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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44603 ***
+
+Transcriber's note:
+ Minor spelling and punctuation inconsistencies have been
+ harmonized. Italic text has been marked with _underscores_.
+ Obvious typos have been corrected.
+
+
+
+
+COMPANION VOLUME BY THE SAME AUTHOR
+
+CHATS ON OLD FURNITURE
+
+_Illustrated by 72 Full-page Plates._
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+ CHAPTER
+ I. THE RENAISSANCE ON THE CONTINENT
+ II. THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE
+ III. STUART OR JACOBEAN (Early Seventeenth Century)
+ IV. STUART OR JACOBEAN (Late Seventeenth Century)
+ V. QUEEN ANNE AND EARLY GEORGIAN STYLES
+ VI. FRENCH FURNITURE: THE PERIOD OF LOUIS XIV.
+ VII. FRENCH FURNITURE: THE PERIOD OF LOUIS XV.
+ VIII. FRENCH FURNITURE: THE PERIOD OF LOUIS XVI.
+ IX. FRENCH FURNITURE: THE FIRST EMPIRE STYLE
+ X. CHIPPENDALE AND HIS STYLE
+ XI. ADAM, HEPPLEWHITE, AND SHERATON STYLES
+ XII. HINTS TO COLLECTORS
+
+
+
+
+ CHATS ON
+ COTTAGE AND
+ FARMHOUSE FURNITURE
+
+
+
+
+BOOKS FOR COLLECTORS
+
+_With Coloured Frontispieces and many Illustrations._
+
+_Large Crown 8vo, cloth._
+
+
+ CHATS ON ENGLISH CHINA.
+
+ By ARTHUR HAYDEN.
+
+ CHATS ON OLD FURNITURE.
+
+ By ARTHUR HAYDEN.
+
+ CHATS ON OLD PRINTS.
+
+ By ARTHUR HAYDEN.
+
+ CHATS ON COSTUME.
+
+ By G. WOOLLISCROFT RHEAD.
+
+ CHATS ON OLD LACE AND NEEDLEWORK.
+
+ By E. L. LOWES.
+
+ CHATS ON ORIENTAL CHINA.
+
+ By J. F. BLACKER.
+
+ CHATS ON MINIATURES.
+
+ By J. J. FOSTER.
+
+ CHATS ON ENGLISH EARTHENWARE.
+
+ By ARTHUR HAYDEN.
+
+ (Companion Volume to "Chats on English China.")
+
+ CHATS ON AUTOGRAPHS.
+
+ By A. M. BROADLEY.
+
+ CHATS ON OLD PEWTER.
+
+ By H. J. L. J. MASSÉ, M.A.
+
+ CHATS ON POSTAGE STAMPS.
+
+ By FRED J. MELVILLE.
+
+ CHATS ON OLD JEWELLERY AND TRINKETS.
+
+ By MACIVER PERCIVAL.
+
+ CHATS ON COTTAGE AND FARMHOUSE FURNITURE.
+
+ By ARTHUR HAYDEN.
+
+ (Companion Volume to "Chats on Old Furniture.")
+
+
+ LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN.
+ NEW YORK: F. A. STOKES COMPANY.
+
+
+
+
+ [Illustration: SIDEBOARD OF CARVED OAK. ENGLISH, SEVENTEENTH
+ CENTURY.
+
+ (_In the Victoria and Albert Museum._)
+
+ _Frontispiece._]
+
+
+
+
+ CHATS ON COTTAGE
+
+ AND
+
+ FARMHOUSE FURNITURE
+
+ BY
+
+ ARTHUR HAYDEN
+
+ AUTHOR OF "CHATS ON OLD FURNITURE," ETC.
+
+ WITH A CHAPTER ON
+
+ OLD ENGLISH CHINTZES
+
+ BY HUGH PHILLIPS
+
+ AND SEVENTY-THREE FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+ NEW YORK
+
+ FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
+
+ PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+(_All rights reserved._)
+
+
+
+
+ TO
+ MY OLD FRIEND
+ FREDERIC ARUP
+ I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME
+ IN MEMORY OF A HAPPY LABOUR
+ OF LOVE COMPLETED
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+The number of works dealing with old English furniture has grown
+rapidly during the last ten years. Not only has the subject been
+broadly treated from the historic or from the collector's point
+of view, but latterly everything has been scientifically reduced
+into departments of knowledge, and individual periods have received
+detailed treatment at the hands of specialists.
+
+Museums and well-known collections, noblemen's seats and country
+houses have furnished photographs of the finest examples, and these,
+now well-known, pieces have appeared again and again as illustrations
+to volumes by various hands.
+
+It is obviously essential in the study of the history and evolution
+of furniture-making in this country that superlative specimens
+be selected as ideal types for the student of design or for the
+collector, but such pieces must always be beyond the means of the
+average collector.
+
+The present volume has been written for that large class of
+collectors, who, while appreciating the beauty and the subtlety of
+great masterpieces of English furniture, have not long enough purses
+to pay the prices such examples bring after fierce competition in the
+auction-room.
+
+The field of minor work affords peculiar pleasure and demands
+especial study. The character of the cottage and farmhouse furniture
+is as sturdy and independent as that of the persons for whom it
+was made. For three centuries unknown cabinet-makers in towns and
+in villages produced work unaffected by any foreign influences.
+Linen-chests, bacon-cupboards, Bible-boxes, gate tables, and other
+tables, dressers, and chairs possess particular styles of treatment
+in different districts. The eighteenth-century cabinet-makers
+scattered up and down the three kingdoms and in America found in
+Chippendale's "Director" a design-book which stimulated them to
+produce furniture of compelling interest to the collector.
+
+The examples of such work illustrated in this volume have been taken
+from a wide area and are such as may come under the hand of the
+diligent collector in various parts of the country.
+
+In view of the increased love of collecting homely furniture
+suitable for modern use, it is my hope that this book may find a
+ready welcome, especially nowadays, when so many of the picturesque
+architectural details of old homesteads are being reproduced in the
+garden suburbs of great cities.
+
+It is possible that the authorities of local museums may find in
+this class of furniture a field for special research, as undoubtedly
+specimens of local work should be secured for permanent exhibition
+before they are dispersed far and wide and their identity with
+particular districts lost for ever.
+
+In regard to the scientific study of farmhouse and cottage furniture,
+the ideal arrangement is that followed at Skansen, Stockholm, and
+at Lyngby, near Copenhagen. In the former a series of buildings
+have been erected in the open air, in connection with the Northern
+Museum, gathered from every part of Sweden, retaining their exterior
+character and fitted with the furniture of their former occupants. It
+was the desire of the founder, Dr. Hazelius, to present an epitome
+of the national life. Similarly at Lyngby, an adjunct of the _Dansk
+Folkemuseum_ at Copenhagen, the life-work of Hr. Olsen has been given
+to gathering together and re-erecting a large number of old cottages
+and farmhouses from various districts in Denmark, from Iceland, the
+Faroe Islands, and from Norway and Sweden. These have their obsolete
+agricultural implements, and old methods of fencing and quaint styles
+of storage. The furniture stands in these specimen homes exactly as
+if they were occupied. It is a remarkable open-air museum, and the
+idea is worthy of serious consideration in this country. Old cottages
+and farmhouses are fast disappearing, and the preservation of these
+beauties of village and country life should appeal to all lovers of
+national monuments.[1]
+
+ [1] Those interested in the method pursued in Sweden and Denmark
+ and the grave necessity for speedy measures to preserve our
+ national cottages and farmhouses from effacement will find
+ illuminating articles on the subject from the pen of "Home
+ Counties" in the _World's Work_, August, October, and November,
+ 1910, and in the American _Educational Review_, February, 1911,
+ in an article by Lucy M. Salmon. "Old West Surrey," by Gertrude
+ Jekyll (Longmans & Co.), 1904, contains a wealth of suggestive
+ material relating to cottage furniture and articles of daily use
+ of old-style country life now passing away.
+In connexion with farmhouse furniture, old chintzes is a subject
+never before written upon. A chapter in this volume is contributed
+by Mr. Hugh Phillips, whose special studies concerning this little
+known field enable him to present much valuable information which has
+never before been in print, together with illustrations of chintzes
+actually taken from authentic examples of old furniture.
+
+A brief survey is made of miscellaneous articles associated with
+cottage and farmhouse furniture. Some specimens of Sussex firebacks
+are illustrated, together with fenders, firedogs, pot-hooks,
+candle-holders, and brass and copper candlesticks.
+
+The illustrations have been selected in order to convey a broad
+outline of the subject. My especial thanks are due to Messrs.
+Phillips, of the Manor House, Hitchin, for placing at my disposal
+the practical experience of many years' collecting in various parts
+of the country, and by enriching the volume with illustrations of
+many fine examples of great importance and rarity never before
+photographed.
+
+To Messrs. A. B. Daniell & Sons I am indebted for photographs of
+specimens in their galleries.
+
+In presenting this volume it is my intention that it should be a
+companion volume to my "Chats on Old Furniture," which records the
+history and evolution of the finer styles of English furniture,
+showing the various foreign influences on English craftsmen who made
+furniture for the wealthy classes.
+
+ ARTHUR HAYDEN.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+ CHAPTER I
+ PAGE
+ INTRODUCTORY NOTE 25
+
+ The minor collector--The originality of the village
+ cabinet-maker--His freedom from foreign influences--The
+ traditional character of his work--Difficult to establish dates
+ to cottage and farmhouse furniture--Oak the chief wood
+ employed--Beech, elm, and ash used in lieu of mahogany and
+ satinwood--Village craftsmanship not debased by early-Victorian
+ art--Its obliteration in the age of factory-made furniture--The
+ conservation of old farmhouses with their furniture in
+ Sweden and in Denmark--The need for the preservation
+ and exhibition of old cottages and farmhouses in Great
+ Britain.
+
+ CHAPTER II
+
+ SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY STYLES 43
+
+ Typical Jacobean furniture--Solidity of English joiners'
+ work--Oak general in its use--The oak forests of England--Sturdy
+ independence of country furniture--Chests of
+ drawers--The slow assimilation of foreign styles--The
+ changing habits of the people.
+
+ CHAPTER III
+
+ THE GATE-LEG TABLE 83
+
+ Its early form--Transitional and experimental stages--Its
+ establishment as a permanent popular type--The gate-leg
+ table in the Jacobean period--Walnut and mahogany varieties--Its
+ utility and beauty contribute to its long survival--Its
+ adoption in modern days.
+
+ CHAPTER IV
+
+ THE FARMHOUSE DRESSER 113
+
+ The days of the late Stuarts--Its early table form with
+ drawers--The decorated type with shelves--William and
+ Mary style with double cupboards--The Queen Anne
+ cabriole leg--Mid-eighteenth-century types.
+
+ CHAPTER V
+
+ THE BIBLE-BOX, THE CRADLE, THE SPINNING-WHEEL,
+ AND THE BACON-CUPBOARD 137
+
+ The Puritan days of the seventeenth century--The Protestant
+ Bible in every home--The variety of carving found in
+ Bible-boxes--The Jacobean cradle and its forms--The
+ spinning-wheel--The bacon-cupboard.
+
+ CHAPTER VI
+
+ EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STYLES 155
+
+ The advent of the cabriole leg--The so-called Queen Anne
+ style--The survival of oak in the provinces--The influence
+ of walnut on cabinet-making--The early-Georgian types--Chippendale
+ and his contemporaries.
+
+ CHAPTER VII
+
+ THE EVOLUTION OF THE CHAIR 189
+
+ Early days--The typical Jacobean oak chair--The evolution
+ of the stretcher--The chair-back and its development--Transition
+ between Jacobean and William and Mary forms--Farmhouse
+ styles contemporary with the cane-back chair--The
+ Queen Anne splat--Country Chippendale, Hepplewhite,
+ and Sheraton--The grandfather chair--Ladder-back types--The
+ spindle-back chair--Corner chairs.
+
+ CHAPTER VIII
+
+ THE WINDSOR CHAIR 243
+
+ Early types--The stick legs without stretcher--The tavern
+ chair--Eighteenth-century pleasure gardens--The rail-back
+ variety--Chippendale style Windsor chairs--The survival of
+ the Windsor chair.
+
+ CHAPTER IX
+
+ LOCAL TYPES 265
+
+ Welsh carving--Scottish types--Lancashire dressers, wardrobes,
+ and chairs--Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridge,
+ and Essex tables--Isle of Man tables.
+
+ CHAPTER X
+
+ MISCELLANEOUS IRONWORK, ETC. 285
+
+ The rushlight-holder--The dipper--The chimney crane--The
+ Scottish crusie--Firedogs--The warming-pan--Sussex
+ firebacks--Grandfather clocks.
+
+ CHAPTER XI
+
+ OLD ENGLISH CHINTZES. (By Hugh Phillips) 315
+
+ The charm of old English chintz--Huguenot cloth-printers
+ settle in England--Jacob Stampe at the sign of the Calico
+ Printer--The Queen Anne period--The Chippendale period--The
+ age of machinery.
+
+ INDEX 343
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+ SIDEBOARD OF CARVED OAK (ENGLISH,
+ SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY) _Frontispiece_
+
+
+ CHAPTER I--INTRODUCTORY NOTE
+ PAGE
+ CHESTS (SIXTEENTH CENTURY) 29
+
+ ELIZABETHAN CHAIR 35
+
+ CHEST (SEVENTEENTH CENTURY) 35
+
+ INTERIOR OF FARMHOUSE PARLOUR 39
+
+ INTERIOR OF COTTAGE 39
+
+
+ CHAPTER II
+
+ MONK'S BENCH 53
+
+ OAK CHEST WITH DRAWERS UNDERNEATH 53
+
+ JOINT STOOLS 57
+
+ OAK TABLE 57
+
+ CHEST (RESTORATION PERIOD) 63
+
+ EARLY OAK TABLE (MIDDLE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY) 63
+
+ SMALL OAK TABLE (_c._ 1680) 65
+
+ JACOBEAN CHEST OF DRAWERS (_c._ 1660) 65
+
+ CHESTS OF DRAWERS 69
+
+ CHEST OF DRAWERS (CABRIOLE FEET) 73
+
+ WILLIAM AND MARY TABLE (_c._ 1670) 73
+
+ CHILDREN'S STOOLS 77
+
+ RARE BEDSTEAD (_c._ 1700) 77
+
+
+ CHAPTER III
+
+ TRIANGULAR GATE TABLE 87
+
+ OAK SIDE-TABLE 87
+
+ SMALL GATE TABLE (VERY EARLY TYPE) 91
+
+ GATE TABLE (MIDDLE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY) 91
+
+ RARE TABLE WITH DOUBLE GATES 93
+
+ RARE TABLE WITH DOUBLE GATES AND ONLY ONE FLAP 93
+
+ GATE-LEG TABLE (RESTORATION PERIOD) 97
+
+ GATE-LEG TABLE (YORKSHIRE TYPE) 97
+
+ GATE-LEG TABLE WITH SIX LEGS ("BARLEY-SUGAR"
+ TURNING) 99
+
+ GATE-LEG TABLE (BALL TURNING) 99
+
+ COLLAPSIBLE TABLE WITH RARE =X= STRETCHER 101
+
+ PRIMITIVE GATE-LEG TABLE 101
+
+ WILLIAM AND MARY GATE-LEG TABLE 105
+
+ SQUARE-TOP GATE-LEG TABLES 105
+
+ MAHOGANY GATE-LEG TABLES 109
+
+
+ CHAPTER IV
+
+ OAK DRESSER (ABOUT 1680) 117
+
+ OAK DRESSER (PERIOD OF JAMES II.) 117
+
+ OAK DRESSER (EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY) 119
+
+ OAK DRESSER, URN-SHAPED LEGS (RESTORATION PERIOD) 119
+
+ MIDDLE-JACOBEAN DRESSER 123
+
+ WILLIAM AND MARY OAK DRESSER 127
+
+ OAK DRESSER. SQUARE-LEG TYPE 127
+
+ UNIQUE DRESSER AND CLOCK COMBINED 131
+
+ OAK DRESSER. QUEEN ANNE CABRIOLE LEGS 135
+
+ LANCASHIRE OAK DRESSER 135
+
+
+ CHAPTER V
+
+ BIBLE-BOXES. EARLY EXAMPLES 143
+
+ BIBLE-BOXES (MIDDLE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY AND
+ ORDINARY TYPE) 145
+
+ OAK CRADLES 149
+
+ YARN-WINDER AND SPINNING-WHEEL 151
+
+ BUCKINGHAMSHIRE BOBBINS 151
+
+
+ CHAPTER VI
+
+ LANCASHIRE OAK SETTLES 159
+
+ CUPBOARD WITH DRAWERS 163
+
+ QUEEN ANNE BUREAU BOOKCASE 163
+
+ OAK TABLES (EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY) 165
+
+ QUEEN ANNE GLASS- OR CHINA-CUPBOARD 171
+
+ GEORGIAN CORNER-CUPBOARD 171
+
+ OAK TABLES 173
+
+ OAK TABLES, WITH TYPICAL COUNTRY CABRIOLE LEGS 177
+
+ QUEEN ANNE TEA-TABLE 181
+
+ OAK REVOLVING BOOK-STAND 181
+
+ COUNTRY CHIPPENDALE TABLE 181
+
+ SQUARE MAHOGANY FLAP-TABLE 183
+
+ TRIPOD TABLE (_c._ 1760) 183
+
+ COUNTRY CHIPPENDALE AND COUNTRY ADAM TABLES 187
+
+
+ CHAPTER VII
+
+ OAK ARM-CHAIRS (ONE DATED 1650) 191
+
+ CHESTNUT ARM-CHAIR AND OAK ARM-CHAIR (_c._ 1690) 191
+
+ YORKSHIRE CHAIR (RESTORATION PERIOD) 197
+
+ CROMWELLIAN CHAIRS 197
+
+ OAK SETTLE (_c._ 1675) 201
+
+ OAK ARM-CHAIRS (ONE DATED 1777) 201
+
+ OAK CHAIRS (_c._ 1680) IN WALNUT STYLES 205
+
+ OAK CHAIRS, SHOWING VARIOUS TRANSITIONAL STAGES 209
+
+ CHAIRS IN QUEEN ANNE STYLE 213
+
+ COUNTRY CHIPPENDALE AND HEPPLEWHITE CHAIRS 215
+
+ OAK SETTEES IN CHIPPENDALE STYLE 219
+
+ COUNTRY CHAIRS IN CHIPPENDALE AND SHERATON
+ STYLES 225
+
+ GRANDFATHER CHAIR 231
+
+ ARM-CHAIR AND BACON-CUPBOARD 231
+
+ SPINDLE-BACK AND LADDER-BACK CHAIRS 235
+
+ CORNER CHAIRS 237
+
+
+ CHAPTER VIII
+
+ CHAIRS OF EARLIEST FORM WITH STICK LEGS 247
+
+ OLIVER GOLDSMITH'S CHAIR 251
+
+ CHAIRS WITH FIDDLE-SPLAT AND CABRIOLE LEGS 255
+
+ CHIPPENDALE AND HEPPLEWHITE WINDSOR CHAIRS 257
+
+ SHERATON STYLE WINDSOR CHAIRS 261
+
+
+ CHAPTER IX
+
+ CHEST, DATED 1636 (WELSH) 269
+
+ CUPBOARD, DATED 1710 (WELSH) 269
+
+ ELM WARDROBE (WELSH). OAK DRESSER (LANCASHIRE) 273
+
+ FLAP-TOP TABLE (HERTFORDSHIRE TYPE) 275
+
+ SPINDLE-BACK CHAIRS (LANCASHIRE) 275
+
+ OAK CHEST OF DRAWERS (YORKSHIRE TYPE) 279
+
+ LANCASHIRE OAK SETTLE (_c._ 1660) 279
+
+ THREE-LEGGED TABLE (ISLE OF MAN) 281
+
+ CRICKET TABLES (HERTFORDSHIRE, SOUTH BEDS,
+ CAMBRIDGE, AND ESSEX) 281
+
+
+ CHAPTER X
+
+ RUSHLIGHT-HOLDERS, SCOTCH CRUSIE, CANDLE-DIPPER,
+ PIPE CLEANER, ETC. 289
+
+ QUEEN ANNE POT-HANGER, WITH ORIGINAL GRATE 291
+
+ KETTLE TRIVET 291
+
+ COUNTRY FIREDOGS AND FIRE-GRATE (EIGHTEENTH
+ CENTURY) 297
+
+ SUSSEX IRON FIREBACKS 301
+
+ SUSSEX IRON FIREBACKS AND ORIGINAL WOOD PATTERN 303
+
+ GRANDFATHER CLOCK AND WARMING-PANS 307
+
+ BRASS DIAL OF THIRTY-HOUR CLOCK 309
+
+
+ CHAPTER XI--OLD ENGLISH CHINTZES
+
+ OLD TRADE CARD SHOWING CALICO PRINTERS AT
+ WORK 319
+
+ HUGUENOT PRINTED CHINTZ WITH PORTRAITS 319
+
+ HAND-PRINTED CHINTZES. QUEEN ANNE PERIOD AND
+ CHINESE STYLE 323
+
+ EXOTIC BIRD AND GOTHIC STYLES (EIGHTEENTH
+ CENTURY) 327
+
+ HAND-PRINTED CHINTZ BY R. JONES (OLD FORD) 331
+
+ HEPPLEWHITE PERIOD AND VICTORIAN PERIOD DESIGNS 335
+
+ VICTORIAN CHINTZ (IN THE COLLECTION OF MRS.
