a handsome open cupboard or repository for plate, glasses, china, etc., which are put there either for ornament or convenience of serving the table,” and Chambers, 1751:

“Beaufait, Buffet, or Bufet, was anciently a little apartment separated from the rest of the room by slender wooden columns, for the disposing china and glassware, etc., also called a _cabinet_. It is now, properly, a large table in a dining-room, called also a sideboard, for the plate, glasses, bottles, basons, etc., to be placed, as well for the service of the table as for magnificence. The buffet, among the Italians, called _credenza_, within a balustrade, elbow-high.”

Sometimes the “beaufait” consisted of a tier of shelves built into a niche in the wall of the dining-room. Even in the Queen Anne period, however, the word was sometimes used to signify a table. Murray quotes (1718): “The plate was placed upon a table or buffett.” The word in the sense of sideboard as we know it to-day came from France. In 1710 D’Aviler says: “Bufet; in a vestibule or a dining-room, a large table with stages in the style of a credence upon which are displayed the vases, the basins, and the cristal as much for the service at the table as for magnificence. This Bufet, which the Italians calls credence, is with them usually placed in the great _salon_ and closed in by a balustrade breast high. Those belonging to princes and cardinals stand under a daïs of cloth.”

THE EARLY GEORGIAN PERIOD

THE EARLY GEORGIAN PERIOD

The Early Georgian Period covers an interval of about forty years,—from the accession of the House of Hanover in 1714 to the appearance of Chippendale’s _The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker’s Director_ in 1754. During this period, strange to say, the art of the Regency and Louis XV., though not unfelt, has not so much influence as a spurious Gothic revival, an equally spurious “Chinese” furore and a fetish worship of Palladio and Classic architecture.

The commanding figures in the taste of the day were William Kent, Richard Boyle, third Earl of Burlington, and John Talman. Kent and Talman studied in Rome under the Chevalier Luti. When the Society of Antiquaries was established in its present form in 1718, Talman was appointed its first director. He died in 1726. Kent attracted the attention of the Earl of Burlington, and from 1716 to 1748, when Kent died, he received the shelter and hospitality of the Earl’s town house.

Kent’s charming personality, and the authority he assumed in art matters in consequence of his foreign training, enabled him to win a high position in fashionable circles. He soon became the arbiter of taste. Horace Walpole testifies: “He was not only consulted for furniture, as frames of pictures, glasses, tables, chairs, etc., but for plate, for a barge, for a cradle. And so impetuous was fashion that two great ladies prevailed on him to make designs for their birthday gowns. The one he dressed in a petticoat decorated with columns of the five orders; the other, like a bronze, in a copper-coloured satin with ornaments of gold.” Walpole also says: “Kent’s style predominated during his life.” Besides the numerous mansions he built for the nobility in the Classic style, he also built a “Gothic” house for Henry Pelham.

Pope says:

“_Must bishops, lawyers, statesmen, have the skill
To build, to plan, judge paintings, what you will?
Then why not Kent as well our treaties draw,
Bridgman explain the gospel, Gibbs the law?_”[15]

Kent was a painter, architect and general designer, and nobody has been found to oppose Hogarth’s dictum that neither England nor Italy ever produced a more contemptible dauber. Hogarth satirizes him in two of his prints: _Masquerades and Operas_ (1724), and _The Man of Taste_ (1732). In the former, the statue of Kent surmounts Burlington Gate, and supported on a lower level by the statues of Raphael and Michael Angelo; in the latter, he again towers above the same two artists over the gate (of taste), which is being whitewashed. On a scaffolding Alexander Pope’s diminutive form is wielding the brush and spattering passers-by with the whitewash. The Duke of Chandos gets most of it. The Earl of Burlington is mounting the ladder with more material.

Burlington House, Piccadilly, was practically rebuilt about 1716 from the Earl’s plans. It formed a striking exception to the mixed and commonplace architecture of the period, and aroused the enthusiasm of contemporary writers. Gay writes: “Beauty within, without proportion reigns.” Lord Hervey, however, sneers at its lack of accommodation:

“_Possessed of one great hall of state
Without a room to sleep or eat._”

This mordant wit also satirizes another residence at Chiswick owned by Lord Burlington, which was built about 1730 after the model of the celebrated villa of the worshipped Palladio. According to Hervey’s, “It was too small to live in and too large to hang to a watch.” Burlington designed mansions for others also. One of these, belonging to General Wade, in Cook Street, provoked Walpole to say: “It is worse contrived in the inside than is conceivable, all to humour the beauty in front.” Lord Chesterfield also suggested: “As the general could not live in it to his ease, he had better take a house over against it and look at it.”

The discomfort of the interior arrangement of even the most magnificent houses built at the beginning of this period is attested by more than one writer. Pope sneers at Blenheim as follows:

“_See, sir, here’s the grand approach,
This way is for his Grace’s coach;
There lies the bridge, and here’s the clock,
Observe the lion and the cock,
The spacious court, the colonnade!
The chimneys are so well designed,
They never smoke in any wind.
The gallery’s contrived for walking,
The windows to retire and talk in.
The council chamber for debate,
And all the rest are rooms of state.
Thanks, sir, cried I, ’tis very fine,
But where d’ye sleep, or where d’ye dine?
I find by all you have been telling
That ’tis a house but not a dwelling._”

How strong the fashionable taste of the day was for Gothic, Chinese and French decorations is gathered from the indignant writings of contemporaries who could not bear to see their pet Classic neglected. We learn that by the middle of the century the craze for the French and Chinese had somewhat abated. In 1756, Isaac Ware has much to say on the late tendencies. He speaks bitterly of the degeneracy of modern taste, and attacks those who “flew into every absurdity that the scope of things could afford. Of this we see instances in many expensive works which stand, and will stand to disgrace our country: and we have models of them, and of others as ridiculous, proposed for imitation.... We have seen architecture, a science founded upon the soundest principles, disgraced by ignorant caprice, and fashion very lately attempted, and it would be well if we could not say attempts now, to undermine and destroy it by the caprice of France, and by the whims of China.