+ COBDEN UNWIN) 339
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER I
+
+ INTRODUCTORY
+ NOTE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+INTRODUCTORY NOTE
+
+ The minor collector--The originality of the village
+ cabinet-maker--His freedom from foreign influences--The
+ traditional character of his work--Difficulty to establish
+ dates to cottage and farmhouse furniture--Oak the chief wood
+ employed--Beech, elm, and ash used in lieu of mahogany and
+ satinwood--Village craftsmanship not debased by early Victorian
+ art--Its obliteration in the age of factory-made furniture--The
+ conservation of old farmhouses with their furniture in Sweden
+ and in Denmark--The need for the preservation and exhibition of
+ old cottages and farmhouses in Great Britain.
+
+
+In regard to launching another volume on the market dealing with old
+furniture, a word of explanation is desirable, for nowadays of making
+books there is no end, and much study is a weariness to the collector.
+
+In the present volume attention has been especially given to that
+class of furniture known as Cottage or Farmhouse. There is no volume
+dealing with this phase of collecting. Prices for old furniture of
+the finest quality have gone up by leaps and bounds, and for those
+not possessed of ample means the collection of superlative styles is
+at an end. Singularly enough, the most native furniture and that most
+typically racy of the soil has not hitherto attracted the attention
+of wealthy collectors. The plutocrats who buy only the finest
+creations of Chippendale, who have immediate private information
+when an exquisitely designed Sheraton piece is found, who amass a
+mighty hoard of gilt Stuart furniture, or who boast of an unrivalled
+collection of Elizabethan oak, do not touch the minor furniture made
+during a period of three hundred years for the common people.
+
+The finest classes of English furniture made by skilful craftsmen
+for wealthy patrons must always be beyond the range of the minor
+collector. Every year brings keener zest among those interested in
+furniture of a bygone day, and it is therefore increasingly difficult
+for persons of taste and judgment who cannot afford high prices to
+satisfy their longings. It is obvious that specimens of massive
+appearance finely carved in oak of the Tudor age, or of elegantly
+turned work in walnut of Jacobean days, must be readily recognised
+as valuable. Sumptuous furniture tells its own story. It is unlikely
+nowadays that such wonderful "finds," concerning which imaginative
+writers are always telling us, will occur again--except on paper.
+Popular enthusiasm has been awakened, and more often than not the
+possessor of some mediocre piece of furniture or china attaches a
+value to it which is absurd. The publication of prices realised at
+auction has whetted the cupidity of would-be sellers who convert
+early nineteenth-century chairs by a nod of the head into "Queen
+Anne," and who aver with equal veracity that ordinary blue transfer
+printed ware has "been in the family a hundred years."
+
+ [Illustration: CHEST. MIDDLE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
+
+ Gothic carving. Solid wood ends, forming feet. Made from six
+ boards; with hand-forged nails and large lock, characteristic of
+ Gothic chests.]
+
+ [Illustration: CHEST. SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
+
+ Lozenge panels, disc turning, and Gothic brackets (rare).
+
+ (_By the courtesy of Mr. F. W. Phillips, Hitchin._)]
+
+Cottage and farmhouse furniture may be said to be in somewhat
+parallel case to English earthenware. A quarter of a century ago, or
+even ten years ago, collectors in general confined their attention
+mainly to porcelain. The rage was for Worcester, Chelsea, Derby, or
+Bow. With the exception of Wedgwood and Turner, the Staffordshire
+potters had not found favour with the fashionable collector. Nowadays
+Toft dishes, Staffordshire figures by Enoch Wood, vases by Neale and
+Palmer, and the entire school of lustre ware, have received attention
+from the specialist, and scientific classification has brought prices
+within measurable distance of those paid for porcelain.
+
+What earthenware is to porcelain, so cottage and farmhouse furniture
+are to the elaborate styles made for the use of the richer classes.
+The French insipidities and rococo ornament of Chelsea and Derby and
+the oriental echoes of Worcester and of Bow are as little typical of
+national eighteenth-century sentiment as the ribbon-back chair and
+the Chinese fretwork of Chippendale or the satinwood elegances of
+Sheraton.
+
+To Staffordshire and to local potteries scattered all over the
+country from Sunderland to Bristol, from Lambeth to Nottingham, from
+Liverpool to Rye, one instinctively turns for real individuality and
+native tradition. Similarly farmhouse furniture exhibits the work of
+the local cabinet-maker in various districts, strongly marked by an
+adherence to traditional forms and intensely insular in its disregard
+of prevailing fashions. It is as English as the leather black-jack
+and the home-brewed ale.
+
+Contemporaneous with the great cabinet-makers who drew their
+inspiration from foreign sources--from Italy, from France, from
+Holland, and from Spain--small jobbing cabinet-makers in every
+village and town had their patrons, and when not making wagons
+or farm implements, produced furniture for everyday use. As may
+readily be supposed, there is in these results a blind naïveté which
+characterises a design handed down from generation to generation.
+This is one of the surprising features of the village cabinet-maker's
+work--its curious anachronism. The sublime indifference to passing
+fashions is astonishingly delightful to the student and to the
+collector.
+
+There is nothing more uncertain than to attempt with exactitude to
+place a date upon cottage or farmhouse furniture. The bacon-cupboard,
+the linen-chest, the gate-table, the ladder-back chair and the
+windsor chair, were made through successive generations down to
+fifty years ago without departing from the original pattern of the
+Charles I. or the Queen Anne period. Oak chests are found carved
+with the Gothic linen-fold pattern. They might be of the sixteenth
+century except for the fact that dates of the late eighteenth and
+early nineteenth century are carved upon them. Whole districts
+have retained similar styles for centuries, and the fondness for
+clearly defined types is almost as pronounced as that of the Asiatic
+rug-weaver, who makes the same patterns as his remote ancestors sold
+to the ancient Greeks.
+
+The village cabinet-maker's work knows no sequence of ages of oak,
+walnut, mahogany, and satinwood. His wood is from his native trees.
+His chairs come straight from the hedgerows. His history can be
+spanned in one long age of oak, intermingled here and there with elm
+and yew-tree and beech. The early days of primitive work go back to
+the marked class distinction between gentles and simples, and the end
+came only in the last decades of the nineteenth century, when the
+village craftsman was obliterated by the rapid advance of factory and
+machine made furniture.
+
+It may at first be assumed by the beginner that cottage and farmhouse
+furniture is throughout a weak and feeble imitation of finer pieces.
+But this is not so. The craftsmen who made this class of furniture
+formed for themselves special types which were never made by the
+London cabinet-makers. For instance, the Jacobean gate-table, the
+Lancashire wardrobe, the dresser, and the windsor chair, have styles
+peculiarly their own. In many of the specimens found it will be seen
+that the village cabinet-maker displayed very fine workmanship, and
+there are clever touches and delightful mannerisms which make such
+pieces of interest to the collector.
+
+In early days of the villeins, furniture was limited to a stool, a
+table, and perhaps a chest. Nor was the use of much furniture at the
+farm or in the cottage a feature in Tudor and early Stuart days.
+Gorgeously carved oak and richly turned walnut filled the mansions
+of the wealthy, but one does not find its simpler counterpart made
+for cottages till nearly 1660. The few pieces essential to every
+dwelling-house may be placed not earlier than the late sixteenth or
+early seventeenth century--the chest, the table, the form, and the
+Protestant Bible-box.
+
+Chests with scratched Gothic mouldings, tables of the trestle type as
+used to-day, forms of the most simple construction, exist, and may be
+said to belong to the sixteenth century.
+
+Bible-boxes became common during the early seventeenth century, and
+without change in their style were made till the late eighteenth
+century. In mid-seventeenth-century days the well-known gate-table
+was introduced.
+
+Of early pieces we illustrate a few examples, though in connection
+with farmhouse and cottage, the early days afford a poor field, as
+the furniture of those days now remaining was mostly made for great
+families. The two sixteenth-century chests illustrated (p. 29) are
+interesting as showing the early styles. The upper photograph is
+of a middle sixteenth-century chest, with Gothic carving and solid
+wood ends forming feet. This type of chest is made from six boards.
+The hand-forged nails show the rough joinery, and the large lock is
+characteristic of such Gothic chests. The lower chest is also of the
+sixteenth century. It has lozenge panels, and is further ornamented
+by disc turning. The Gothic brackets at the base are rare, and it is
+an interesting example.
+
+ [Illustration: ELIZABETHAN CHAIR.
+
+ This is of Scandinavian origin, and was known in England before
+ the Roman Conquest, being shown in mediæval MSS. Such designs
+ survived the Gothic styles.
+
+ (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)]
+
+ [Illustration: CHEST. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
+
+ Panels with early scratched mouldings (_i.e._, not mitred).
+ Mitreing came into general use about 1600.]
+
+That the chest remained in somewhat primitive form is shown by the
+illustration of a seventeenth-century specimen (p. 35). It will be
+observed that the panels have early scratched mouldings, that is to
+say they are not mitred. The fashion of mitreing in cabinet-work came
+into general use about the year 1600, but minor examples of country
+furniture often possess scratched moulding at a much later date.
+
+On the same page is an Elizabethan chair. This type is of exceptional
+interest. It has a long and proud history. They are, according
+to Mr. Percy Macquoid, "of Byzantine origin; their pattern was
+introduced by the Varangian Guard into Scandinavia, and from there
+doubtless brought to England by the Normans. They continued to be
+made until the end of the sixteenth century." These turned chairs are
+interesting as having spindles, which came into use at a much later
+period in the spindle-back chair.
+
+With the growth of prosperity and the increased use of domestic
+comforts, cottage furniture becomes a wider subject. Carved oak
+bedsteads, simple four-posters, bacon-cupboards, linen-chests became
+more common. In eighteenth-century days there was quite an outburst
+of enthusiasm, and the small cabinet-maker gained knowledge of his
+craft and became ambitious. On the promulgation of Chippendale's
+designs he made copies in elm and oak and beech for village patrons
+and essayed to follow Hepplewhite and even Sheraton.
+
+But this wave of success was followed by the competitive inroad made
+by factory-made cabinet-work, and during these last days the local
+cabinet-maker adhered closer than ever to the early oak examples of
+his forefathers. The village craft practically came to an end in the
+fifties, but it was a glorious end, and it is happy that it did not
+survive to produce bad work of atrocious design.
+
+The passing of cottage and farmhouse furniture may be said to be like
+the disappearance of dialect. The modern spirit has entered into
+village life, the town newspaper has permeated the country-side and
+disturbed the old-world repose. The lover of English folk-ways and
+the simplicity of rural life may echo the line of Wordsworth, "The
+things that I have seen I now can see no more."
+
+In the illustrations of two interiors shown on p. 39 it will be seen
+how happily placed the furniture becomes when in its old home. The
+atmosphere of these rural homesteads is at once soothing and restful,
+and the pieces of furniture had an added dignity. It seems almost
+sacrilege to tear such relics of bygone days from their ancient
+resting-place. But the collector is abroad, and few sanctuaries have
+escaped his assiduous attention. The lower illustration shows the
+interior of a cottage with its original panelled walls. This cottage
+actually has Tudor frescoes.
+
+ [Illustration: INTERIOR OF FARMHOUSE PARLOUR.]
+
+ [Illustration: INTERIOR OF COTTAGE.
+
+ With original panelled walls. This cottage has Tudor frescoes.]
+
+The study of old farmhouse and cottage furniture has not been
+pursued in this country in so scientific a manner as in Sweden and
+in Denmark. The conservation of national heirlooms is a matter which
+must be speedily dealt with before they become scattered. It is a
+point which cannot be repeated too often. At Skansen, Stockholm, old
+buildings have, under State supervision, been re-erected, and
+with their furniture they afford a practical illustration of the
+particular type of life of the district of their origin. At Lyngby,
+near Copenhagen, a series of farmhouses similarly illustrate old
+types of homesteads from various localities in Denmark, and from
+Iceland and the Faroe Islands.
+
+By such a systematic and permanent record of farm and cottage life
+and the everyday art of the people it is possible to impart vitality
+to the study of the subject.
+
+The English method of museum arrangement in dry-as-dust manner,
+with rows of furniture and cases of china, is a valley of dry bones
+compared with such a fresh and vigorous handling and method of
+exposition as is followed in Scandinavia.
+
+If old English furniture is worth the preservation for the benefit of
+students of craftsmanship or as a relic of bygone customs, there is
+undoubted room for due consideration of the best means of exhibiting
+it. A series of representative farmhouses could be re-erected at some
+convenient spot. There are many parks around London and other great
+cities which would be benefited by such picturesque buildings.
+
+Before it is too late, and many of these beautiful structures have
+been destroyed to make room for modern improvements, and village
+life has become absorbed by the growing towns, it should be possible
+to step in and preserve some of the most typical examples for the
+enjoyment of the nation. The real interest shown by the public in
+out-of-door object-lessons of this nature is indicated by the great
+crowds at Exhibitions at Earl's Court and the like, which flocked to
+Tudor houses replete with old furniture, and villages transplanted in
+lath and plaster to simulate the real thing, which seemingly has been
+neglected from an educational point of view.
+
+The mountain farms and the homesteads of the men of the dales, fen
+farms, and stone cottages from the Cotswolds, half-timbered farms
+from Surrey, from Cheshire, and from Hampshire, dating back to early
+Stuart days--are not these worthy of preservation? In the Welsh
+hills, and nestling in the dips of the Grampians and the Cheviots,
+from Wessex to Northumbria, from the Border country to the extremity
+of Cornwall, from East Anglia to the Lakes, are treasures upon which
+the ruthless hand of destruction must shortly fall. Or far afield in
+Harris and in Skye, or remote Connemara, there are types which should
+find a permanent abiding place as national records of the homes of
+the men of the island kingdom.
+
+This should not be an impossible nor unthinkable problem to
+solve before such are allowed to pass away. The intense value of
+such a faithful record is worthy of careful consideration by the
+authorities, either as a national undertaking or under the auspices
+of one of the learned societies, such as the Society of Antiquaries,
+or the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings and Monuments,
+interested in the safeguarding of the national heritage bequeathed us
+by our forefathers.
+
+
+
+
+ CHAPTER II
+
+ SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY
+ STYLES
+
+
+
+
+CHRONOLOGY
+
+
+JAMES I. (1603-25)
+
+ =1606= Second colonisation of Virginia begun; Raleigh's first
+ colony in Virginia was founded in 1585.
+
+ =1611= The colonisation of Ulster begun.
+
+ Publication of the _Authorised version_ of the _Bible_.
+
+ =1620= The sailing of the _Mayflower_ and the foundation of New
+ England by the Puritans.
+
+
+CHARLES I. (1625-49)
+
+ =1630= John Winthrop and a number of Puritans settle in
+ Massachusetts.
+
+ =1633= Reclamation of forest lands.
+
+ =1634= Wentworth introduces flax cultivation into Ireland.
+
+ =1635= Taxes for Ship Money levied on inland counties.
+
+ =1637= John Hampden, a country gentleman, refuses to pay Ship
+ Money.
+
+
+CIVIL WAR (1642-49)
+
+ =1642= Battle of Edgehill. Formation of Eastern Association.
+ Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Cambridge, and Hertford unite for
+ purpose of defence against the Royalists.
+
+ =1643= Battles of Reading, Grantham, Stratton, Chalgrove
+ Field, Adwalton Moor (near Bradford), Lansdown, Roundway Down,
+ Bristol, Gloucester, Newbury, Winceby, Hull.
+
+ =1644= Battles of Nantwich, Copredy Bridge, Marston Moor,
+ Tippermuir, Lostwithiel, Newbury.
+
+ =1645= Battles of Inverlochy, Naseby, Langport, Kilsyth,
+ Bristol, Philiphaugh, Rowton Heath.
+
+ =1648= Battles of Maidstone, Pembroke, Preston, Colchester.
+
+
+THE COMMONWEALTH (1642-58)
+
+ =1649= Battle of Rathmines. Storming of Drogheda and Wexford by
+ Cromwell.
+
+ =1650= Montrose defeated at Corbiesdale and executed. Battle of
+ Dunbar.
+
+ =1651= Battle of Worcester.
+
+ =1652= War with Holland.
+
+ =1656= War with Spain.
+
+ =1657= Destruction of Spanish fleet by Blake.
+
+ =1658= Battle of the Dunes. Victory of English and French fleet
+ over Spain.
+
+
+INTERREGNUM (1658-60)
+
+ =1659= Rising in Cheshire for Charles.
+
+
+CHARLES II. (1660-85)
+
+ =1672= _The stop of the Exchequer._ Charles refuses to repay
+ the principal of the sums he had borrowed and reduces interest
+ from 12 per cent. to 6 per cent. This resulted in great
+ distress, felt in various parts of the country.
+
+
+JAMES II. (1685-88)
+
+ =1685= Insurrection of Argyll in Scotland.
+
+ Monmouth rising in West of England.
+
+ Revocation of Edict of Nantes. The expulsion of a large
+ number of French Protestant artisans. Settlement of skilled
+ silk-weavers and others in England.
+
+
+WILLIAM III. AND MARY (1689-94)
+
+
+WILLIAM III. (1689-1702)
+
+ =1689= Siege of Londonderry.
+
+ =1690= Battle of the Boyne. William defeats James, who flees to
+ France.
+
+ =1691= Capitulation of Limerick; 10,000 Irish soldiers and
+ officers joined the service of the French King.
+
+ =1692= Battle of La Hogue, French fleet destroyed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY STYLES
+
+ Typical Jacobean furniture--Solidity of English joiners'
+ work--Oak general in its use--The oak forests of
+ England--Sturdy independence of country furniture--Chests of
+ drawers--The slow assimilation of foreign styles--The changing
+ habits of the people.
+
+
+To the lover of old oak, varied in character and essentially English
+in its practical realisation of the exact needs of its users, the
+seventeenth century provides an exceptionally fine field. The
+chairs, the tables, the dower-chests and the four-post bedsteads
+of the farmhouse were sturdy reflections of sumptuous furniture
+made for the nobility and gentry in Jacobean and Elizabethan times.
+The designs may have been suggested by finer and early models, but
+the balance, the sense of proportion, and the carving, were the
+result of the village carpenter's own individual ideas as to the
+requirements of the furniture for use in the farmhouse. Obviously
+strength and stability were important factors, and ornament, as
+such, took a subsidiary place in his scheme. But, although coarse
+and possessing a leaning towards the unwieldy, and often massive
+without the accompanying grandeur of the highly-trained craftsman's
+work, there is a breadth of treatment in such pieces which is at
+once recognisable. They were made for use and no little thought was
+bestowed on their lines, and, rightly appreciated, they possess
+a considerable beauty. There is nothing finicking about this
+seventeenth-century farmhouse furniture. There is no meaningless
+ornament. Produced in conditions suitable for quiet and restrained
+craftsmanship, contemplative cabinet-makers began to evolve styles
+that are far removed from the average design of furniture made to-day
+under more pretentious surroundings.
+
+The gate table, with its long history and its amplification of
+structure and ornament, to which a separate chapter is devoted
+(Chapter III), is a case in point. It was extensively used in inns
+and in farmhouses and found itself in set definite types spread
+over a wide area from one end of the country to the other. Its
+practicability caught the taste of lovers of utility. Its added
+gracefulness of form, in combination with its adaptability to modern
+needs, has recaptured the fancy of housewives to-day. It is the happy
+survival of a beautiful and useful piece of ingenious cabinet-work.
+
+To-day one finds unexpectedly a London fashion lingering in the
+provinces years afterwards. A stray air from a light opera or some
+catch-phrase of town slang is gaily bandied about as current coin in
+bucolic jest long after its circulation in the metropolis has ceased.
+The fashions in provincial furniture moved as slowly. Half a century
+after certain styles were the vogue they crept imperceptibly into
+country use. In speech and song the transplantation is more rapid,
+but in craftsmanship, the studied work of men's hands, the use of
+novelty is against the grain of the conservative mind of the country
+cabinet-maker. Therefore throughout the entire field of this minor
+furniture it must be borne in mind that it is quite usual to find
+examples of one century reflecting the glories of the period long
+since gone.
+
+=Solidity of English Joiners' Work.=--The love of old country
+furniture of the seventeenth century is hardly an acquired taste.
+Old oak is at once a jarring note in a Sheraton drawing-room with
+delicate colour scheme of dainty wallpaper and satin coverings. But
+as a general rule, when it is first seen in its proper environment,
+in an old-world farmhouse with panelled walls, and mullioned windows,
+set squarely on an oak floor and beneath blackened oak beams ripe
+with age, it wins immediate recognition as representative of a fine
+period of furniture. It is admitted by experts, and it is the proud
+boast of possessors of old oak, that the joiner's work of this
+style--the seventeenth century at its best--stands unequalled for its
+solidity and sound practical adhesion to fixed principles governing
+sturdy furniture fashioned for hard and continued usage. Of course,
+there were no screws used in those days, and little glue. The joints
+dovetailed into each other with great exactness and were fastened by
+the wooden pins so often visible in old examples. The modern copyist
+has a fine regard for these wooden pegs. He knows that his clients
+set store by them, and he accordingly sees to it that they are well
+in evidence in his replicas. But there is yet a distinction which may
+be noticed between his pegs and the originals. His are accurately
+round, turned by machinery to fit an equally circular machine-turned
+hole. They tell their own story instantly to a trained eye, to say
+nothing of the piece of furniture as a whole, which always has little
+conflicting touches to denote its modernity.
+
+As an instance of the form of the sixteenth century continuing in
+use until mid-seventeenth-century days the illustration of an oak
+table (p. 63) brings out this point. The heavy baluster-like legs,
+only just removed from the earlier bulbous types, and the massive
+treatment belong to the days of James I., and yet such pieces really
+were made in Cromwellian days.
+
+The rude simplicity of much of the farmhouse furniture is indicated
+by the Monk's Bench illustrated (p. 53). The back is convertible into
+a table top. The early plainness of style for so late a piece as 1650
+is particularly noteworthy. This specimen is interesting by reason of
+its exceptionally large back.
+
+On the same page is illustrated a chest with two drawers underneath.
+This form is termed a "Mule Chest," and is the earliest form of the
+chest of drawers. These Cromwellian chests with drawers continued to
+be made in the country for a hundred years, but in more fashionable
+circles they soon developed into the well-known Jacobean chest of
+drawers, the prototype of the form in use to-day. As an instance of
+this lingering of fashion the chest illustrated is dated 1701, quite
+fifty years after its first appearance as a new style.
+
+ [Illustration: MONK'S BENCH. _C._ 1650.
+
+ With back convertible into table top. Exceptionally large back.
+ (Note early plainness of style.)
+
+ (_By courtesy of Messrs. A. B. Daniell & Sons._)]
+
+ [Illustration: OAK CHEST WITH DRAWERS UNDERNEATH.
+
+ Termed a "Mule Chest." The earliest form of chest of drawers.
+ This piece in style is Middle Seventeenth Century, but is dated
+ 1701.]
+
+=Oak General in its Use.=--The oak as a wood was in general use both
+in the furniture of the richer classes and in the farmhouse furniture
+of seventeenth-century days and earlier. Inlaid work is unknown in
+furniture of this type. It was sparingly used in pieces of more
+important origin. The room shown at the Victoria and Albert Museum
+from Sizergh Castle has inlays of holly and bog oak. And the suite of
+furniture at Hardwicke Hall made for Bess of Hardwicke was made by
+English workmen who had been in Italy, the same persons who produced
+similar work at Longleat. Small panels with rough inlaid work are
+not uncommon in the seventeenth century in chests, bedsteads, and
+drawers. But the prevailing types of oak without the added inlays of
+other woods were rigidly adhered to in cabinet-makers' work for the
+farmhouse.
+
+The great oak forests, such as Sherwood, furnished an abundance of
+timber for all domestic purposes, and up to the seventeenth century
+little other wood was used for any structural or artistic purpose.
+Practically oak may be considered as the national wood. From the
+_Harry Grâce à Dieu_ of Henry VIII. and the _Golden Hind_ of Drake
+to the _Victory_ of Nelson, the great ships were of English oak.
+The magnificent hammer-beam roof of Westminster Hall is of the same
+wonderful wood. All over the country are scattered buildings timbered
+with oak beams, from cathedrals and ancient churches to farmhouses
+and mills. The oak piles of old London Bridge were taken up after
+six centuries and a half and found to be still sound at the heart.
+The mass of furniture of nearly three centuries ago has survived
+owing to the durability of its wood. To this day English oak commands
+great esteem, although foreign oak has taken its place in the general
+timber trade, yet there is none which possesses such strong and
+lasting qualities. It will stand a strain of 1,900 lbs. per square
+inch transversely to its fibres.
+
+=Sturdy Independence of Country Furniture.=--The hardness of the
+oak as a wood is one of the factors which determined the styles of
+decoration of the furniture into which it was fashioned. It was
+not easily capable of intricate carved work, even in the hands of
+accomplished craftsmen. The fantastic flower and fruit pieces of
+Grinling Gibbons and other carvers were in lime or chestnut, and the
+age of walnut, a more pliant and softer wood to work in than oak, was
+yet to come. The country maker, little versed in the subtleties of
+cabinet-work, contented himself with a narrow range of types, which
+lasted over a considerable period. This is especially noticeable in
+his chairs, and specimens are found of the same form as the middle
+seventeenth century belonging to the last decade of the eighteenth
+century.
+
+ [Illustration: EARLY OAK TABLE. _C._ 1640.
+
+ Retaining Elizabethan bulbous form of leg and having Cromwellian
+ style feet. Brass handles added later.]
+
+ [Illustration: JOINT STOOLS.
+
+ Height, 1 ft. 10-1/2 ins. Height, 1 ft. 8-1/2 ins. Height, 1 ft. 5 ins.
+
+ (About 1640.) (About 1660.)]
+
+The typical sideboard of the seventeenth century only varies
+slightly in form according to the part of the country from
+which it comes. The general design is always permanent. A large
+cupboard below, two smaller ones above, set somewhat back from
+the front of the lower one, the sides of the upper ones sometimes
+canted off, leaving two triangular spaces of flat top at the
+ends of the bottom one. The whole is surmounted by a top shelf,
+supported by the upper cupboards and two boldly turned pillars.
+This is usually the design. The decoration is of the simplest,
+and presents nothing beyond the powers of the village carpenter.
+The mouldings are simple; there is slight conventional carving,
+frequently consisting of hollow flutings, and the pillars, boldly
+turned, are very rarely enriched by any ornament. A careful
+examination of such pieces is always interesting from a technical
+point of view. The framing of the panels is seen to be worked out
+by the plane, but the panels themselves more often than not have
+been reduced to approximate flatness with an adze. If viewed in
+a side light the surface is thus slightly varied, showing the
+differences in the planes of the various facets produced by the
+adze and giving an effect entirely different from the mechanical
+smoothing of a surface by the use of a plane.
+
+The framing of the front and ends of these sideboards is in
+detail exactly like the ordinary Jacobean wall panelling or
+wainscot. The mouldings are all worked on the rails or styles,
+not mitred and glued on, no mitred mouldings being used except
+occasionally in the centre panel between the doors. The framing
+is mortised together and pinned with oak pins. The doors are
+usually hung on iron strap hinges, and the handles of the doors
+are of wrought iron. Frequently the doors of the upper cupboards
+are hung on pivots, not hinges. Such a sideboard belongs to the
+middle period of the seventeenth century, and is representative
+of a wide class used in farmhouses.
+
+It is easier to follow the various movements in the design of the
+seventeenth-century table than a century later, when more complex
+circumstances governed its use. The illustrations on p. 57 give
+early forms, with some suggestion as to the progression in design.
+
+The early oak Table is a curious compound of design. It has
+retained the Elizabethan bulbous form of leg and has the
+Cromwellian foot. In date the piece is about 1640. The brass
+handle has been added later.
+
+The Joint Stools on the lower half of the page afford a picture
+of slowly advancing invention in turned work. The one on the left
+of the group is the earliest, and is about 1640 in date. Its legs
+are seen to be of coarser work, roughly turned, but typically
+early Jacobean in breadth of treatment. The two on the right are
+about 1660 in date. The left-hand one shows the urn-shaped leg of
+the strong, broad treatment (as in the Table illustrated p. 63),
+brought into subjection and exhibiting a gracefulness of form and
+balance that make furniture of this type so lovable. The smaller
+stool shows the ball-carving associated with the Restoration
+period, and found in gate tables. A combination of these styles
+of turning is shown in the graceful oak Table illustrated p. 65,
+in date about 1680.
+
+=Chests of Drawers.=--The conservative spirit of the minor
+craftsmen is especially noticeable in the articles of everyday
+use. The merchant's account ledger with its green back and
+cross-stitched pattern in vellum strips, still in use, is to
+be found in the same style in Holbein pictures of the days of
+the Hanseatic League. Brass and copper candlesticks have a long
+lineage, and their form is only a slight variant from very early
+examples. The evolution of ornament is especially interesting;
+the old stoneware Bellarmine form still remains in the bearded
+mask at the lip of china jugs at the beginning of the nineteenth
+century. The two buttons at the back of the coattails continue
+long after their primary use to loop up the sword-belt has
+vanished.
+
+In America the early carved chests of the Puritan colonists were
+followed by similar designs contemporary with our own Jacobean
+style for a period well towards the end of the seventeenth
+century. The panels on chairs and chests have the same arcaded
+designs as found in Elizabethan bedsteads and fireplaces. These
+become gradually crystallised in conventional form, and Lockwood,
+the American writer on old colonial furniture, has reduced the
+types coincident with our own Jacobean styles into ten distinct
+patterns, until the advent of the well-known chests of drawers
+with geometric raised ornament laid on, which pieces of furniture
+in Restoration days were set upon a stand.
+
+We have shown in the illustration (p. 53) the earliest form
+of the chest with drawers underneath. The stage transitional
+between this and the multifarious designs with bevelled panels
+in geometric design is exemplified by the chest, in date about
+1660, illustrated (p. 63), having two drawers and a centre
+bevelled panel, and with two arcaded panels on each side of this
+and also arcaded panels at the ends of the chest. This form was
+rapidly succeeded by the well-known chests of drawers on ball
+feet or on stand so much appreciated by collectors.
+
+We illustrate a sufficient number of pieces to cover the usual
+styles and to assist the beginner to identify examples coming
+under his observation. Although it should be noted that as these
+chests of drawers are so much sought after they are manufactured
+nowadays by the hundred and out of old wood, so that great care
+should be exercised in paying big prices for them unless under
+expert guidance.
+
+The specimen appearing on p. 65 is a fine example, in date 1660,
+and when the ball feet are original, as in this example, the
+genuineness of the chest of drawers is undoubted. Too often
+stands or feet are added, and it is exceedingly rare to find that
+the brass handles are original. Quite an industry is carried
+on in reproducing old brass escutcheons and handles from rare
+designs and carefully imparting to them signs of age, so that
+they may be used in made-up chests of drawers and tables.
+
+Of types of stands, the two chests of drawers illustrated p. 69
+are fair examples. The upper chest is a curious Jacobean type
+with sunk panels and having an unusually high stand. There is
+a suggestion that this has been added later, as the foot is
+eighteenth-century in character.
+
+The lower chest is of the Charles II. type with sunk panels
+and having the arcaded foot of that period. It will be observed
+that in addition to the four drawers it has a drawer at the
+bottom.
+
+ [Illustration: OAK TABLE. _C._ 1650.]
+
+ [Illustration: CHEST. ABOUT 1660.
+
+ With bevelled panels and drawers and arcaded panels and ends.
+
+ (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)]
+
+ [Illustration: SMALL OAK TABLE. _C._ 1680.
+
+ Showing two forms of mouldings in legs and stretcher.
+
+ (_By courtesy of Messrs. A. B. Daniell & Sons._)]
+
+ [Illustration: JACOBEAN CHEST OF DRAWERS. _C._ 1660.
+
+ Height, 2 ft. 11-3/4 ins.; depth, 1 ft. 11 ins.; width, 3 ft.
+ 3-1/2 ins. The ball foot, not always present, indicates genuine
+ example.]
+
+The treatment of the stand or legs of these chests exercised the
+ingenuity of various generations of cabinet-makers. In the specimen
+illustrated p. 69, the eighteenth century is reached. The transition
+from passing Jacobean styles into those of Queen Anne is clearly
+seen. The bevelled panels still remain, with added geometric
+intricacies of design, and a new feature appears in the fluted sides.
+But the most interesting feature is the cabriole leg, so definitely
+indicative of the eighteenth century.
+
+=The Slow Assimilation of Foreign Styles in Furniture.=--Farmhouse
+furniture almost eschewed fashion. In seventeenth-century days it
+pursued the even tenor of its way untrammelled by town influences.
+England in those days was not traversed by roads that lent themselves
+to neighbourly communication. A hundred years later Wedgwood found
+the wretched roads in Staffordshire, where waggons sunk axle-deep in
+ruts and pits, a hindrance to his business, and William Cobbett in
+his _Rural Rides_ leaves a record of Surrey woefully primitive at
+Hindhead, with dangerous hills and bogs, where the "horses took the
+lead and crept down, partly upon their feet and partly upon their
+hocks."
+
+From the days of James I. to those of James II., from the first
+Stuart Sovereign to the last of that ill-starred house, the country
+passed through rapid stages of volcanic history. The opening years
+of the century saw the colonisation of Ulster by the Scots and
+the English settlers, and the sailing of the _Mayflower_ and the
+foundation of New England by the Puritans, nine years after the
+publication of the Authorised version of the Bible. Under Charles I.
+came the struggle between the despotic power of the Crown and the
+newly awakened will of the people. Parliamentary right came into
+conflict with royal prerogative. The smouldering fire burst into
+flame when John Hampden, a country gentleman, refused to pay Ship
+Money, which was levied on the inland counties in 1637, and the
+arrest of five members of Parliament in 1642--Hampden, Pym, Holles,
+Haselrig, and Strode--precipitated the country into civil war.
+
+For seven years a continual series of battles were waged by the
+contending forces. The Eastern Counties formed themselves into a
+martial association, and the King set up his standard at Nottingham.
+From Bristol to Hull and from Nantwich to Newbury fierce engagements
+tore the country asunder. An Irish army was raised for the King, and
+the Scots under Leslie crossed the border in the Parliamentarian
+cause. With the execution of Charles I. came other dangers; the sword
+was not sheathed, nor had revolution left a contented country-side.
+Cromwell divided the kingdom into eleven military districts, and
+under his rule England took her place at the head of the Protestant
+States in Europe.
+
+ [Illustration: OAK CHEST OF DRAWERS.
+
+ Curious Jacobean type, with sunk panels and unusually high stand.
+ This stand is the well-known eighteenth-century foot.]
+
+ [Illustration: OAK CHEST OF DRAWERS.
+
+ Charles II. type, with sunk panels and arcaded stand and feet
+ typical of the period.]
+
+With the death of the Protector and the restoration of the Stuarts,
+when Charles II. returned home, came an influx of foreign customs
+and foreign arts learned by expelled royalists in their enforced
+sojourn on the Continent. London and the Court instantly became
+the centre of voluptuous fashion. The pages of Pepys's _Diary_ afford
+instructive pictures of the last quarter of the century at Whitehall
+with the Merry Monarch exhibited in vivid colours, and more intimate
+still are the word-portraits cleverly etched by the Count de Grammont
+in his _Memoirs_ of the gay circle at Court. And after Charles came
+his brother James, nor were civil strife and Court intrigue memories
+of the past. Restlessness still characterises the closing years of
+the century. The insurrection of Monmouth in the West of England was
+followed by the Bloody Assize of Judge Jeffreys. The air is filled
+with trouble, and blundering statecraft brings fresh disaster,
+culminating in the ignominious flight of the King. Nor does this
+complete the changing scenes of the seventeenth century. A new era
+under William the Dutchman brought new and permanent influences, and
+religious toleration and constitutional government became firmly
+rooted as the heritage of the people of this country.
+
+It is essential that a rough idea of the period be gained in order
+to appreciate the kaleidoscopic character of the events that rapidly
+succeeded each other. The paralysis of the arts during the civil
+war had not a little influence on the furniture of the period
+belonging to the class of which we treat in this volume. The wealth
+of noble and patrician families had been scattered, estates had
+been confiscated, and sumptuous furniture and appointments pillaged
+and destroyed, especially when it offended the narrow tastes of the
+Puritan soldiery. Some of the minor pieces no doubt found their way
+into humbler homes and served as models for simpler folk. With
+a dearth of aristocratic patrons there were no new art impulses
+to stir craftsmen to their highest moods, but in spite of war and
+disturbances affecting all classes, furniture for common use had to
+be made, and the ready-found types exercised a continued influence on
+all the earlier work.
+
+In regard to farmhouse furniture the following types represent in the
+main the seventeenth-century styles: the bedstead, the sideboard or
+dresser, the table and the chair in its various forms, the Bible-box
+and the cradle. The Jacobean chest of drawers, a development of the
+dower-chest, came in mid-seventeenth-century days, and prior to
+the William and Mary styles. The sideboard, a development of the
+bacon-cupboard, came into fashion in the middle of the century. It
+was a reflex of the grander furniture of the manor house and the
+nobleman's mansion. It is difficult to fix exact dates to Jacobean
+furniture of this character. As a general rule it is safer to place
+it at a later date than is the usual custom.
+
+ [Illustration: OAK CHEST OF DRAWERS.
+
+ Showing transition to Queen Anne type. Cabriole feet, bevelled
+ panels, and fluted sides.]
+
+ [Illustration: WILLIAM AND MARY TABLE. _C._ 1670.
+
+ With finely turned legs and stretcher and scalloped underwork.
+
+ (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)]
+
+=The Changing Habits of the People.=--The shifting phases of the
+restless seventeenth century make it exceedingly difficult, in spite
+of experts, to decide definitely as to the exact date of furniture.
+The country being in such an unsettled state obviously influenced the
+manufacture of domestic furniture. Its natural evolution was broken
+and the restraint of the Jacobean forms was in the main due to the
+conditions prevailing in regard to their manufacture. The long list
+of battles given in the chronological table at the commencement of
+this chapter is advisedly recorded to show the intense upheaval which
+was caused by the civil wars which raged from north to south, from
+east to west, and convulsed any artistic impulses which may have been
+in process of materialisation.
+
+It is obvious the class of Table of the William and Mary period,
+in date about 1670, illustrated (p. 73), with finely turned legs
+and stretcher and scalloped underwork, belongs to a period far
+more advanced in comfort than the days when such a table as that
+illustrated p. 63 was the ordinary type.
+
+By the end of the century the growth of sea power and the astonishing
+development of trade brought corresponding domestic luxuries. The two
+children's stools illustrated (p. 77) must have come from a country
+squire's or wealthy provincial merchant's house. Their upholstered
+seats emulate the grandeur of finer types. The rare form of oak
+bedstead illustrated on the same page is a survival of the early
+type. In date this is about 1700; not too often are such examples
+found, for enterprising restorers and makers have seized these
+old Jacobean bedsteads and converted them into so-called Jacobean
+"sideboards," wherein nothing is old except the wood.
+
+It requires some little imagination to conjure up what the daily
+meals were in the days of the early Stuarts. There was the leather
+jack, the horn mug, and the long table in the hall where the farmer
+and his servants ate together. An old black-letter song, entitled
+"When this old cap was new," in date 1666, in the Roxburgh "Songs
+and Ballads," has two verses which paint a lively picture:--
+
+ "Black-jacks to every man
+ Were fill'd with wine and beer;
+ No pewter pot nor can
+ In those days did appear;
+ Good cheer in a nobleman's house
+ Was counted a seemly show;
+ We wanted not brawn nor souse
+ When this old cap was new.
+
+ We took not such delight
+ In cups of silver fine;
+ None under the degree of knight
+ In plate drank beer or wine;
+ Now each mechanical man
+ Hath a cupboard of plate for show,
+ Which was a rare thing then
+ When this old cap was new."
+
+The "mechanical man" is a delightful touch of the old song-writer.
+We fear he would have been shocked at the degeneracy of a later day,
+when in place of the mug that was handed round came the effeminate
+teacups. The change from ale, at breakfast and dinner and supper,
+to tea the beverage of the poor, would be a sad awakening from the
+ideals set up by the rollicking song-writer of Restoration days. But
+such innovations must needs be closely regarded by the student of
+furniture.
+
+We wish sometimes that historians had spared a few pages from
+military evolutions and Court intrigues to let us know what the
+parlours and bedrooms of our ancestors looked like. A rough résumé
+from Macaulay's "State of England in 1685," wherein he quotes
+authority by authority, holds a mirror to seventeenth-century life.
+
+ [Illustration: CHILDREN'S STOOLS, _C._ 1690.]
+
+ [Illustration: RARE BEDSTEAD. _C._ 1700.
+
+ Survival of early type.]
+
+At Enfield, hardly out of sight of the smoke of the capital,
+was a region of five-and-twenty miles in circumference, which
+contained only three houses and scarcely any enclosed fields,
+where deer wandered free in thousands. Red deer were as common in
+Gloucestershire and Hampshire as they are now in the Grampians. Queen
+Anne, travelling to Portsmouth, on one occasion, saw a herd of no
+less than five hundred.
+
+Agriculture was not a greatly known science. The rotation of crops
+was imperfectly understood. The turnip had just been introduced to
+this country, but it was not the practice to feed sheep and oxen with
+this in the winter. They were killed and salted at the beginning of
+the cold weather, and during several months even the gentry tasted
+little fresh animal food except game and river fish. In the days of
+Charles II. it was at the beginning of November that families laid in
+their stock of salt provisions, then called Martinmas beef.
+
+The state of the roads in those days was somewhat barbarous. Ruts
+were deep, descents precipitous, and the way often difficult to
+distinguish in the dusk from the unenclosed fen and heath on each
+side. Pepys and his wife, travelling in their own coach, lost their
+way between Newbury and Reading.[2] In some parts of Kent and Sussex
+none but the strongest horses could, in winter, get through the
+bog in which they sank deep at every step. The coaches were often
+pulled by oxen.[3] When Prince George of Denmark visited the mansion
+of Petworth he was six hours travelling nine miles. Throughout the
+country north of York and west of Exeter goods were carried by long
+trains of packhorses.
+
+ [2] _Pepys's Diary_, June 12, 16 8.
+
+ [3] Postlethwaite's "Dictionary of Roads."
+
+The capital was a place far removed from the country. It was seldom
+that the country squire paid a visit thither. "Towards London and
+Londoners he felt an aversion that more than once produced important
+political effects" (Macaulay). Apart from the country gentlemen
+were the petty proprietors who cultivated their own fields with
+their own hands and enjoyed a modest competence without affecting
+to have scutcheons and crests. This great class of yeomanry formed
+a much more important part of the nation than now. According to the
+most reliable statistics of the seventeenth century, there were no
+less than a hundred and sixty thousand proprietors, who with their
+families made a seventh of the population of those days, and these
+derived their livelihood from small freehold estates.
+
+Such, then, were the chief differences dividing the life of the
+country from the life of the town. The London merchants had town
+mansions hardly less inferior to the nobility. Chelsea was a quiet
+village with a thousand inhabitants, and sportsmen with dog and gun
+wandered over Marylebone. General Oglethorpe, who died in 1785, used
+to boast that he had shot a woodcock in what is now Regent Street, in
+Queen Anne's reign.