“How must a man of true taste frown to see in some of the best buildings of that country, as it would pretend for the encouragement of arts, Corinthian capitals made of cocks’ heads. It is called the French (order) and let them have the praise of it; the Gothic shafts and Chinese bells are not below or beyond it in poorness of imagination.

“It is our misfortune to see at this time (1756) an unmeaning scrawl of (Cs) inverted, turned and hooked together take place of Greek and Roman elegance, even in our most expensive decorations. This is not because the possessor thinks there is or can be elegance in such fond, weak, ill-jointed and unmeaning figures: it is usually because it is French; and fashion commands that whatever is French is to be admired as fine.

“While these French decorations were driving out from the inside of our houses those ceilings which a Burlington had taught us to introduce from Roman temples, and those ornaments of doors which a better taste under Inigo Jones had formed upon the models of the best Roman structures; the Goths seemed to have seized upon pavilions, and the Chinese on rooms of pleasure. The jointed columns rose without proportion for the support of the thatched roof in some lower ground, while bells dangled from every corner of the edifice that caught the traveller’s eye upon an elevation.

“True taste and good admonitions have got the better of these; and they are left for cake-houses for Sunday apprentices. The French are more difficult to conquer; but let us rouse in every sense the natural spirit against them; and no more permit them to deprave our taste in this noble science, than to introduce among us miseries of their government or fooleries of their religion.”

Again he says:

“The French have furnished us with abundance of fanciful decorations for these purposes (ceilings and panels) little less barbarous than the Gothic; and they were, like that species of building (for we will not descend to call it architecture) received with great readyness; the art seemed upon the point of being lost in England; but a better taste has now prevailed. We should, in that danger, have declared for banishing whatever came under the denomination of French ornament; but, now we see it over, the art will be to receive these ornaments with discretion, to adapt them to the few uses for which they are proper, and to soften their luxurious use, and blend them with better figures, till we have reduced them into a more decent appearance.

“A ceiling straggled over with arched lines, twisted curves, with X’s, C’s and tangled semi-circles, may please the light eye of the French, who seldom carry their observation farther than a casual glance; but this alone is poor, fantastical and awkward; it is a strange phrase to use for anything from France, but those who have seen such ceilings as we here describe must acknowledge it is just.”

He then goes on to recommend a ceiling which the plate shows to be Louis XV. in style.

Here then we have direct evidence of the favour in which the styles of the Regency had been received in England. The _rocaille_ decoration and the excessive use of Chinese subjects, and monkeys, arabesques and floral devices, and particularly the broken curve, quickly overcame the opposition encountered from conservative members of the old school and strongly influenced Germany and England.

The expensive French wall-painting and silken hangings are imitated in wall-paper. The taste even spread to America, for Mr. Hancock, of Boston, sent to London in 1736 for paper-hangings for one of the rooms of his new house. He says about three or four years ago one of his friends had a hanging like the sample he sends, but he adds, “If they can make it more beautiful by adding more birds flying here and there, with some landskips at the bottom, should like it well. Let the ground be the same colour of the pattern. At the top and bottom was a narrow border of about 2 inches wide, which would have to mine.... In the other part of these hangings are great variety of different sorts of birds, peacocks, macoys, squirril, monkys, fruit and flowers, etc.”

The macoys (which, of course, are macaws or parrots) and the monkeys proclaim the Regency taste.

Some characteristics of the Regency style are as follows: The legs of the furniture are slightly curved and not so heavy as the Louis XIV. furniture. However, they retain a look of solidity. Round the edge of the table, under the top, is usually a frieze which forms a descending curve in the middle; it sometimes assumes the form of a bow also. This has been called the _contour d’arbalète_. At the top of the legs, and on the corners of other pieces of furniture, are mountings of bronze often showing acanthus motives with a head which is more expressive than the antique mascarons of the preceding style. Sometimes heads of animals also appear. The scroll and shell-work is rapidly becoming ornate. A fine example of Regency work is shown in the lower screen on Plate XXX., in which the prevailing vogue of the monkey is noticeable. Besides Watteau, Chinese designs were also produced by Aubert (d. 1721), La Joüe (d. 1752), Fraisse (d. 1735), and Mondon _le fils_ (d. 1738). Roumier (d. 1724) designed tables of this period.

The French school, which Chippendale was going to follow almost slavishly in his book of designs, had many admirers in England long before. In 1740, Batty Langley brought out _The City and Country Builder’s and Workman’s Treasury of Designs_. In this and other works, he gives several hundred designs for buffets, chimney-pieces, cisterns, clocks, table-frames, etc. Some of these are confessedly “after the French manner.” Of these, we have the curious chest-of-drawers on Plate XXVIII., the dressing-table on Plate XXVI. and the clock and bookcase on Plate XXV.