+
+The days of the Stuarts were not so rosy as writers of romance
+have chosen to have us believe. At Norwich, the centre of the cloth
+industry, children of the tender age of six were engaged in labour.
+At Bristol a labyrinth of narrow lanes, too narrow for cart traffic,
+was built over vaults. Goods were conveyed across the city in trucks
+drawn by dogs. Meat was so dear that King, in his "Natural and
+Political Conclusions," estimates that half the population of the
+country only ate animal food twice a week, and the other half only
+once a week or not at all. "Bread such as is now given to the inmates
+of a workhouse was then seldom seen even on the trencher of a yeoman
+or a shopkeeper. The majority of the nation lived almost entirely on
+rye, barley, and oats."
+
+The change from these conditions to those we associate with the
+eighteenth century was not a sudden but a slow one. With the increase
+of average prosperity came the additional requirements in household
+furniture. It is impossible now to state accurately what the exact
+furniture was of the various classes of the community. Many of the
+seventeenth-century pieces now remaining have been treasured in great
+houses and belong to a variety which in those days was regarded as
+sumptuous. Now and again we catch glimpses of the former life of the
+men and women of those days. Little pieces of conclusive evidence
+are brought to light which enable safe conclusions to be drawn. But
+the everyday normal character has too often gone unrecorded. We are
+left with Court memoirs, diaries of the great, literary proofs of the
+more scholarly, but the simple annals of the poor are, in the main,
+unrecorded.
+
+In view of this series of queer and remarkable facts strung together
+to afford the reader a rough and ready picture of those dim days,
+one comes to believe that much of the ordinary seventeenth-century
+furniture must be regarded as having belonged to the great yeoman
+class of the community. With this belief the collector very rightly
+regards it of sterling worth, as reminiscent of the men from whose
+sturdy stock has sprung a great race.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE GATE-LEG TABLE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE GATE-LEG TABLE
+
+ Its early form--Transitional and experimental stages--Its
+ establishment as a permanent popular type--The gate-leg table
+ in the Jacobean period--Walnut and mahogany varieties--Its
+ utility and beauty contribute to its long survival--Its
+ adoption in modern days.
+
+
+The gate-leg table is always regarded with veneration by collectors.
+It has a charm of style and beauty of construction which afford
+never-ending delight to possessors of old examples. It is an inspired
+piece of cabinet-work which belongs to the middle of the seventeenth
+century, and exhibits the supreme effort of the early Jacobean
+craftsmen to break away from the square massive tables, the lineal
+descendants of the great bulbous-legged table of the Elizabethan
+hall. Dining-tables with the device of slides to draw out when
+occasion required, even in early days became a necessity. It is a
+note indicating the changing habits of the people. A table was no
+longer used for one purpose. The large table required a permanent
+place in a large room. But smaller houses fitted with minor
+furniture had their limitations of space, and so the ingenuity of a
+table that would close together and stand against a wall, or could be
+used as a round table for dining, was a welcome innovation.
+
+=Its Early Form.=--The series of illustrations in this chapter afford
+a fairly comprehensive survey of the progress and differing character
+of the gate-leg table during the hundred years that it held a place
+in domestic furniture. It is difficult to say with exactitude which
+are the earliest forms, or whether the round table without the moving
+gates was a sort of transitional form prior to the use of the movable
+legs. It is quite possible that in his attempt to invent something
+more convenient than the heavy square dining-table the progressive
+cabinet-maker of the middle seventeenth century did strike the
+half-way form. But on the other hand it must be admitted that there
+is the possibility that the gate-leg table came first, and that the
+types with three legs and half circular tops stand by themselves as
+later types. On the whole, one is inclined to the belief, especially
+as it prettily illustrates forms of natural evolution, that the
+three-legged table with fixed legs and half round top came first.
+
+ [Illustration: OAK SIDE TABLE. _C._ 1660.
+
+ Plain style. The precursor of the gate-leg table.]
+
+ [Illustration: TRIANGULAR GATE-LEG TABLE. _C._ 1640.
+
+ Fine example. With arcaded spandrils and gate. This is the next
+ stage of development to above table.
+
+ (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)]
+
+The two tables illustrated on p. 87 belong to this three-legged type.
+The upper one is half circular at the top and the three legs are
+stationary. This particular table is in date about 1660, and although
+in this instance it is obviously later than other forms we illustrate
+having gate-legs, yet by the theory we have advanced above, it
+belongs to a type prior to the use of a gate. The lower one is a
+fine example, in date about 1640, of a triangular gate-leg table.
+The top is round, and the illustration shows the gate open at right
+angles to the stretcher. The arcaded spandrils are an interesting and
+rare feature.
+
+=Transitional Types.=--Not only is the feeling towards the gradual
+establishment of this new form of table shown in its construction,
+first with four legs until it developed into a table with twelve
+legs and double gates, but the styles of ornament used in the
+turning differ greatly in character. The leg is capable of wide and
+differing treatment. There is the urn leg, a rare and early type,
+the ball turned leg, egg-and-reel turned leg, and the straight leg.
+In regard to the stretcher similar varieties occur. Sometimes it is
+entirely plain, and when it is decoratively turned it varies from
+the early survival of the Gothic trestle to the rare cross stretcher
+of the late collapsible table. In some types of Yorkshire tables
+the stretchers are splat-form, like a ladder-back chair. The feet
+differ in no less degree from the usual Jacobean type to the scroll
+or Spanish foot at a later date. In the early eighteenth century
+there is the interesting series of Queen Anne flap tables which
+have gate-legs. Some have the bottom stretcher to the gate-leg.
+These belong to the walnut period, when a greater vivacity became
+noticeable in English cabinet work.
+
+It is this picturesque and endless stream of designs which appeals to
+the collector. It is quite worthy of study to follow the difference
+in the cabinet-work of these gate tables. The long line of craftsmen
+who fashioned them added here and there not only touches of
+ornament that were personal, but invented details of construction as
+improvements to existing forms.
+
+A very early type with urn legs and having plain gates is that
+illustrated p. 91. It is small in size and belongs to the first half
+of the seventeenth century. The survival of the Gothic trestle feet
+of an earlier type is noteworthy. The table on the same page has the
+trestle ends still retained. There is still the single leg at each
+end, as in the example above. The gates are square and plain and the
+legs are ball turned, a combination representing an early type. The
+size of this piece is small and its date is about 1650 or somewhat
+later.
+
+=Its Establishment as a Popular Type.=--The varied improvements and
+the slightly differing characteristics make it perfectly clear, when
+examined in detail, that the gate table in various parts of the
+country had firmly established itself and had won popular approval as
+a permanent type. In the search for tables of this form, however wide
+the net is spread by those indefatigable seekers in out-of-the-way
+places, and by the small army of trade collectors who scour the
+country for the purpose of unearthing something rare and unique,
+the story is always the same. In the most remote districts such
+tables are still found: the growth of the use of this gate-leg form
+permeated every part of the country. It was copied and recopied,
+native touches were added, and the old leading lines followed by
+generation after generation of craftsmen. It had as great a vogue
+during the long period of its history as the styles of Chippendale
+chairs had at a later date, when every country cabinet-maker was
+seized with the desire to produce minor Chippendale in oak or beech
+or elm.
+
+ [Illustration: SMALL GATE TABLE. VERY EARLY TYPE.
+
+ Length, 3 ft.; breadth, 2 ft. 4 ins.; height, 2 ft. 3 ins. Urn
+ legs with plain gates with survival of Gothic trestle feet.]
+
+ [Illustration: GATE TABLE. MIDDLE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
+
+ Early example. Height, 2 ft.; top, 2 ft. 9 ins. × 2 ft. 3 ins.
+ Square gates and turned leg indicate early type. Trestle ends
+ still retained.
+
+ (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)]
+
+ [Illustration: RARE TABLE.
+
+ With double gates. Egg and reel turning. Turned stretchers.
+
+ (Examples such as this are worth £18 to £35 owing to rare form.)]
+
+ [Illustration: RARE GATE TABLE.
+
+ With double gates with only one flap and having turned
+ stretchers. Tables with one flap are rare and usually have two
+ gates.
+
+ {_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)]
+
+=The Jacobean Period.=--Essentially the flower of the popular
+creations of the Jacobean furniture-designer, the gate table must
+always stand as reminiscent of the days of Charles I. and Charles
+II. No picture of this period is considered artistically complete
+unless there be a gate-leg table with its picturesque lines adding a
+technical touch of correctness to interiors. The portrait of Herrick,
+the parson-poet of Devon, imaginative though it be, whenever it
+appears on canvas or illustrating his lyrics, shows the poet beside
+a fine gate-leg table. Stage tradition is equally sure on the same
+point. A company of swaggering cavaliers at an inn is not complete
+without a group arranged at one of these tables quaffing wine from
+flagons.
+
+Without doubt the finest examples are to be found from the year 1660
+to the end of the reign of Charles II. A new impetus had been given
+to furniture-making in Restoration days. The country had settled
+down in tranquillity and the domestic arts began again to thrive in
+natural manner following the earlier motives of the days of Charles
+I. The recent civil wars had arrested their development, and now they
+burst forth again with renewed youth.
+
+Ripe examples of the best period may be assigned to the last three
+or four decades of the seventeenth century. These, it should be
+explained, are in oak. We illustrate (p. 93) a particularly pleasing
+specimen with double gates which belongs to this finest period.
+There are, it will be observed, twelve legs, and the stretchers are
+finely turned with what is known as the egg-and-reel pattern. As a
+matter of fact pieces such as this, on account of the rare form,
+bring from £15 to £35, and they are rapidly being gathered into the
+folds of collectors.
+
+Another rare form is shown on the same page. This, too, has double
+gates, and the stretchers are similarly turned. There is only one
+flap to this table, and it will be observed that it makes another
+variation from accepted styles in having a rectangular instead of a
+circular top. Tables with one flap are always rare, and when found
+they usually have two gates.
+
+It will be seen that there are pleasant surprises in following
+changing forms all through the period. On p. 97 a table is
+illustrated with two gates on one stretcher. This in date is about
+1660.
+
+The table below, on the same page, exhibits florid turning in the
+legs. The stretchers across the two legs are half way up and are the
+Yorkshire form of splat stretcher. This type is found as early as
+1660 and as late as 1750.
+
+The difference in structure is noticeable in two tables shown on p.
+99. The one has six legs and the other eight legs. The first has
+finely turned legs and stretchers in what is familiarly known as the
+"barley-sugar" pattern. Among its exceptional features are the legs
+being only six in number, the gates being hinged to stretcher, two
+legs thus being dispensed with, and the additional bar across the two
+central stretchers. This is a rare piece and in date is about
+1670. The Gate Table on the same page with eight legs is a good
+example of ball turning. This is a type which survived well into the
+eighteenth century.
+
+ [Illustration: GATE TABLE. _C._ 1660.
+
+ Rare form. Two gates on one stretcher. Length, 3 ft. 10 ins.;
+ width, 3 ft.]
+
+ [Illustration: GATE TABLE.
+
+ Exhibiting florid turning and Yorkshire type of splat stretchers.
+ Examples are found as early as 1660 and as late as 1750. Length,
+ 4 ft. 7-1/2 ins.; width, 3 ft. 3-1/2 ins.
+
+ (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)]
+
+ [Illustration: GATE TABLE.
+
+ Fine "barley sugar" turned legs and stretchers.
+
+ Exceptional features: Only six legs (gates hinged to stretcher,
+ two legs thus dispensed with). Additional bar across two central
+ stretchers.
+
+ Rare example. Date 1670.]
+
+ [Illustration: GATE TABLE.
+
+ Good example of ball turning. A type which survived well into the
+ eighteenth century.
+
+ (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)]
+
+ [Illustration: COLLAPSIBLE TABLE WITH RARE X STRETCHER. _C._ 1660.
+
+ The top folds over. Fine example.
+
+ (_In the collection of Lady Mary Holland._)]
+
+ [Illustration: PRIMITIVE GATE-LEG TABLE. SEVENTEENTH OR EARLY
+ EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
+
+ Gates at one end. Made by a local carpenter or wheelwright not
+ conversant with turning.]
+
+As exhibiting two types as wide asunder as the poles, and yet not far
+removed in point of time, the two tables illustrated, p. 101, make a
+curious contrast. The upper one, in date about 1660, is a slender,
+graceful example, with the unusual =X=-shaped stretcher. It will be
+seen from the illustration that the two stretchers when closed fit
+flat with the legs and the top flaps over, thus making the table
+practically collapsible.
+
+The lower Table, of late seventeenth or early eighteenth century,
+is a somewhat primitive form, with the gates at one end. This
+has obviously been made by a local carpenter or wheelwright not
+conversant with turning, as the shaping of the legs is strongly
+suggestive of the rude fashioning of the shafts of a farm wagon.
+
+=Walnut and Mahogany Varieties.=--As the mid-Jacobean period is
+left behind, and walnut is the chief wood used in ornamental turned
+work, so the character of the gate table begins to incline towards
+the technique more suitable to walnut than to oak. The turning, more
+easily done in the former wood, becomes more intricate. Hence some
+examples appear which are practically types of the walnut age. But,
+in general, the old gate-leg table is a survival throughout the
+William and Mary and Queen Anne periods, wherein country makers clung
+to the oak form and employed oak still in its manufacture.
+
+The William and Mary Gate Table illustrated (p. 105) is constructed
+with one gate. It is small in size, practically being an ornamental
+or occasional table. It has a fine character, and the "barley
+sugar" pattern is deeply turned. Side by side with this is a small
+square-topped Gate Table with the pillar-leg, denoting a reversion
+to early type. The stretcher is of the old trestle form. Both
+these pieces, on account of their small size and well-balanced
+construction, show that considerable attention was being paid to
+symmetry. Such specimens can readily be transplanted to more modern
+surroundings, and yet in some subtle manner harmonise with later
+furniture.
+
+They share this peculiarity with objects of Oriental art of the
+highest type. Old blue Nankin and old lac cabinets, although
+anachronisms amid furniture of a later date, possess the property of
+being in sympathy with their new environment, much in the same manner
+as an old Persian rug becomes a restful acquisition in a luxurious
+Western home.
+
+Some of the forms are so rare as to be almost unique. It is seldom
+that so interesting a piece is found as the Table illustrated (p.
+105) with the scroll feet in Spanish style. It has only one gate,
+and the top of the table lifts up, forming a box. The lock is shown
+at the front in the photograph. The adjacent table has a corrupted
+form of the Spanish foot, doubled under in cramped fashion like the
+flapper of a seal. This also has one gate; in date this piece is
+about 1680.
+
+ [Illustration:
+
+ EARLY GATE TABLE.
+
+ With square top and pillar leg.
+ Stretcher: Old trestle form.
+ Top, 2 ft. 4 ins. × 1 ft. 10 ins.
+
+ WILLIAM AND MARY GATE TABLE.
+
+ Fine character deep-turning "barley sugar"
+ pattern with only one gate.
+ Top, 2 ft. 6 ins. × 2 ft.
+
+ (_By the courtesy of Messrs. A. B. Daniell & Sons._)]
+
+ [Illustration: GATE TABLE WITH SQUARE TOP. _C._ 1680
+
+ Having one gate and corrupted form of carved Spanish foot.]
+
+ [Illustration: GATE-LEG TABLE. _C._ 1660.
+
+ With one gate. Top lifts up to form box. The feet are in Spanish
+ style.]
+
+The days of mahogany, with Chippendale in his prime and Hepplewhite,
+Ince and Mayhew, Robert Manwaring, Matthias Lock, William Shearer,
+and a crowd of others, brought intricate carving in mahogany into
+intense prominence. This was the golden age of furniture design. An
+outburst of enthusiasm, following the architectural triumphs of the
+Brothers Adam, wherein they raised interior decoration to a level as
+high as that in France, had swept over the country. In spite of the
+rich profusion of new design being poured out in illustrated volumes
+and in executed furniture, the old gate-leg table still survived.
+In form it was the same, but the richness of the new wood was too
+enticing for the cabinet-maker not to employ. Accordingly we find
+examples in mahogany.
+
+In the Chippendale period =X=-shaped, cluster-leg, gate tables
+are found, and turning was used in this cluster-leg form. The
+ripe inventiveness of such a design as the gate-leg table was too
+evident to escape the adoption by famous makers. When ingenuity of
+construction was at its zenith the gate-leg was not likely to be
+discarded in fashionable furniture.
+
+On p. 109 two specimens of this period are shown. The upper one is of
+somewhat unusual type, having a Cupid's bow underframing. It is seen
+that the Spanish foot has still survived into the eighteenth century.
+The lower table is again a rare form. It is probably early in date
+for mahogany, being about 1740. The Spanish foot is employed, but in
+a coarsened form, unusually inelegant, and suggestive of a golf club.
+
+=Its Utility and Beauty.=--It is a natural question that one may ask
+as to the reason that the gate table had such a prolonged life. It
+passed through several strong periods of fashionable styles that
+were overthrown in turn by newer designs. The reason is not far to
+seek. It survived because the public could not do without it. There
+must have been a continuous demand, unchecked by the excitements of
+contemporary substitutes. But apparently there was nothing to take
+its place, or which could permanently supplant it. Its utility is
+undoubtedly one of its most marked features. This alone affected
+its stability as a possession with which the farmer's wife and the
+cottager would not part. Customs long established in the country
+were not easily discontinued. Mother, daughter, and granddaughter
+clung to the old and practical form of table. Nowadays there are
+families in the shires whom nothing would induce to sell their old
+gate tables. Partly this is for love of the old home, but mainly is
+it the common-sense attitude which rebels against the sale of any
+piece of furniture which is in constant use. Many objects long gone
+into disuse, but really valuable from an artistic point of view, are
+readily dispensed with. The cottager imagines that if he disposes of
+a mere ornament for a sum of money with which he can buy something
+useful he has effected a good "deal."
+
+ [Illustration: MAHOGANY GATE TABLE.
+
+ Unusual type. With "Cupid's bow" underframing. Spanish foot
+ surviving into eighteenth century. Height, 2 ft. 5 ins.: diameter
+ of top, 3 ft. 6 ins.; width, 4 ft.]
+
+ [Illustration: MAHOGANY GATE TABLE.
+
+ Rare form. Probably made of the new fashionable wood about 1740.
+ Use of Spanish foot dying out. Diameter of top, 4 ft. 5-1/2 ins.
+ × 4 ft. 4 ins.
+
+ (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)]
+
+So much for its utility. Its beauty is a quality which has appealed
+to persons of higher artistic instincts. It is not the quaintness,
+because there are scores of other objects equally quaint, nor is
+it altogether the antiquity, though, of course, nowadays that is
+a determining factor, but it is the actual symmetry of form and
+ingenious form of construction, enhanced by the wide range of
+decorative treatment, which irresistibly appeal to the lover of the
+beautiful. These manifold reasons, therefore, endowed the gate-leg
+table with great vitality. Its hold of the people was not relaxed
+till the age of the factory-made furniture. The banalities of the
+early-Victorian period, which destroyed taste in persons of finer
+susceptibilities than the common folk, supplanted the old historic
+form, and it was made no more.
+
+=Its Adoption in Modern Days.=--After William Morris and his school
+had preached the revival of taste and the return to the simple and
+the beautiful, and Ruskin with flowing rhetoric had instilled a love
+for homespun into men's minds, there came newer ideals which, with
+gradual dissemination, have grown into a great modern movement which
+has become so overwhelmingly popular that the pendulum has almost
+swung the other way. It has now become almost a truism that the
+person of taste to-day sees nothing good in anything that is not old.
+With this in view, artists and persons of advanced notions, if they
+could not procure the old, had copies made for them of some of the
+most beautiful styles suitable for modern requirements. In this there
+was always the great Morrisian principle in view that the highest art
+must show a full utilitarian purpose; so it came about that the gate
+table was revived and came gloriously into its own again. To-day, as
+in the seventeenth century, there is no more popular form of table,
+and the modern cabinet-maker is manufacturing hundreds of these
+tables.
+
+The life-history of the gate-leg table is, therefore, shown to be an
+interesting one. It is one of our oldest forms, and its construction
+nowadays, save that it is now produced in a factory, is singularly
+similar to that in the days when Oliver Cromwell was establishing our
+power as a voice in Europe, when James II. had an eye towards the
+supremacy of our navy, and when later our troops fought in Flanders.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE FARMHOUSE DRESSER
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE FARMHOUSE DRESSER
+
+ The days of the late Stuarts--Its early table form with
+ drawers--The decorated type with shelves--William and
+ Mary style with double cupboards--The Queen Anne cabriole
+ leg--Mid-eighteenth-century types.
+
+
+The various types of dresser associated with farmhouse use are
+interesting as being apart from the sideboard, a later fashion
+belonging to furniture of a higher type. It was not until the late
+days of Chippendale, and after, that the Side Table began to be
+designated a Sideboard, which later became a receptacle for wine,
+with a cellaret, and had a drawer for table-linen.
+
+The sideboard is not a modern term, for the word is found in Dryden
+and in Milton. In the late eighteenth-century days the sideboard had
+a brass rail at the back, and was ornamented by two mahogany urns of
+massive proportions. Usually these were used for iced water and for
+hot water, the latter for washing the knives and forks.
+
+The Adam sideboard with its severe classical lines, and Sheraton's
+elegant bow fronts and satinwood panels decorated with painting,
+belong to the later developments of the sideboard as now known.
+
+The dresser is something more homely. It is indissolubly connected
+with homeliness and with the farmhouse and the country-side. In its
+various forms it has appealed to lovers of simple furniture, and
+farmhouse examples have found their way into surroundings more or
+less incongruous. The dresser in its more primitive form requires the
+necessary environment. It loses its charm when placed in proximity to
+pieces of more pretentious character. The cupboard dresser, or the
+type with open shelves, is less decorative than some of the forms
+without the back. That is to say, it requires the exactly suitable
+accompaniment to prevent its simple lines from being eclipsed by
+furniture of a higher grade. The dresser is, therefore, especially
+desirable to the collector furnishing a country cottage in harmonious
+character; but its inclusion in the modern drawing-room is an
+incongruity and its presence in the dining-room is more often than
+not an unwarrantable intrusion.
+
+=The Days of the Late Stuarts.=--It will be seen that the early
+types have fronts finely decorated with geometric designs panelled
+in the same fashion as the Jacobean chests of drawers, such as that
+illustrated p. 69. The split baluster ornament is a noticeable
+feature in this style, and the fine graceful balance of the panels
+with the drawers with drop brass handles is an attractive feature
+beloved by connoisseurs of the late Stuart period. The decoration in
+the fronts of these early dressers is as diverse in character
+as the fronts of the contemporary chests of drawers. This variety is
+indicative of the personal character imparted to the work of the old
+designers. It is rare to find two examples exactly alike. They differ
+in details, much in the same manner as the brass candlesticks of the
+same period, which possess the same charm of individuality.
+
+ [Illustration: OAK DRESSER. ABOUT 1680.
+
+ With finely decorated front.
+
+ (_By the courtesy of Messrs. A. B. Daniell & Sons._)]
+
+ [Illustration: OAK DRESSER.
+
+ Fine example of the period of James II.]
+
+ [Illustration: OAK DRESSER OF UNUSUAL TYPE. EARLY EIGHTEENTH
+ CENTURY.
+
+ With arched formation below and serpentine outline at sides.
+ Height, 6 ft. 8-1/2 ins.; depth, 1 ft. 6 ins.; width, 6 ft. 2
+ ins.]
+
+ [Illustration: EARLY OAK DRESSER. ABOUT 1660.
+
+ With urn-shaped legs.
+
+ (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)]
+
+Of this particular type of oak Dresser the two examples illustrated
+(p. 117) have characteristics which are common to the class. The
+geometric front panels, the laid-on moulding, and the Jacobean
+leg--in most cases the back legs of these side dressers are
+square--should be intently noticed. In regard to the number of
+the legs, this is governed by the length of the dresser. In the
+lower example it will be seen that there are six legs and that the
+stretcher is continued round three sides. In this example the legs
+begin to show indications of the late-Jacobean style of more delicate
+turning. In the upper example the legs are bolder.
+
+These are oak specimens; the walnut varieties of similar design offer
+more sumptuous decoration and belong to furniture more suitable for
+the manor house than for the farm or cottage.
+
+An earlier type, in date about 1660, illustrated p. 119, exhibits a
+less ornate appearance and has the split urn-shaped legs in front and
+flat legs at the back. The split legs are found sometimes in gate
+tables, but when such is the case it may safely be conjectured that
+these tables are not of English origin, as the split leg did not find
+great favour with the English cabinet-makers.
+
+Before passing to later examples it should be observed that this
+particular form of dresser is most frequently found without a top
+with shelves. Examples there are which, as we shall show, have the
+original top, but as a rule it is advisable to note this feature
+in examining these Jacobean dressers, for there are a great number
+in the market to which later tops have been added, as suitable to
+more modern requirements, or as likely to prove more attractive to
+those collectors not familiar with the dresser in its earlier form.
+Originally in early dressers with shelves there is no back, that is
+to say, the shelves showed the wall behind them. This deficiency has
+been obligingly supplied by later hands.
+
+The dresser, as it found itself after certain transitional stages had
+been passed through, is shown in the early eighteenth-century piece
+illustrated (p. 119). This is of the early days of the eighteenth
+century, that is to say, in the reign of Queen Anne. It is here seen
+that the dresser is a set piece of furniture possessing attributes
+instantly marking it as having been carefully designed with a due
+observance as to the purpose to which it was to be put. The shelf at
+the bottom was evidently intended for use; the arched formation below
+the drawers has been planned in that manner to admit of utensils
+placed there being taken out and replaced with ease. One can only
+conjecture what may have stood there, maybe a barrel of cider, or
+perhaps only a breadpan.
+
+=The Decorated Type with Shelves.=--The back with shelves was a
+useful addition, which, as will be seen in the earlier examples
+leading up to this later development, had borne several experiments
+in the way of cupboards. In this particular specimen the broken or
+serpentine outline at sides of shelves is a noticeable feature, and
+always adds a grace and charm to the dresser when employed by the
+cabinet-maker. Another example in which this is effectively used is
+illustrated on p. 123.
+
+ [Illustration:
+
+ DRESSER. EARLY JACOBEAN.
+
+ Length, 6 ft. 5 ins.; height, 7 ft. 3 ins.; depth, 1 ft. 8-1/2 ins.
+
+ DRESSER. EARLIEST DECORATED TYPE.
+
+ Date about 1670.
+
+ (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)]
+
+To return to the early-Jacobean types: two interesting pieces
+are illustrated together (p. 123). That on the left, with four
+legs and stretcher, has three drawers, and the upper portion or
+back is ornamented by a primitive scalloped design suggestive
+of the country hand. The other, on the right, has six legs and
+four drawers, and the upper portion is beginning to receive
+detailed treatment in regard to spacing of the shelves, and a
+small cupboard on each side fills the growing need of cupboards
+and drawers, a rapidly growing taste in English furniture for
+domestic use as the home-life began to be more complex. About
+this time nests of boxes and drawers in lac work from the East
+began to be imported into this country in the better houses,
+first as articles of great luxury and beauty, on account of
+their colour and fine gold work, and later as being something
+new and essentially utilitarian in regard to the accommodation
+they afforded for the treasures the housewife wished to put away
+from the prying eyes of her curious neighbours. As time went
+on, the art of the cabinet-maker became more intricate. It is
+not the place here to enter into the minutiæ of the development
+of drawers and bureaus and cabinets, but the late eighteenth
+century brought such furniture, apart from points in relation to
+beauty of design, to great constructive skill. The age was one of
+hidden contrivances and intricately cunning mechanism concealing
+secret drawers or receptacles. Such pieces were never made for
+farmhouse use; but the germ of the idea is ever present in all
+furniture with indications of locked drawers and cupboards. This
+is the note of intense civilisation as against the simpler modes
+of primitive folk who have no bolt to their door and no lock to
+guard their possessions.
+
+=William and Mary Style with Double Cupboards.=--The variety
+with double cupboards are interesting as giving a date to the
+dressers in which they are found. It is usually accurate to
+place such pieces in the William and Mary period, that is to say
+from the year 1689 to the end of the seventeenth century. The
+tendency in this class of furniture is to cling tenaciously to
+older forms, especially in certain portions of the cabinet-work
+which presented difficulties to the local cabinet-maker. The legs
+retained their early-Jacobean character even when associated with
+much later styles. This is noticeable in the William and Mary
+example illustrated (p. 127). The arcaded doors are inlaid, the
+canopy is decorated, the underwork beneath the drawers belongs
+essentially to the "Orange" period of design in its feeling.
+
+That the dresser could be made an ornamental piece of furniture
+and found its place as an important possession in the farmhouse,
+bright with an array of china, or pewter, or even silver, is
+amply shown by the two examples illustrated together of which
+the foregoing is one. The other oak dresser has at the top,
+where the mugs are hanging, the original mug-hooks. It is of
+the square-leg type and the arcaded work below the drawers
+gives distinction to its lines; it possesses also the broken or
+serpentine ends to the shelves. These curves and simple touches
+of ornament all contribute to make such dressers pleasing in
+character and representative of native work attempting with
+strong endeavour to produce artistic results suitable to their
+environment.
+
+ [Illustration: WILLIAM AND MARY OAK DRESSER. DATE _C._ 1689.
+
+ Decorated canopy, arcaded doors, inlaid and turned legs. Height,
+ 6 ft. 8-1/2 ins.; length, 6 ft. 4 ins.; depth, 1 ft. 8 ins.]
+
+ [Illustration: OAK DRESSER.
+
+ Square leg type; with original mug hooks. Height, 6 ft.; length,
+ 4 ft. 3 ins.; depth, 1 ft. 5 ins.]
+
+=The Queen Anne Cabriole Leg.=--It is not to be expected that the
+long-continued triumph of the cabriole leg of the eighteenth century
+would leave the dresser without making its mark thereon. The exact
+curve of the cabriole leg is dangerous in the hands of a novice,
+who rarely if ever gets the correct balance in conjunction with the
+rest of the construction. Accordingly, in farmhouse pieces this
+tells its own story. It is as though the cabriole leg were a sudden
+afterthought. This touch of representative want of repose is shown in
+the specimen illustrated (p. 135). In date this is about 1740, and is
+a somewhat rare form, having double cupboards.
+
+A unique Dresser and Clock combined is illustrated (p. 131). The
+form of the dresser, it will be seen, is quite different from other
+specimens. The back is only sufficiently high to carry a row of small
+drawers. The legs are circular and tapered, terminating in circular
+feet. In the centre of the dresser is a clock of the familiar
+grandfather form in miniature. This clock is not an addition to the
+dresser, but is a portion of the dresser and was made with it. The
+illustration shows the size of the door of the clock-case, with its
+hinges not cut down or in any way interfered with, and the lock on
+the other side is in the centre of the panel. It is obvious that no
+later hand has tampered with this fine example, and it stands as a
+remarkable dresser and unique in form in its construction with this
+clock.
+
+=Mid-eighteenth-century Types.=--In the Lancashire Dresser
+illustrated (p. 135) the top is reminiscent of early types. The
+cupboard has removed its position to the middle, a departure from
+all earlier forms. This is a very characteristic example, and the
+ample drawer accommodation shows the speedy transition from the old
+form of dresser through its varied stages to the later modern variety
+of the kitchen dresser, devoid of poetry and lacking interest to
+the collector, and yet to the student having traces of its ancient
+lineage.
+
+The eighteenth-century farmhouse varieties offer no great departure.
+They aim at being capacious and massive. They make no pretensions
+to approach the niceties of the sideboard in use in the better
+houses. They supply an undoubted want in the farmhouse for storage.
+There were cordials and home-made wines and much prized linen and
+a bright array of silver and Sheffield plate and pewter, and no
+doubt tea services or porcelain from the new English factories of
+Worcester, Derby, Bow, or maybe Plymouth or Bristol, to be shielded
+from breakage. The farmer's wife and the farmer's daughters were less
+than human if they did not follow the new fashions in some degree,
+more or less, in tea-drinking and in becoming the proud possessors
+of tea services and dinner services somewhat more delicate than the
+old delft and coarse Staffordshire ware. The cupboards had ample
+accommodation for these more valuable accessories of the farmhouse
+parlour. The cabinet-maker therefore developed on lines exactly
+suitable for the country clients whom he served.
+
+ [Illustration: UNIQUE DRESSER AND CLOCK COMBINED.
+
+ The clock is not an addition, but is a portion of the dresser,
+ and was made for it.
+
+ (_In the collection of D. A. Bevan, Esq._)]
+
+The late forms show this marked tendency to provide innumerable
+drawers and cupboards, in the farmhouse dressers contemporary with
+Chippendale. Many examples are found which are practically elongated
+chests of drawers; the old characteristics of the dresser are absent,
+the back has disappeared altogether. There is no top with shelves.
+Eight large drawers and two capacious cupboards give great storage
+room in a piece often 9 feet in length. There is nothing finicking
+in this type of furniture. It stands for homely comfort and love of
+domestic order. We may be sure that the good dame who used this lower
+piece, with its eight solid drawers with sound locks, was a person
+of frugal habits and love of the old farmstead. We may safely assume
+that she had a well-filled stocking hidden away somewhere in this
+old-fashioned repository, put by for the rainy day.
+
+In conclusion it may be said that a good deal has been talked about
+Welsh dressers, as though they were a type absolutely apart from
+any other. The differences are not great, as the carving, in which
+the Welsh craftsman offers characteristics of his own, is absent in
+pieces of furniture such as the dresser. Then there is the Normandy
+dresser, a much-abused term: a considerable number of these, and
+others, too, from Brittany, have been imported and the terms have
+become trade descriptions. But in the main the English dresser
+has passed through the phases we have described, and the outlines
+herein suggested may be filled in by the painstaking collector. In
+the chapter dealing with local types there is an illustration of
+a Lancashire dresser (p. 273) which adds one more example to the
+gallery of dressers we give as types in this chapter.
+
+ [Illustration: OAK DRESSER. DATE ABOUT 1740.
+
+ With early double cupboards. Legs in Queen Anne style. Height, 6
+ ft. 7 ins.; width, 9 ft. 5-1/2 ins.; depth, 2 ft. 2-1/2 ins.]
+
+ [Illustration: LANCASHIRE DRESSER. MIDDLE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
+
+ Top reminiscent of early types. Ample drawer accommodation.
+ Transition to modern dresser. Deeply cut panels. Cupboard in
+ middle as distinct from earlier forms at sides. Height, 7 ft. 2
+ ins.; width, 6 ft. 7 ins.; depth, 2 ft.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE BIBLE-BOX, THE CRADLE, THE SPINNING-WHEEL, AND THE
+BACON-CUPBOARD
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE BIBLE-BOX, THE CRADLE, THE SPINNING-WHEEL, AND THE BACON-CUPBOARD
+
+ The Puritan days of the seventeenth century--The Protestant
+ Bible in every home--The variety of carving found in
+ Bible-boxes--The Jacobean cradle and its forms--The
+ spinning-wheel--The bacon-cupboard.
+
+
+The Authorised version of the Holy Bible, "translated out of the
+original tongues and with the former translations diligently compared
+and revised," by His Majesty's command, found a place in every
+household in Stuart days. The letter of the learned translators "To
+the most High and Mighty Prince James, by the Grace of God, King of
+Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith," &c.,
+retains its place in modern editions. It is an historic document
+worthy of preservation, and perhaps those who have forgotten its
+terms may be glad to have their memory refreshed. It is of surpassing
+moment to all who recognise the Protestant derivation of the Bible
+as we now know it, and the sectarian feelings which inspired the
+translators under King James in their fulsome dedication to the
+Modern Solomon. "Great and manifold were the blessings, most dread
+Sovereign, which Almighty God the Father of all mercies bestowed upon
+us the people of England, when first he sent your Majesty's Royal
+Person to rule and reign over us. For whereas it was the expectation
+of many, who wished not well unto our _Sion_, that upon the setting
+of that bright Occidental Star, Queen Elizabeth, of most happy
+memory, some thick and palpable clouds of darkness would so have
+overshadowed this land, that men should have been in doubt which way
+they were to walk; and that it should hardly be known who was to
+direct the unsettled State; the appearance of your Majesty, as the
+Sun in its strength, instantly dispelled those supposed and surmised
+mists, and gave unto all that were well affected exceeding cause of
+comfort; especially when we beheld the Government established in Your
+Highness and your hopeful seed, by an undoubted title, and this also
+accompanied by peace and tranquillity at home and abroad."
+
+It is, as we affirm, an interesting document as showing the Puritan
+tendencies at a time when much was in the melting-pot and the first
+of the Stuarts, with his broad Scots accent and his ungainly ways,
+came down to St. James's from the North. Compare the above literary
+dedication to James the First with the word-portrait painted by Green
+the historian, and one may draw one's own inferences. "His big head,
+his slobbering tongue, his quilted clothes, his rickety legs, stood
+out in as grotesque a contrast with all that men recalled of Henry
+or of Elizabeth as his gabble and rodomontade, his want of personal
+dignity, his buffoonery, his coarseness of speech, his pedantry, his
+contemptible cowardice. Under this ridiculous exterior, however, lay
+a man of much natural ability, a ripe scholar with a considerable
+fund of shrewdness, of mother-wit, and ready repartee."
+
+=The Protestant Bible in every Home.=--Himself a theologian, James
+influenced his contemporaries. "Theology rules there," said Grotius
+of England only two years after Elizabeth's death. There was an
+indifference to pure letters and persons were counted fine scholars
+who were diligent in the study of the Bible. The language of the
+people became enriched with this study, which extended to all
+classes. John Bunyan, the son of a tinker at Elstow, learned his
+intense prose from the Bible. The peasant absorbed the Bible till its
+words became his own. With the Puritan movement came the production
+of men of serious type, and with it too came the disappearance of
+the richer and brighter life and humour of Elizabethan days. It was
+a literary movement and a religious movement which penetrated to the
+lower classes and often left the upper classes and gentry unmoved.
+In dealing with this and its reflex upon the domestic habits of the
+people, the visible effects in regard to furniture are strikingly
+evident in the plethora of Bible-boxes belonging to those in this
+period of Biblical study, to whom Shakespeare and Ben Jonson were
+unknown and Spenser's _Faerie Queene_ and Milton's _Comus_ were
+sealed books.
+
+It would almost seem that in many cases the Bible was the only
+book which was read and treasured. It was incorporated in the home
+life. It served as a register to record the names and dates of
+birth and death or marriage of members of the family. Some of these
+family registers have been most valuable in tracing details in
+biography where parish registers have failed to supply the necessary
+information.
+
+=The Variety of Carving found in Bible-boxes.=--We give a series
+of illustrations indicating some of the interesting details of
+carving to be found on such boxes, where, as in work intended for a
+treasure-chest to preserve a sacred book, considerable zeal has gone
+to the elaboration of ornament. These seventeenth-century relics of
+a wave of religious enthusiasm are the crude Puritan likenesses,
+belonging to a less innately artistic race, of the tabernacles and
+ivory carved Madonnas and saints of the Italian renaissance. They
+both, though poles asunder in realisation, represent the instinctive
+love of man for ornament in connection with his religious emotions.
+Savage races with another ritual produce religious and ceremonial
+woodcarving representative of their best. Here, then, is the Puritan
+craftsmanship, mainly of provincial origin and found scattered over
+various parts of the country, following _motifs_ executed by the same
+hands as Jacobean chairs and dressers, but bearing rich touches of
+ornament, betraying much originality, within the limited scope of
+Jacobean design.
+
+The carving has nothing of the humour or strong bold relief of the
+miserere seats of the palmy days of the woodcarver in the fifteenth
+and early sixteenth century in details that might well have been
+applied to the Bible-box. The ambition of the Puritan woodcarver
+never reached figure-work, or he might have represented Biblical
+scenes if his abhorrence of graven images had not demoralised his
+fancy. Some of the early boxes have bold carving. We illustrate
+a fine example (p. 143) of the time of James I., about 1600. The
+design is floral, which embodies the well-known conventional rose.
+Illustrated on the same page is another carved box of unusual pattern
+with floriated design. It was a frequent practice to treat the front
+of the box as though it were continuous and the pattern leaves off
+at the ends much in the same manner as modern wallpaper. In the box
+above it will be seen that the front is panelled and the design is
+confined to the circumscribed area.
+
+ [Illustration: CARVED OAK BIBLE-BOX. FINE EXAMPLE. TIME OF JAMES
+ I. ABOUT 1600.
+
+ Length, 2 ft. 4 ins.; width, 1 ft. 4 ins.; height, 11-1/2 ins.]
+
+ [Illustration: CARVED BIBLE-BOX OF UNUSUAL PATTERN.
+
+ (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)]
+
+ [Illustration: BIBLE-BOX OF VERY RARE PATTERN. ABOUT 1650.
+
+ This type always had the same kind of clasp.]
+
+ [Illustration: BIBLE-BOX OF USUAL PATTERN COMMONLY FOUND.]
+
+Another piece with very rare pattern, in date about 1650, has a bold
+type of carving in the two semicircles stretched across the front.
+This use of semicircles occurs in types usually found. The example
+illustrated (p. 145) has incised carving or "scratch." It will be
+seen that there is never an attempt at inlay or any of the delicacies
+of the refined craftsman. Among the various types of "scratch" boxes
+the use of circles and heart-shaped ornament is constant. The locks
+found on this type of box are always of the class as shown in the
+illustration, and the clasp is well known.
+
+In the collection of Bible-boxes the novice must carefully learn
+the exact limitations of the school of woodworkers in this minor
+field. The touch of the foreign craftsman should be easily
+recognisable, with its piquancy and real artistic feeling. These
+Puritan Bible-boxes have flat lids, and in order to give some touch
+of romance to them or whet the appetite of the collector they are
+frequently described as "lace-boxes," though it is very doubtful if
+such boxes were ever used for storing lace. Sometimes similar boxes
+with sloping lids were used as early forms of writing-desks.
+
+=The Jacobean Cradle.=--The specimens of this type of furniture
+always exhibit, in the oak variety associated with farmhouse use,
+a plainness as a noticeable factor. They are usually panelled, but
+the panel has received no carved ornament and is especially simple.
+Of course they always have rockers. In the examples illustrated the
+slight variation in these rockers will be observed. Sometimes they
+are plain and sometimes they have slight ornamental curves. The only
+other ornament may be found in the turned knobs at the foot and
+sometimes at the head. Sometimes there are fine knobs on the hood.
+
+The hood is sometimes shaped and exhibits a naïve attempt at
+symmetrical design. These cradles have long been familiar objects
+in cottagers' homes, but are now being displaced by modern wicker
+cradles. The picture _A Flood_ (1870), by Sir John E. Millais, shows
+one of these cradles floating in a flooded meadow. The baby is
+crowing with delight, and a black cat sits at the foot of the cradle.
+
+The holes in the example illustrated (p. 149) are intended to receive
+a cord stretched across the cradle to protect the occupant.
+
+ [Illustration: OAK CRADLE.
+
+ With shaped hood and turned knobs at head and foot.]
+
+ [Illustration: OAK CRADLE.
+
+ With shaped hood with turned ball ornaments. Holes on each side
+ to fasten rope to protect occupant.]
+
+ [Illustration: YARN-WINDER AND SPINNING-WHEEL.]
+
+ [Illustration: BUCKINGHAMSHIRE BOBBIN'S.
+
+ Turned wood bobbins with coloured beads to identify the bobbins
+ from each other.
+
+ (_In the collection of the author._)]
+
+=The Spinning-wheel.=--To this day the spinning-wheel is used in
+Scotland, in the Highlands. The wool or yarn winders are usually
+in windlass form with six spokes. The turning upon these winders
+and spinning wheels resembles the spindles on the spindle-back
+chairs. There is in Buckinghamshire bobbins a similar turning,
+individual in character and exhibiting considerable artistic beauty.
+In spinning-wheels there is considerable scope for the use of fine
+touches of ornament, in such practical objects dear to the housewife.
+Bone sometimes was used in the turned knobs. The making of these
+spinning-wheels was undertaken by persons desirous of winning the
+esteem of those who used them. Many of them have come down as
+heirlooms in families and have not been held as objects of art, to be
+regarded as curiosities, but as articles of everyday use.
+
+The use of the spinning-wheel was not confined exclusively to the
+farmer's wife. In early days great ladies were adepts at spinning.
+By the time of George III. it was employed by the ladies of titled
+families. Mrs. Delany, when staying with the Duchess of Portland at
+Bulstrode, writes: "The Queen came about twelve o'clock, and caught
+me at my spinning-wheel, and made me spin on and give her a lesson
+afterwards; and I must say she did it tolerably for a queen." This
+letter, dated 1781, goes to prove two things, that spinning was a
+real task still undertaken by great ladies, and not a fashionable
+amusement. Had it been the latter Mrs. Delany would not have used the
+expression "caught me at my spinning-wheel," wherein she indicates
+that the occupation was somewhat of a menial one.
+
+In regard to the Buckinghamshire bobbins, sometimes finely carved
+in bone, those illustrated (p 151.) indicate the character of the
+cottagers' treasures in the pillow-lace-making districts. The
+patterns of these bobbins are not repeated. Individual touches
+are given to these bobbins by the village turners which are not
+duplicated. In use, the bobbin has to be identified by some mark, and
+beads of different colours are employed, which are affixed by means
+of a wire to the bobbin, as is shown in the illustration.
+
+=The Bacon-cupboard.=--Another class which it is convenient to place
+among miscellaneous objects is the bacon-cupboard. The illustration
+(p. 231) shows the type of bacon-cupboard with seat and arms and
+drawers beneath. The position held by the bacon-cupboard in the
+farmhouse is shown by the growing dignity in the character of these
+cupboards. The gradual growth and development are shown in many
+specimens of the Queen Anne period, frequently of Lancashire origin.
+Such pieces, with classic pilasters, broken cornice, and bevelled
+panels and drawers beneath, are typified in wardrobes and dressers
+belonging to eighteenth-century farmhouse furniture. The development
+of capacious cupboards for various domestic uses is noticeable in
+this class of furniture up to early nineteenth-century days.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STYLES
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STYLES
+
+ The advent of the cabriole leg--The so-called Queen Anne
+ style--The survival of oak in the provinces--The influence of
+ walnut on cabinet-making--The early-Georgian types--Chippendale
+ and his contemporaries.
+
+
+The dawn of the eighteenth century practically commenced with the
+reign of Queen Anne. The times were troublous. As princess, in the
+days of William the Dutchman and her sister Mary, she was forbidden
+the Court as John Churchill, then Earl of Marlborough, designed to
+overthrow William and place Anne on the throne. "Were I and my Lord
+Marlborough private persons," William exclaimed, "the sword would
+have to settle between us."
+
+At the death of Mary the Princess Anne, together with the
+Marlboroughs, was recalled to St. James's. At the death of William,
+in 1702, Anne came to the throne. Only just in her thirty-seventh
+year, she was so corpulent and gouty that she could not walk from
+Westminster Hall to the Abbey, and was carried in an open chair.
+During the Coronation ceremony she was too infirm to support herself
+in a standing position without assistance.
+
+The age of Anne is remarkable for its restless intrigues. Court plots
+were rife when Queen Anne "Mrs. Morley" in her private letters to the
+Duchess of Marlborough, who was "Mrs. Freeman," finally broke with
+the overbearing Duchess and made Abigail Hill, one of the Marlborough
+creatures, her chief confidant. The Protestant Whig party favoured
+the long war in the Low Countries and in Spain, although conducted by
+a Tory general, Marlborough, who, by the way, did not take the field
+in Flanders till he was fifty-two, a remarkable achievement for so
+great a military career, wherein he never fought a battle in which he
+was not victorious.
+
+The greatness of Marlborough is indisputable. His fond love for his
+wife runs like a gold thread through the dark web of his life. His
+wife had, during a large part of Anne's reign, despotic empire over
+Anne's feeble mind. "History exhibits to us few spectacles more
+remarkable," says Lord Macaulay, "than that of a great and wise man
+who, when he had contrived vast and profound schemes of policy, could
+carry them into effect only by inducing one foolish woman, who was
+often unmanageable, to manage another woman who was more foolish
+still."
+
+ [Illustration: LANCASHIRE OAK SETTLE. _C._ 1760.
+
+ Length, 6 ft.; depth, 2 ft. 1 in.]
+
+ [Illustration: LANCASHIRE QUEEN ANNE SETTLE.
+
+ Showing transition into later type of modern settee.
+
+ (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)]
+
+To us now, with the secret springs of history laid bare, there is
+much to marvel at, much to deplore as trivial. In regard to matters
+of high state and the suppleness of time-servers, memoirs and private
+journals have exposed many a skeleton carefully hidden from public
+gaze. But of the life of the people, especially the life in the
+country districts, the picture is somewhat blurred. Men of letters
+flocked to the town--the town was London. Provincial life lies behind
+a curtain. There were Spanish doubloons coming up from Bristol and
+prize-money from the wars was scattered inland from the ports.
+Scotland was united to England by the Act of Union. "I desire," said
+the Queen, "and expect from my subjects of both nations that from
+henceforth they act with all possible respect and kindness to one
+another, and so that it may appear to all the world they have hearts
+disposed to become one people." This wish has been amply fulfilled
+and the union has become something more than a name. Never have two
+peoples different in thought, in tradition, and in established law
+become so completely welded together.
+
+But the war of the Spanish Succession must have drained English
+blood as it taxed English pockets. "Six millions of supplies and
+almost fifty millions of debt," wrote Swift bitterly. The tide of
+Marlborough's success was undoubtedly secured by the outpouring
+of English lives. Stalwart levies of men from the shires went to
+join the strange medley of the forces of the Allies commanded by
+Marlborough. Dutchmen, Danes, Hanoverians, Würtembergers, and
+Austrians jostled shoulders with each other in his troops. He
+launched them with calm imperturbability against his opponents
+at Malplaquet, for example, where with a Pyrrhic triumph he lost
+twenty-four thousand men against half that number of the French
+behind their entrenchments.
+
+It is little wonder that the war was unpopular in the country, where
+the Spanish Succession and the "balance of power" were only symbols
+for so much pressure on the needs of the labouring classes. Bonfires
+might be lit for Blenheim, but many a village mourned those who would
+never return.
+
+In spite of this intermingling of England with European politics,
+the general life of the people remained untouched from outside
+influence in regard to arts and manufacture. Cut off from intercourse
+with France, the grandeur of the art of Louis Quatorze was as far
+removed from early eighteenth-century England as though Boulle and
+Jean Bérain and Lepaute were in another continent and the château of
+Versailles in the fastnesses of the Urals. It is true that Louis XIV.
+presented two wonderful cabinets to the Duke of Monmouth, exquisite
+examples of metal inlay and coloured marquetry, but such pieces were
+beyond the capabilities of any English craftsman to emulate.
+
+The chief innovations of the early eighteenth century followed
+the Dutch lines familiarised in the preceding days of William and
+Mary. Oak remained in farmhouse and country furniture, but in the
+fashionable world walnut was extensively used, and occasionally
+mahogany. Corner cupboards were introduced early in the reign of
+Anne, and hooped chairs, familiar in engravings of Flemish interiors,
+came into general use. Fiddle-splat chairs were also common in
+the first half of the eighteenth century. In regard to feet, the
+ball-and-claw, and club foot were introduced. Caning of chairs went
+out of fashion till the end of the century. Shell and pendant
+ornament on knees of chair-legs became marked features, and, above
+all, the cabriole leg to chairs and tables is associated with the
+early years of the reign, and the term "Queen Anne" is always applied
+to such pieces.
+
+ [Illustration: CUPBOARD WITH DRAWERS. _C._ 1700.
+
+ With "swan head" pediment. Pedestal at top for delft or china.
+ Round beadings to drawers.]
+
+ [Illustration: QUEEN ANNE BUREAU BOOKCASE.
+
+ Farmhouse oak variety. Emulating a finer walnut or mahogany
+ piece.]
+
+ [Illustration: FINE EXAMPLE OAK TABLE. _C._ 1720.
+
+ Well-proportioned legs, club feet, original undercutting.
+ Exemplary of professional country cabinet-maker's highest work.]
+
+ [Illustration: OAK TABLE. _C._ 1720.
+
+ With hoof feet and knee, possibly copied from a fine Queen Anne
+ piece, exemplifying the best work of country cabinet-maker.
+ Height, 2 ft. 7 ins.; top, 1 ft. 7-1/2 ins. × 2 ft. 3 ins.
+
+ (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)]
+
+=The Cabriole Leg.=--This form of leg, swelling into massive
+proportions where it joins the seat, and curving outwards and
+tapering to a ball-and-claw foot or a club foot, lasted till end of
+Chippendale period, roughly, for nearly half a century. It assumed
+various forms until it was supplanted by the straight leg, and the
+stretcher, which had disappeared with the use of the cabriole leg,
+again came into use.
+
+Examples of the cabriole leg appear as illustrations to various types
+of furniture in this chapter. At first its use did not interfere
+with the employment of the stretcher, but about 1710 the stretcher
+disappeared. The Lancashire Queen Anne settle illustrated (p. 159)
+shows the stretcher joining the front leg to the back. In the settle
+illustrated above, in date 1760, it will be seen the stretchers have
+vanished.
+
+=The So-called Queen Anne Style.=--Fashions slowly adopted in cabinet
+design do not readily arrange themselves in exact periods coinciding
+with the reigns of individual sovereigns. But it is convenient to
+affix a label to certain marked changes and attribute their general
+use to a particular reign. The innovation of the square panel with
+broken corners and ornamental curves at top is found in Queen Anne
+settles. The departure from the square panel and line of the curved
+and broken top is exhibited in the second Great Seal of Anne,
+commemorating the Union with Scotland. It is reminiscent of the Dutch
+influence, and is found in Sussex firebacks of an earlier period. The
+straight lines of early-Jacobean cabinet-work were rapidly undergoing
+a change; the square wooden back of the chair was shortly to be
+replaced by fiddle splats, which in their turn, in late-Georgian
+days, became pierced and fretted and carved under the genius of
+Chippendale's hand.
+
+The two settles illustrated (p. 159) show several interesting points.
+The panels are typical of the love of the curved line, which Hogarth
+defined as the line of beauty. In the upper one the arms still retain
+the old Jacobean form in this farmhouse example. The ball foot still
+clings to the earlier form. The seat is sunk to receive a long
+cushion. In the adjacent specimen the seat with its cushion and the
+curved =S= arms upholstered show the transition into the later type
+of modern settee.
+
+The curved outline finds similar expression in the hood of
+grandfather clock-cases and in the shape of metal dials. A cupboard
+with drawers illustrated (p. 163) has what is known as a "swan head."
+The panels to the doors have similarly novel features in their
+structure. It will be observed that there is a square pedestal at
+the top of this piece, which was intended as a stand for a delft or
+Chinese jar. The drawers of this cupboard have round beadings.
+
+The typical instance of curved design with not a single straight
+line, not even the back legs, which are bowed, is the grandfather
+chair with the high back, upholstered all over. The cabriole legs
+with ball-and claw-feet, the =C=-shaped arms, the scroll upholstered
+wings, and the oval back, depart from the rectilinear; even the
+underframing of the seat is bow-shaped. Similarly, the walnut
+arm-chairs of the period from 1690 to 1715 had bold curves. The arms
+always possessed a curious scroll, the backs had broad splats with
+curling shoulders, and often a broad bold ribbon pattern making two
+loops to fill up the top of the hoop at the back, with a carved
+shell at the point of intersection. Big pieces of furniture, such
+as bureaus, had the broken arch pediment, and smaller objects, such
+as mirrors, had the arched or broken top; and when these dressing
+mirrors had small drawers, these disdained the straight front and
+became convex.
+
+Under the Dutch influence, in the first period of English veneer
+work, from about 1675 to 1715, very fine cabinets and bureaus and
+chests of drawers were made. Walnut was the wood employed, with
+the panels inlaid with pollard elm, boxwood, ebony, mahogany,
+sycamore, and other coloured woods. Figured walnut was beloved by
+the cabinet-maker beginning to feel his way in colour schemes of
+decoration. Bandings of herring-bone inlay and rounded mouldings to
+drawers are very characteristic. Bureaus and important pieces had
+birds and flowers and trees or feather marquetry after fine Dutch
+models. Picked walnut, especially exhibiting a fine feathered figure,
+was used as veneer, and with these and other glorious creations of
+the walnut school of cabinet-workers the age of walnut may be said
+to have been in full swing.
+
+=The Survival of Oak in the Provinces.=--The foregoing descriptions
+apply to fashionable folks' furniture. Such fashions did not come
+into usage in the farmhouses and in the cottages. Oak was still
+employed without being displaced by the walnut of the town maker.
+Oak was in the main more suitable for the particular class of
+furniture which was likely to receive less delicate care than
+the writing-cabinets and bureaus and the china-cupboards of more
+fastidious people. Tea-drinking had become the luxury of the
+great world of society, and had hardly come into general use in
+the country till late in the reign of Anne, though by 1690 it
+had gained considerable favour in London. Coffee was introduced
+slightly earlier, and many invectives in broadsides and in poetical
+satires appear in the late seventeenth century against coffee
+and coffee-houses. In 1674 the "Women's Petition against Coffee"
+complained that "it made men as unfruitful as the deserts whence that
+unhappy berry is said to be brought; that the offspring of our mighty
+ancestors would dwindle into a succession of apes and pigmies, and on
+a domestic message a husband would stop by the way to drink a couple
+of cups of coffee." The prejudice against coffee, and especially
+against coffee-houses, was lasting, and coffee failed to establish
+itself as a national beverage. The labouring classes declined to
+be weaned from their ale and other stronger drinks. The Spaniards
+brought chocolate from Mexico; Roger North, Attorney-General to
+James II., uttered a violent polemic against chocolate houses,
+perhaps more on account of the political clubs gathered there than
+against the beverage itself. "The use of coffee-houses," says he,
+"seems much improved by a new invention called chocolate-houses, for
+the benefit of rooks and cullies of quality, where gaming is added
+to the rest, as if the Devil had erected a new university, and those
+were the colleges of its professors."
+
+ [Illustration:
+
+ QUEEN ANNE GLASS- OR CHINA-CUPBOARD.
+
+ Spun glass doors. Heavy bars mark early type prior to tracery.
+
+ GEORGIAN CORNER CUPBOARD. LATE EIGHTEENTH
+ CENTURY.
+
+ Broken architraves and cushion top. Having original hinges.
+
+ (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)]
+
+ [Illustration: SMALL OAK TABLE. 1700-1720.
+
+ Height, 2 ft. 4-3/4 ins.; width, 2 ft. 3 ins.; depth, 1 ft. 9-3/4
+ ins. Graceful proportion with cabriole leg.]
+
+ [Illustration: OAK TABLE.
+
+ Showing at a later period the last traces of the cabriole leg.]
+
+The varying phases of town life, of which the above quotations give
+a passing glimpse, found little reflex in the sturdy unchanging life
+of the provinces. Generation after generation, men farmed the same
+lands and their dependents lived in cottages adjacent; tillers of the
+ground, herdsmen, toilers in the fields, living by the sweat of their
+brow. They were content with simpler pleasures, which centred round
+the alehouse and the village green, or maybe the village church, if
+the hunting rector and the studious vicar were not too heedless of
+the fate of their flock. But other influences were soon to be at
+work to break the lethargy of those of the clergy who slumbered.
+Wesley founded the Methodist movement. Whitefield began his sermons
+in the fields and looked down from a green slope on several thousand
+colliers grimy from the coalpits near Bristol to see, as he preached,
+tears "making white channels down their blackened cheeks." Later
+again, Hannah More drew sympathy to the poverty and crime of the
+agricultural classes.
+
+=The Influence of Walnut on Cabinet-making.=--If oak was the wood
+which the country joiner loved best, he was not without some
+sympathetic leaning towards the effects which could be produced in
+the softer walnut. Such styles accordingly began slowly to have a
+marked influence upon the farmhouse furniture in early-Georgian days.
+It was not easy to produce curved lines in the refractory oak, tough
+and brittle, but the village craftsman essayed his best to please his
+patrons whose taste had been caught by the newer fashions observed in
+the squire's parlour when paying rare visits.
+
+In the two examples illustrated of farmhouse cupboard and bureau
+bookcase (p. 163) it will be seen that here is the country maker
+definitely trying his skill in his native wood to emulate the finer
+walnut examples of town cabinet-makers. This is even more noticeable
+in regard to some of the tables actually found in farmhouses
+belonging to as early as the first quarter of the eighteenth century.
+The two specimens illustrated (p. 165) exemplify this tendency to
+imitate the designs of trained workers. The country touch always
+betrays itself in the cabriole leg, whether in chair or in table. The
+upper table has less _naïveté_ than most examples found. There is
+a balance in its construction rarely found in provincial work. The
+legs, always the stumbling-block to the less experienced artificer,
+are here of exceptionally fine proportions, terminating in club feet.
+The lower table shows a less capable treatment of the cabriole leg.
+The hoof foot and the carved knee have obviously been copied from a
+fine Queen Anne model. In the underframing of both tables there is
+an experiment in ornament and form rarely attempted except in the
+highest flights of the country maker, and as such these two fine
+examples must be regarded.
+
+ [Illustration: OAK TABLE.
+
+ Showing clumsy corners and indicating the _naïveté_ of the
+ country cabinet-maker.]
+
+ [Illustration: OAK TABLE.
+
+ Showing transition from cabriole leg to straight leg of 1760.]
+
+=The Early Georgian Types.=--Treating of the early-Hanoverian period
+from the death of Queen Anne in 1714, and including the reigns
+of George I. from 1714 to 1727 and George II. from 1727 to 1760,
+furniture of all types begins to assume a complexity of construction.
+At the final outburst the fine masterpieces of creation of the
+great schools of design during the last half of the eighteenth
+century, embodied the life-work of Chippendale, the brothers Adam,
+Hepplewhite, Sheraton, and many others. This period from 1750 to 1800
+was the golden age of design in England. It has had a far-reaching
+effect, and still casts its glory upon the present-day schools of
+designers, whose adaptations and lines of progress are based upon the
+finest flower of the eighteenth-century styles.
+
+The massive walnut chairs with deep underframing and broad hoop backs
+departed from the solid splats of the Anne style and endeavoured
+to become less squat by the employment of banded ribbon-work,
+coarse, heavy, and ponderous in style. Settees, arm-chairs and
+single chairs in this style came as the final efforts of the walnut
+school. The graceful ribbon designs interlacing each other in knots,
+and the flowing carving in mahogany of Chippendale, put a period
+to all dullness and heavy design. With the new style and the new
+wood a splendid field was opened to cabinet-makers, and the quick
+appreciation of these opportunities signalised their work as of
+permanent artistic value.
+
+Among more important pieces, though still falling under the category
+of farmhouse styles, may be mentioned the Queen Anne glass or china
+cupboard, and the Georgian corner cupboard, illustrated p. 171.
+
+The former has heavy bars, which mark the early type prior to
+tracery, and it has spun-glass doors. Porcelain factories at Bow,
+Worcester, and Derby brought such cupboards into more general use
+after the middle of the century. Staffordshire earthenware tea
+and coffee services were found in great numbers in farmhouses and
+cottages. After the days of delft and stoneware came the prized china
+services of the housewife. Pewter was largely used, but the number
+of ale-jugs of Toby form, or cider-mugs with rural subjects to suit
+the tastes of the users, indicate that more modern ideas and taste,
+once exclusive to the world of fashion, had penetrated the country
+districts.
+
+The Georgian corner cupboard shows the broken architraves and cushion
+top. The hinges should be noticed as being original.
+
+=Chippendale and his Contemporaries.=--At first using the cabriole
+leg with ball-and-claw foot, not quite as he found it, but reduced
+to slightly more slender proportions to be in symmetry with his less
+massive backs to chairs, Chippendale came to the straight line. He
+employed it in the legs of tables and in the seats of chairs, in the
+bracket supports, and in the top rail of his chairs. Chippendale
+in his day, made the first straight top rail to the chair. It is
+interesting to note the phases of changing design in country-made
+furniture prior to his time, and the sudden mastery of form
+which became the common inheritance of all after his and other
+contemporary design-books were promulgated broadcast.
+
+ [Illustration: QUEEN ANNE TEA TABLE. _C._ 1710.
+
+ With scalloped edge for cups. Height, 2 ft. 4 ins.; depth, 1 ft.
+ 9 ins.; length, 2 ft. 8 ins.]
+
+ [Illustration: OAK REVOLVING BOOK-STAND. _C._ 1720.
+
+ Rare form. Diameter of top, 2 ft.; height, 2 ft. 8 ins.
+
+ (_In the collection of Miss Holland._)]
+
+ [Illustration: COUNTRY CHIPPENDALE TABLE.
+
+ Leg with exaggerated knee, claw, and ball foot. Accuracy in
+ straight joinery. Failure in curved work.
+
+ Top, 2 ft. 7 ins. × 1 ft. 3 ins.; height, 2 ft. 4 ins.]
+
+ [Illustration: SQUARE MAHOGANY FLAP TABLE. _C._ 1730.
+
+ Height, 2 ft. 4 ins.; length, 3 ft. 10-1/2 ins.; width, 2 ft. 1
+ in. Round cross stretcher. Rare form.]
+
+ [Illustration: TRIPOD TABLE. _C._ 1760.
+
+ Chippendale style, probably unique. Elaborate rococo work.
+
+ (_In the collection of Harold Bendixon, Esq._)]
+
+In the table the cabriole leg showed early signs of passing away.
+The two examples illustrated (p. 173) clearly indicate this. The
+upper one, of the time of Queen Anne, shows the cabriole leg in fine
+proportion under due subjection, and is a delicate example of fine
+cabinet-work. The lower one sees the leg losing its cabriole curve,
+but still rounded and still possessing the club foot.
+
+Even more interesting are the two tables illustrated (p. 177).
+The country maker was slow to adopt the cabriole leg when it was
+fashionable, but when it became unfashionable he was equally
+loth to depart from his accustomed style. These clearly point to
+the transition between the cabriole leg and the straight leg of
+Chippendale, and are about 1760 in date.
+
+The forms of design of tables of eighteenth-century date are
+extremely varied in character, denoting the rapidly changing habits
+of the people. The Queen Anne tea-table, with scalloped edges for
+cups, marks the note of preciosity creeping into country life. A
+revolving bookstand in table form, of about 1720 in date, is another
+rare piece. The adjacent table (p. 181) is country Chippendale. The
+exaggerated knee and the feeble ball-and-claw foot mark the failure
+of the provincial hand at curved work, accurate though he might be in
+straight joinery. The "Cupid's bow" underframing is interesting in
+combination with the rest of the design.
+
+The tripod table offered difficulties of construction and is not
+often found. The example illustrated is probably unique in form. In
+date it is about 1760, and is remarkable for the attempt at elaborate
+rococo work. Sometimes, though not often, mahogany was used in
+farmhouse examples. The table illustrated (p. 183) is an instance of
+the use of this wood instead of oak. It is about 1730 in date, and
+exhibits an unusual form in the round cross stretcher, a touch of
+originality by the maker. It is, as will be seen, a square-topped
+table with flaps.
+
+Elaboration of a high order was happily not often attempted by the
+country workman, or the results with his limited experience would
+have been disastrous. Instead of a fine series of really good, solid,
+and well-constructed furniture made for practical use we should have
+had a wilderness of failures at attempting the impossible. A copy
+of a fine Chippendale side-table illustrated (p. 187) is a case in
+point. There is the usual want of balance in the poise of the leg,
+but the carving is of exceptional character. The table beneath, with
+its long and tapering legs, has all the characteristics of the Adam
+style. The beaded decoration on the legs, the classic fluting and the
+carved rosette claim distant relationship with the classic inventions
+of Robert Adam. The wood is pinewood, and as an example it is of
+singular interest.
+
+The rapid survey of eighteenth-century influences bearing on the
+class of furniture of which this volume treats will perhaps induce
+the collector to scrutinise more carefully all pieces coming under
+his notice, with a view to arriving at their salient features
+in connection with the native design of more or less untutored
+craftsmen.
+
+ [Illustration: ELABORATE TABLE.
+
+ Country attempt to imitate fine Chippendale side table. Note the
+ want of balance in leg.]
+
+ [Illustration: PINEWOOD COUNTRY-MADE ADAM TABLE.
+
+ Note the unusually long leg.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE EVOLUTION OF THE CHAIR
+
+
+ [Illustration: OAK ARM-CHAIR. DATE _C._ 1675.
+
+ With elaborate scroll back.]
+
+ [Illustration: OAK ARM-CHAIR. DATE 1650.
+
+ With scratched lozenge.]
+
+ [Illustration: CHESTNUT ARM-CHAIR. DATE 1690.]
+
+ [Illustration: OAK ARM-CHAIR. DATE 1690.]
+
+(_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE EVOLUTION OF THE CHAIR
+
+ Early days--The typical Jacobean oak chair--The evolution of
+ the stretcher--The chair-back and its development--Transition
+ between Jacobean and William and Mary forms--Farmhouse
+ styles contemporary with the cane-back chair--The Queen Anne
+ splat--Country Chippendale, Hepplewhite, and Sheraton--The
+ grandfather chair--Ladder-back types--The spindle-back
+ chair--Corner chairs.
+
+
+In order to deal exhaustively with the evolution of the chair
+from its earliest forms to the latest developments in sumptuous
+upholstery, it would be necessary to make an extended survey of
+furniture, dating back to early classic days. To enumerate the
+manifold varieties belonging to various countries and to trace
+the gradual progress in form, which kept pace with the advance in
+civilisation, would be of sufficient interest to occupy a whole
+volume. Man, as a sitting or lounging animal, has grown to require
+more elaborate forms of chair, or settee, or sofa, and the modern
+tendency has been towards comfort and luxury.
+
+In regard to English furniture the intense contrast between the days
+of Elizabeth and those of Victoria is at once noticeable. According
+to Lord Macaulay in his comparison between the manners of his day and
+those of the past, the furniture of a middle-class dwelling-house of
+the nineteenth century was equal to that of a rich merchant in the
+time of Elizabeth. In general this may be true, though not as regards
+the spacious structure and the massive grandeur of the Tudor house.
+In many details the differences are most noteworthy. The wide gulf
+dividing the modern world from the days of the Armada may be realised
+by reflecting on such an astounding fact that Queen Elizabeth
+possessed at one time the only pair of silk stockings in her realm,
+which were presented to her by Mistress Montague, "which pleased her
+so well that she would never wear any cloth hose afterwards."
+
+The sturdy character of the yeomen of the days of the Tudors is
+exhibited in their furniture. The illustrations of this chapter in
+regard to the chair and its structural development indicate the
+slowly acquired tastes, running some decades behind the fashionable
+furniture, strong with foreign influences, which had come into more
+or less general use. "England no longer sent her fleeces to be woven
+in Flanders and to be dyed in Florence. The spinning of yarn, the
+weaving, fulling, and dyeing of cloth, was spreading rapidly from the
+towns to the country-side. The worsted trade, of which Norwich was
+the centre, extended over the whole of the Eastern Counties. Farmers'
+wives everywhere began to spin their wool from their own sheep's
+backs into a coarse homespun."
+
+The rough and wattled farmhouses were being replaced by dwellings of
+brick and stone. The disuse of salt fish and the greater consumption
+of meat marked the improvement which was taking place among the
+countryfolk. The wooden trenchers in the farmhouses were supplanted
+by pewter, and there were yeomen who could boast of their silver.
+Carpets in richer dwelling-houses superseded the wretched flooring of
+rushes. Even pillows, now in common usage, were articles of luxury
+in the sixteenth century. The farmer and the trader deemed them as
+only fit "for women in child-bed." The chimney-corner came into usage
+in Elizabethan days with the general use of chimneys. The mediæval
+fortress had given place to the grandeur of the Elizabethan hall in
+the houses of the wealthy merchants. The rise of the middle classes
+brought with it in its wake the corresponding advance of the yeomen
+and their dependents. Visions of the New World "threw a haze of
+prodigality and profusion over the imagination of the meanest seaman."
+
+=Early Days.=--Of farmhouse types that can authoritatively be
+attributed to Tudor days there are few, but the succeeding age of
+the Stuarts is rich with examples of undoubted authenticity. Many of
+them are dated, and they all bear a strong family resemblance to each
+other, owing to the narrow range of _motifs_ in the carved panels.
+There is a fixed insularity in these early examples, and the same
+traditional patterns in scrollwork or in conventional lozenge design
+retained their hold for many generations. The oak arm-chair of a
+farmhouse kitchen made in the days of Charles I. was still followed
+in close detail in the days of George III., as dated examples
+testify, and it would puzzle an expert, without the date to guide
+him, to say whether the piece was eighteenth or seventeenth century
+work. It may be added that as a general rule there is a marked
+leaning towards generosity in imparting age to old furniture. It is
+now very generally recognised that, like wine, it gains prestige with
+length of years. It therefore grows in antiquity according to the
+fancy of the owner or the imagination of the collector.
+
+Among the early forms of chairs falling under the category of
+farmhouse furniture may be noticed examples of rough and massive
+build, eminently fit to serve the purpose for which they were
+designed. Ornament is reduced to a minimum, and they stand as rude
+monuments to the cabinet-maker's craft in fashioning them and
+following tradition to suit his client's tastes.
+
+In regard to the sixteenth century there cannot be said to be any
+type falling under the heading of cottage or farmhouse chairs. We
+have already illustrated (p. 35) an early form of Elizabethan days,
+but such examples are rare. Practically cottagers had only stools in
+common use. It was not until about 1650 that a simplified form of the
+well-known variety of the chairs of the Jacobean oak period came into
+general use.
+
+ [Illustration: YORKSHIRE CHAIR. DATE 1660.
+
+ Late example, with ball turning in stretcher.]
+
+ [Illustration: CROMWELLIAN CHAIRS. DATE 1660.
+
+ With indication of transition to Charles II. period.
+
+ (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)]
+
+=The Typical Jacobean Oak Chair.=--The seventeenth century offers a
+wide field of selection, and many examples exist which undoubtedly
+were in use in farmhouses at that period. The arm-chair illustrated
+p. 191, with the initials "W.I A.", is evidently made for the
+farmhouse. It is noticeable for its complete absence of ornamental
+carving except a thinly scratched lozenge. In date this is from 1650
+to 1700, and if made for a wealthier person at that date it would be
+richly carved. The adjacent chair shows the next advance in type.
+It is a superior farmhouse chair of the period. It has a carved top
+with scroll cresting. The holes in the seat, it should be observed,
+originally held ropes, upon which a cushion was supported. The wooden
+seat is an addition made in the eighteenth century.
+
+The two other chairs illustrated on the same page are later examples,
+in date about 1690. One of these is fashioned of chestnut. The
+form of these backs is related to the contemporary high-back cane
+chairs of the time of Charles II. and James II. But these fashions
+influenced the proportions only of farmhouse chairs. In arriving
+at the date of such specimens as these the bevelled panel is an
+important factor in determining the late period.
+
+Cushions had no place in the effects of the farmhouse in early days,
+although ropes were sometimes used to support cushions, as we have
+shown. But as a general rule the wooden seats show tangible signs
+of rough usage of centuries, and the stretcher has its worn surface
+marked by generations of owners who found it protective against the
+cold flagged or rush-strewn floor and the draughts in days prior to
+carpets and rugs.
+
+=The Evolution of the Stretcher.=--In making a study of the evolution
+of the chair the stretcher is an important factor. For obvious
+reasons, as explained above, no early chairs were made without the
+stretcher across the front, a good sound serviceable piece of British
+oak to stand rough wear and tear. Gradually, keeping time with
+the march of comfort, the front stretcher begins to leave its old
+position near the floor, and in later examples it is half-way up the
+front legs. It still had a use, and a very important one: it added
+considerable strength and solidity to the chair, and is nearly always
+found in chairs intended for use. In the series illustrated herein
+there are only few examples without the front stretcher. Later it
+took another form, as the illustrated specimens in this chapter show:
+it united the two side stretchers, and crossed the chair underneath
+in the centre at right angles to the side stretchers. Its purpose in
+adding stability to this class of furniture was evidently never lost
+sight of.
+
+At first strictly utilitarian, the stretcher was a solid foot-rest;
+later, when partly utilitarian in adding to the strength, it became
+suitable for ornamentation, Although in the class of furniture here
+under review such ornament never took an elaborate form, there are
+examples slightly differing in character from chairs intended for the
+use of the wealthier classes, and these are evidently a local effort
+to keep in touch with prevailing taste.
+
+ [Illustration: OAK SETTLE.
+
+ With back panel under seat made from older Oak Chest. Date 1675.]
+
+ [Illustration: OAK ARM CHAIR. DATE 1675.
+
+ With Bevelled Panels.]
+
+ [Illustration: OAK ARM CHAIR. DATE 1777.
+
+ With initials A.S. C.B.]
+
+Finely turned stretchers, such as are found in gate tables, are a
+feature of a certain class of local chairs, such as those illustrated
+on p. 197. This kind of chair without arms is rather more
+decorated and conforms more to the styles of furniture made for
+higher spheres than the farmhouse. The upper chair with its light
+open back and ornate decoration is a Yorkshire type, and the ball
+turning in the stretcher shows the transition period to Charles II.
+The other two are Cromwellian chairs, but showing indications of the
+next period. In date they are all three about 1660.
+
+=The Chair-back and its Development.=--Another point in connection
+with the ordered progress of the chair-maker is the gradual
+development of the back of the chair. At first it was straight
+upright, and no attempt was made to impart an angle to rest the back
+of the sitter. Types such as the arm-chair with square panel (p.
+191) and the upright settle with the five panels illustrated on p.
+201 indicate this feature of discomfort. The next stage is a slight
+inclination in the back, still possessing a flat panel. This angle,
+while not conforming to modern notions of ease, was an attempt to
+offer greater comfort than before. This style, in a hundred forms,
+with the minimum of inclination in the back, continued for a very
+considerable period. It is found in the nearly straight-backed chairs
+of Derbyshire and Yorkshire origin, with the turned stretchers, and
+it actually in later days became almost upright in the series of
+chairs following the later Stuart types with cane back and cane seat,
+noticeable for their tall narrow backs with a resemblance to the
+_prie-dieu_ chair of continental usage.
+
+The settle illustrated is a plainer variety of the settle made for
+use by fashionable folk with delicately panelled back. Very often,
+in cottage furniture, chests and other pieces are broken up to make
+into smaller furniture or to be incorporated into furniture of a
+later design. Often it is found that the underframing of an old
+gate table made in the seventeenth or eighteenth century is from an
+earlier chest. In the present instance it will be seen that the back
+panels of the settle have been made from an older chest, which bears
+the inscribed initials, still visible, "I.E." In date this settle
+is about 1675, and is contemporary with the square-backed chair
+illustrated on the same page. Here the panel in back projects, that
+is, it is slightly bevelled forward. The bevelling of the panel is
+always a sign that a chair is later in date than the year 1670.
+
+Illustrated on the same page is a remarkable chair having the
+initials "A.S.C.B." and the date 1777 carved on it. It is a striking
+instance of the adherence to old time-honoured form by the local
+cabinet-maker, with touches that, even although the date were not
+present, would tell their own story. This dull wood proclaims a
+message in accents no less sure than the sturdy yeoman's to Lady
+Clara Vere de Vere, and as a chair in date _anno Domini_ 1777 may
+afford to "smile at the claims of long descent" of more pretentious
+and fashionable furniture. It is like a rich vein of dialect running
+in some old country song ripe with phrase of Saxon days. It seems
+incredible that this survival of early-Jacobean days should have been
+put together by a village craftsman true to convention and exact in
+seat and arms and stretcher. But it was not done unthinkingly. Here
+is a chair, astounding to note, made when Sheraton was creating
+his new styles to supplant Chippendale, and when Hepplewhite stood
+between the two masters as a _via media_. And the back of this
+village chair has two distinct features translated from Hepplewhite's
+school--the wheatear crest and the panel with its broken corner!
+
+ [Illustration: OAK CHAIRS. DATE ABOUT 1680.
+
+ Showing the inclination of the craftsmen to assimilate designs
+ then being fashioned in walnut.
+
+ (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)]
+
+=Transition between Jacobean and William and Mary Forms.=--The rapid
+growth of the finer specimens of furniture made in walnut brought
+a new note into the farmhouse variety. The elegance and grace of
+the newer styles were at once evident. In the same manner as the
+grandiose splendour of Elizabethan woodcarving was succeeded by a
+less massive style in oak, degenerating into a rude simplicity in
+farmhouse examples, so in turn Jacobean lost favour. Walnut lent
+itself to more intricate turning, and lightness and greater delicacy
+claimed the popular favour of fashionable folk. The cane seat and the
+cane back at once indicate this new taste. The use of cushions became
+general and the sunk seat for the squab cushion is a feature in the
+later years of the seventeenth century.
+
+Oak still remained the favourite wood of the country craftsman, in
+spite of its more refractory qualities. But when the walnut styles
+became so firmly established that clients demanded furniture in
+this fashion, elm and beech and yew were found pliable enough to
+conform to the more slender touches and the finer turning considered
+desirable.
+
+Walnut was in its turn supplanted by mahogany, and it will be shown
+later how farmhouse furniture followed the dictates of fashion
+in days when the outburst of splendid design by Chippendale,
+Hepplewhite, and Sheraton, together with a crowd of lesser
+known men, spread far and wide new principles in the art of
+furniture-making and brought country furniture another stage in its
+evolution.
+
+Farmhouse furniture slowly assimilated the technique and design
+of the walnut age. The love for the native oak was so pronounced
+that country makers did not desert this wood and essayed to produce
+effects by its employment that were exceedingly difficult and
+oftentimes unsuccessful. The three chairs illustrated p. 205 show
+this transition style, about the year 1680, struggling with technical
+difficulties and affording a fine series of points in the evolution
+of design.
+
+=Farmhouse Styles contemporary with the Cane-back Chair.=--Farmhouse
+furniture rarely, if ever, had cane-work in the back or in the seat.
+But the craftsman, while appreciating the delicacy of the cane back
+in adding lightness to the chair, circumvented his inability to work
+in cane by substituting thin vertical splats to give the necessary
+effect of transparency. The three chairs illustrated show each in
+varying degree the quaint compromise made between the technique of
+oak and the technique of walnut, and the attempt to reproduce the
+walnut designs.
+
+The arm-chair exhibits strong relationship with the older Jacobean
+chair in its turned legs and uprights, but these have assumed a more
+slender proportion. The front stretcher is in the newer manner.
+The sunk seat is intended to receive a cushion. There should be no
+difficulty for the amateur correctly to assign a date to such a
+piece. The process of reasoning would be somewhat as follows:--The
+lower half of the chair is Jacobean, but the front stretcher suggests
+the Charles II. period, borne out by the open back, which removes
+it from the Cromwellian period, and the details of the top rail
+with its curved top indicate that the country maker had seen the
+tall straight-back chairs of the William and Mary period with the
+cane-work panel.
+
+ [Illustration: OAK CHAIRS.
+
+ With cresting rail, of Charles II. period, retained and
+ perforated arch centre peculiar to walnut designs.
+
+ With elaboration in turned legs, and uprights, of William and
+ Mary period retained, and having Queen Anne splat of 1710.
+
+ With sunk seat for squab cushion, turned uprights and legs and
+ curious back, showing transition from lath back to splat back.]
+
+The middle chair more closely approaches the upright chair of the
+Charles II. period. There is a straight top-rail, supplemented by
+a lunette, giving the top a character of its own. This specimen is
+exceptionally interesting. The right-hand chair in its seat and legs
+is pronouncedly Jacobean. But the back with the three splats and the
+coarsely carved top-rail betray the hand of the country craftsman
+following in oak the more graceful curves of the worker in walnut of
+the days of Charles II.
+
+It will be seen that these three chairs, each in varying manner,
+evade the difficulties of the light cane-back by the substitution of
+thin rails, and, as will be seen from the illustration of three other
+chairs (p. 209), the next stage of walnut design with fiddle-shaped
+splat offered equal problems to the makers of cottage furniture.
+Sometimes they eliminated the splat altogether, while adopting other
+points of design found in chairs with the Queen Anne splat of 1710.
+In every case the fondness for old established styles is exhibited
+in the fact that the country cabinet-maker clings doggedly to these
+and appears too conservative or too timid to break wholly away from
+tradition. In consequence, his work, with patches of newer design
+welded on to the old, is quaintly incongruous. There is thus an
+absence of "thinking out" the design as a whole. The minor maker
+thought out the parts as he went along. Some of his results are
+extraordinary in their characteristics: they resemble that freak of
+fashion termed "harlequin" tea services, where the cups are of one
+pattern and the saucers of another. Bearing in mind these unfailing
+proclivities of the maker of cottage and farmhouse furniture, the
+collector should not find it difficult to recognise the country hand
+at once. Now and again one is struck with the extraordinary ingenuity
+of some of the work, or one is charmed with the faithfulness with
+which designs have been translated from the golden bowl to the
+silver, or, to be literal, from walnut and mahogany to oak and elm
+and beech. But one is never amazed at the delicacy of proportion, the
+balanced symmetry, or the fertility of invention--these attributes
+belong to cabinet-makers on a higher plane.
+
+Of three chairs illustrated on p. 209, that on the left in the legs
+and seat shows the moribund Jacobean style. The stretcher indicates
+the oncoming of the newer styles, and the back with its cresting
+rail is of the Charles II. period. Its retention is curious, and the
+perforated arched centre is peculiar to designs found in walnut; its
+use in oak by the maker of this chair was a blunder, as oak is too
+hard a wood to employ for such a design.
+
+ [Illustration: QUEEN ANNE CHAIR.
+
+ Entirely oak form except back and splat.]
+
+ [Illustration: QUEEN ANNE CHAIR.
+
+ In oak, with strong inclinations towards walnut styles.]
+
+Illustration: QUEEN ANNE CHAIR.
+
+Walnut design made in oak for farmhouse use.]
+
+ [Illustration: QUEEN ANNE ARM-CHAIR.
+
+ With shaped front, walnut design executed in oak.
+
+ (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)]
+
+ [Illustration: COUNTRY CHIPPENDALE CHAIR, STYLE MERGING INTO
+ HEPPLEWHITE.
+
+ Less pronounced Cupid's bow top.]
+
+ [Illustration: TWO CHAIRS COUNTRY HEPPLEWHITE STYLE MADE ENTIRELY
+ IN OAK.
+
+ Left-hand chair with Prince of Wales's feathers.]
+
+ [Illustration: TYPES OF COTTAGE CHAIRS IN OAK.
+
+ Having features of the three styles--Queen Anne, Chippendale, and
+ Sheraton.
+
+ Two chairs Queen Anne style. Chair Country Chippendale style.]
+
+The middle chair shows an equal admixture of styles. The elaboration
+in the turned legs and uprights belongs to the William and Mary
+period and the splat is the Queen Anne fiddle pattern of 1710.
+The seat begins to show another form in having the middle sunk for
+the use of a squab cushion.
+
+The right-hand chair parts with the underframing below the seat,
+which gives a touch of lightness to the construction. The turned
+legs and uprights have departed from the coarse early-Jacobean style
+and perceptibly depend on walnut prototypes for their character. The
+back shows the transition from the lath back (such as in the chairs
+simulating the cane-work) to the splat back. It is an interesting and
+rare example, marking the slow assimilation of new forms by isolated
+makers. This specimen came from Ireland and evidently possesses
+native touches of originality which defy the connoisseur to determine
+its exact date.
+
+=The Queen Anne Splat.=--The fiddle-shaped splat of 1710 marks a
+turning-point in the construction of the chair.
+
+The walnut chairs with caned backs of the time of James II. and the
+early days of William III. were carved richly, and sometimes there
+was a splat dividing the caning at the back, which later, also in
+caned-back examples, is curved and plain. The general tendency in
+the reigns of William and Mary, especially towards the close of the
+period, was one of economy, and elaborate carving began to disappear.
+
+The Queen Anne smooth splat of fiddle form rapidly became
+popular. This Anglo-Dutch style became acclimatised here, and is
+characteristic of the homely examples of the Queen Anne period. In
+walnut it was comparatively easy to carry out carving. In oak such
+elaboration was well-nigh impossible. It was therefore natural that
+in the farmhouse examples the plain Dutch splat would readily find
+favour as more easily executed. By the time that the fiddle splat had
+become popular the stretcher joining the cabriole legs commenced to
+disappear.
+
+The splat plays an important part as indicating sharp variations in
+design--walnut with open carving, intricate and floriated; walnut
+with the plain fiddle splat, with its corresponding minor form in
+oak; mahogany, with the advent of Chippendale, with the splat again
+open, carved with graceful ribbon-work.
+
+The arm-chair illustrated p. 213 is a remarkable instance of
+intermingling of styles. The front legs are in Jacobean style, and
+are continued in the same manner as the usual type of oak chair as
+supports for the arms, but an original touch and naïve departure is
+in the curve given to this upright from the seat upwards. The seat is
+shaped like that of the Windsor chair. The arms are somewhat stiff
+for the back with its Cupid's-bow design, which has a sprightliness
+and grace making it a thing apart. The whole is not unpleasing. It
+is a remarkable instance of the attempted assimilation of several
+diverse styles by an undeveloped cabinet-maker with strong ideas of
+his own. The oak form is rigidly retained in all except the back and
+splat of Queen Anne days.
+
+ [Illustration: COUNTRY-MADE OAK SETTEE WITH DOUBLE BACK IN
+ CHIPPENDALE STYLE.
+
+ The shaped underframing is a feature only found in farmhouse
+ varieties.]
+
+ [Illustration: COUNTRY-MADE OAK SETTEE IN CHINESE CHIPPENDALE
+ STYLE.
+
+ (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)]
+
+The adjacent chair, with its tall back with curved splat and its
+cabriole legs, marks the transition between William and Mary and
+Queen Anne. The top rail indicates by its clumsy joinery the touch of
+the immature country cabinet-maker. It is an attempt to approach a
+fine model with insufficiency of skill by the maker. The use of the
+cabriole leg either in chairs or in dressers in homely furniture has
+always proved a stumbling-block to the minor craftsman. The delicacy
+of balance required in order to preserve the harmony of the whole has
+proved too subtle a problem for him to handle, and to the practised
+eye these farmhouse pieces at once proclaim their origin.
+
+The broad splat and the straight square front and the bold cabriole
+leg of the Queen Anne type in walnut were often copied in oak. The
+example of the chair with the later tapestry covering, illustrated p.
+213, is a case where the local cabinet-maker has faithfully copied
+detail for detail from some fine original in walnut. His is in oak
+for more strenuous usage. The adjacent arm-chair is of the Queen Anne
+style, with a shaped front that is very rarely found in such pieces.
+The maker here has not been so successful in catching the bold lines
+of his original. There is a sense of something lacking in the curves
+of the back. The touches of his own that he has added in the arms,
+reverting to an earlier Jacobean type, reveal the unpractised hand.
+
+=Country Chippendale, Hepplewhite, and Sheraton.=--A word in passing
+may be said in regard to the unique character of furniture of these
+types. It is obvious that factory-made furniture turned out by the
+hundred pieces can offer nothing personal, whatever its merits or
+demerits of design or workmanship. It is this personal note, the
+love of a craftsman in his creation, that appeals to the collector,
+whether it be of Persian rugs or of old brass candlesticks. It is
+absent in art produced in a wholesale manner. Blunderingly as the
+village craftsmen went to work, they often stumbled into great
+things, and they always produced original results.
+
+Prior to the publication of the design-books of the great
+eighteenth-century masters of cabinet-making, the furniture of
+certain localities began to assume a character of its own, the
+result of long tradition, and designs such as the dragon found in
+Welsh carving became established. The term "unique" is peculiarly
+appropriate to furniture of this calibre, for rarely are two pieces
+found to be exactly alike. Not only did different makers add novel
+features, but the same craftsman apparently did not repeat himself.
+
+The permutations of form governing furniture are illimitable,
+associated as they are with so many details of construction. To
+take the chair--the leg, its shape, and the design of its turning;
+the style and character of the work on the stretcher; the form of
+the seat; the decoration and formation of the front; the back, its
+length, and the variety of splats and panels; and the top rail
+with its variations--these are only the salient features in which
+differences appear. Such modifications of design and piquant touches
+of personal character appeal to the collector, who loves the foibles
+and fanciful moods of the native craftsman, be he ever so humble.
+
+Chippendale published his "Director" in 1754, and it became a working
+guide to all ambitious craftsmen. Ince and Mayhew, cabinet-makers
+of Broad Street, Golden Square, had issued "Household Furniture" in
+1748, and Hepplewhite & Co. followed later with the "Cabinet Maker
+and Upholsterer's Guide" in 1788, where the delicacies of ornament
+were related to the chaster classic models, and in 1794 came Sheraton
+with his "Drawing Book," rich with subtle suggestiveness. A rough
+generalisation shows the Chippendale school holding sway from 1730
+to 1780, the Hepplewhite school from 1775 to 1795, and the Sheraton
+school from 1790 to 1805: and behind all, the strong influence of
+the Brothers Adam in their classic revival. What had previously been
+tradition came very speedily into line with current modes. Fashion,
+as we have shown, had a slow and impermanent effect upon village
+ideals. But the output of these great illustrated volumes, with
+working drawings, undoubtedly had a wide-reaching influence. The last
+quarter of the eighteenth century saw an intense outburst of interest
+in the arts of interior decoration. A great amount of finely designed
+and beautifully executed furniture belongs to those days, and the
+echo of the splendid achievements in mahogany and in satinwood is
+seen in the farmhouse and cottage furniture, which came singularly
+close upon the heels of fashion.
+
+Chippendale furniture in oak, elm, or beech is being largely
+collected. We illustrate a sufficient number of types to show that
+this class of design known as "Cottage Chippendale," has peculiar
+charms of its own. The arm-chair illustrated p. 225 is in elm, and
+is in the style Chippendale employed in his rich mahogany creations
+in 1760. The fine interlaced carving of the back is graceful and
+well proportioned. The adjacent chair, in elm, still follows the
+Chippendale style. The seat is rush, and the maker has confined
+himself to his own limitations and avoided in the splat the too
+intricate work of more sumptuous models. He has arrived at a very
+finely balanced result. The heart cut out of the splat is frequently
+found in cottage examples, suggesting that some of the more ornate
+examples may have been made as wedding presents for young couples
+just setting up housekeeping, or possibly the village cabinet-maker
+himself had thoughts in that direction, and such work was destined to
+equip his own home.
+
+The illustration of a chair, in beech, with a plain wooden seat, has
+a somewhat intricate ribbon-like pattern terminating in the Prince
+of Wales's feathers. The heart is present in the design at the base
+of the splat, cut out in fretwork. The arm-chair on the right, with
+its dipped seat, is in oak, and is an instance representing the
+adaptations of Sheraton styles in the provinces.
+
+Another page of chairs in oak (p. 215) shows the influences at work
+in moulding the character of the styles of the late eighteenth and
+early nineteenth century farmhouse furniture. Of the three chairs
+at top of p. 215, the left-hand one is in Chippendale style merging
+into Hepplewhite. The Cupid's bow at the top rail has become less
+pronounced. The other two chairs on right are typically Hepplewhite
+in character. The Prince of Wales's feathers, so often associated
+with Hepplewhite's own work, are embodied in the splat of one.
+
+ [Illustration: ELM CHAIR. COUNTRY CHIPPENDALE STYLE. 1760.]
+
+ [Illustration: ELM CHAIR, COUNTRY CHIPPENDALE STYLE.]
+
+ [Illustration: BEECH CHAIR. COUNTRY CHIPPENDALE STYLE.]
+
+ [Illustration: OAK CHAIR, COUNTRY CHIPPENDALE STYLE. WITH DROPPED
+ SEAT.]
+
+In the lower group, the right-hand chair is of the Chippendale
+type. The other two chairs have features of three styles--the Queen
+Anne, the Chippendale, and the Sheraton. It is this piquancy and
+incongruous combination of styles adjacent to each other in point
+of time, but having little other relationship, which make the
+provincialisms of the cabinet-maker of exceptional interest.
+
+At times more ambitious attempts were made in oak, following the
+lines of the Chippendale style in mahogany. These have pronounced
+features always recognisable as belonging to the farmhouse variety of
+furniture. Two examples are illustrated, p. 219. The upper example
+of country-made oak settee, with double back, at once indicates
+that it is provincial by the shaped underframing, which is never
+found in other classes of furniture. The lower example of farmhouse
+oak settee is clearly in Chippendale's Chinese style. A reference
+to the "Gentleman and Cabinet Maker's Directory," published by
+Thomas Chippendale in 1754, shows that this Chinese style adopted
+by the local maker is very far removed from the series of delicate
+fretwork designs illustrated by Chippendale in his volume. It
+is true that the old designer of St. Martin's Lane sent forth
+his work with the sub-title stating that it was "calculated to
+improve and refine the present Taste, and suited to the Fancy and
+Circumstances of Persons in all Degrees of Life." The great master
+cabinet-maker, in scattering his designs far and wide, evidently
+had in mind the formation of a new style. He builded better than he
+knew. The importance of his book of designs cannot be overrated.
+It was subscribed for in Yorkshire, in Devon, in Westmorland, and
+in Ireland, and straightway minor men looked upon these delightful
+inventions and began to follow to the best of their ability the
+ideals set forth by Chippendale the dreamer.
+
+That he was an idealist in this book of designs is naïvely explained
+in his Preface: "I frankly confess that in the executing many of the
+drawings my pencil has but faintly copied out those images that my
+fancy suggested, and had they not been published till I could have
+pronounced them perfect, perhaps they had never seen the light." But
+Chippendale was also a practical cabinet-maker as well as a designer.
+He has a lingering doubt that after all, perhaps, the country
+cabinet-maker and those who bought the book for use might not be
+able to carry out his designs. Evidently this had struck others too.
+Perhaps he was accused of fobbing-off in a design-book mere fanciful
+work that was too far above the plane of ordinary cabinet-work. He
+meets this objection with a declaration, so to speak, upon honour,
+with which he winds up his Preface, which is a pretty piece of
+eighteenth-century advertising:--
+
+"Upon the whole, I have given no design but what may be executed
+with advantage by the hands of a skilful workman, though some of the
+profession have been diligent enough to represent them (especially
+those after the Gothic and Chinese manner) as so many specious
+drawings, impossible to be worked off by any mechanic whatsoever.
+I will not scruple to attribute this to malice, ignorance, and
+inability, and I am confident I can convince all noblemen, gentlemen,
+or others, who will honour me with their commands, that every design
+in the book can be improved, both as to beauty and enrichment, in the
+execution of it, by--Their Most Obedient Servant, Thomas Chippendale."
+
+Enough has been said to prove that "country Chippendale" is not
+a misnomer. It is equally true that the Hepplewhite style was
+disseminated in like fashion in the provinces. It must be remembered
+that these trade catalogues, as they really were, brought out
+somewhat in rivalry with each other by the great London designers
+and cabinet-makers, were the only literature the country makers
+had to indicate town fashions. These volumes therefore served a
+double purpose in procuring clients for the firm and in stimulating
+the art of the country designer. That they were in part intended
+to be educational is shown by the Preface to the "Cabinet Maker
+and Upholsterer's Guide," published by A. Hepplewhite & Co.,
+Cabinet-makers. We quote from the Preface of the third edition,
+"improved," 1794.
+
+The Preface opens with a lament that owing to "the mutability of
+all things, but more especially of fashions," foreigners who seek
+a knowledge of English taste and workmanship may be misled by the
+"labours of our predecessors in this line of little use."
+
+"The same reason in favour of this work will apply also to many of
+our own countrymen and artisans, whose distance from the metropolis
+makes even an imperfect knowledge of its improvements acquired with
+much trouble and expense."
+
+"In this instance we hope for reward; and though we lay no claim to
+extraordinary merit in our designs, we flatter ourselves they will be
+found serviceable to young workmen in general, and occasionally to
+more experienced ones."
+
+In view, therefore, of the books of design we have enumerated, it
+is obvious that the country designer had a new field open to him,
+and now and again he made ample use of his opportunities. During the
+last quarter of the eighteenth century there was quite an outburst of
+literature on furniture, much of it forgotten and much of it waiting
+to be disinterred by patient research; and with the dissemination of
+these fine designs some of the most perfect examples of country-made
+furniture began to exhibit touches of skill of the practised hand.
+
+=The Grandfather Chair.=--From the illustration given on p. 231 it
+will be seen that the type known as the "grandfather" has a humble
+lineage. It will be found with the same wings and curved arms and
+plain wooden seat in the alehouse or in the ingle nook of the
+farmhouse. The specimen we illustrate does duty as a bacon-cupboard
+as well as a chair. Usually such pieces have the cupboard opening at
+the back, but in this instance the cupboard opens in front.
+
+ [Illustration: COUNTRY GRANDFATHER CHAIR.]
+
+ [Illustration: ARM-CHAIR AND BACON-CUPBOARD.
+
+ Opens at foot. This type usually opens at back.]
+
+As early as the opening years of the eighteenth century there were
+upholstered chairs of a somewhat similar type to the so-called
+"grandfather" with scrolled arms or wings. The example we illustrate
+is representative of those which may be met with in the country
+farmhouse.
+
+=Ladder-back Types.=--The ladder-back chair belongs to the northern
+half of England, and similarly the spindle-back chair is found in
+the same locality. The Windsor chair, on the other hand, is mainly
+confined to the southern half of the country. These are points which
+become noticeable after years of systematised research, and although
+nowadays these three varieties of chair may still be found, somewhat
+scattered, their real home and place of origin is as indicated.
+Another feature of interest is that both ladder-back and spindle-back
+varieties, with but slight differences, are found on the Continent.
+
+It will be observed that this class of chair has a rush seat. This
+feature it has in common with the spindle-back chair.
+
+The rush-bottom chair covers a wide area. It comes with an air of
+_naïveté_ and rustic simplicity. One recalls the long lines of green
+rushes by the river-bank and the rush-gatherers in idyllic placidity
+slowly trimming the banks, disturbing coot and moorhen with their
+punt, and adding another human touch to the lonely angler. They are
+pursuing a calling as old as the river itself, and the use of rush
+for floor, for lighting, or for seating furniture, found occupation
+for generations of men plying curious trades, of which the plaiting
+of osiers into baskets and the thatching of cottage roofs may be
+numbered among the decaying industries. Indeed, this latter art
+and the making of birch and heath brooms may be almost said to be
+extinct. A good artisan who can thatch in the old artistic style is
+much sought after. Of course ricks have still to be thatched, but the
+picturesque skill of masters of this old-world craft is absent, and
+corrugated iron sheets have found favour in lieu of the old style.
+
+The ladder-back chair is, as its name denotes, decorated with
+horizontal supports, ladder fashion. These are capable of the most
+pleasing variation. The perfection of form of this type is seen in
+the arm-chair illustrated p. 237. The well-balanced proportion of
+the ladder rails is a test as to the excellence of the design. They
+are not meaningless ornaments put in place, unthinkingly, to create
+a new style. The two examples illustrated on page 235 show other
+types of the ladder-back chair. The left-hand one shows the later
+stages in the development of the design, and its top rail is of the
+Sheraton period. The right-hand one, with arms, is composite in its
+character, and is in date about 1820, and exhibits a touch of the
+Sheraton slenderness of style in the splats and the round turning of
+arms. Both examples show the quaint survival of the Queen Anne foot.
+The ladder-back form survived the eighteenth century and lasted down
+to within fifty years ago, when it became merged into that of the
+Windsor chair.
+
+ [Illustration: LADDER-BACK TYPE OF CHAIR.
+
+ Showing Empire influence in curved back.
+
+ Dated 1820-1830.]
+
+ [Illustration: SPINDLE-BACK NURSING CHAIR WITH ROCKER.
+
+ Three rows of spindles.]
+
+ [Illustration: SPINDLE-BACK CHAIR.
+
+ Two rows of spindles.]
+
+ [Illustration: LADDER-BACK CHAIRS WITH RUSH SEAT.
+
+ Both chairs showing quaint survival of the Queen Anne feet.
+
+ Late Eighteenth Century, with top
+ rail in Sheraton style.
+
+ Later form of splat with turned
+ ends. Dated 1820.]
+
+ [Illustration: COUNTRY BARBER'S CHAIR.]
+
+ [Illustration: LADDER-BACK CHAIR.
+
+ Perfect specimen in regard to style.]
+
+ [Illustration: OAK CORNER CHAIR.]
+
+ [Illustration: LADDER-BACK FORM OF CORNER CHAIR WITH RUSH SEAT.
+
+ Probably Lancashire.
+
+ (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)]
+
+=The Spindle-back Chair.=--The spindle-back chair is of long lineage.
+As early as the reign of Charles I. this type was known. There
+is still treasured in America the chair of Governor Carver, with
+simple turning in legs and back, which practically consisted of
+upright posts rounded and having slight ornament. The back was set
+with "spindles." The older types of these chairs had thick upright
+posts, the back and back legs being two posts and the front legs,
+continued upward beyond the seat, forming supports for the arms.
+These posts are often six or seven inches in circumference, and
+belong to early-Jacobean days. The type found its way to America in
+Puritan days and has continued to be a favourite. Hickory wood was
+used for American specimens, and considerable attention has been paid
+to this form of chair and its varieties, the differing heights of the
+posts and the number of the spindles and their character, by American
+collectors. In England examples are not easily found of early date.
+The examples illustrated (p. 235), a Nursing Chair on rockers and an
+ordinary Spindle-Back Chair, are of eighteenth-century days, and are
+sufficient to indicate the type of chair, but these two represent the
+style when it had become of more general use. Practically it was not
+until the eighteenth century that such types were commonly used in
+cottages and farmhouses.
+
+These turned chairs, turned in every portion but the rush seat, lend
+themselves to the above-mentioned two styles of treatment. Their
+upright posts forming the open back can be treated with vertical
+splats divided by horizontal divisions, or they can, as in the ladder
+form, receive horizontal splats. The complete simplicity of this
+attitude towards the back absolved the homely cabinet-maker from
+dangerous experiments. Avoiding curved backs, he had not to face
+the intricacies of the nicety of balance in the splat. Altogether it
+was a very satisfactory solution, and in practice resulted in the
+production of a wide range of chairs, differing in slight details but
+well within the range of the local workman's art.
+
+The unassuming simplicity of this class of chair made its appeal
+to Madox-Brown, who held that simplicity and utility were the two
+desiderata, united with soundness of construction, for domestic
+furniture. Veneer was as abhorrent to him as to all genuine lovers
+of the artistic. "Let us be honest, let us be genuine in furniture
+as in aught else," were his words. "If we must needs make our chairs
+and tables of cheap wood, do not let them masquerade as mahogany or
+rosewood; let the thing appear that which it is; it will not lack
+dignity if it be good of its kind and well made." Accordingly he put
+his theories into practice and designed some furniture. In a chair in
+the possession of Mr. Harold Rathbone he has employed the rush seat
+and used spindles to decorate the back, and in another chair in the
+same collection he has adhered to the horizontal ladder-back style,
+coupled with the rush seat, with pleasing effect.
+
+=Corner Chairs.=--Among interesting types of chairs often with
+lingering traces of the Jacobean style and additional features
+of splats that may be regarded as standing on the threshold of
+the Chippendale period, corner chairs stand in a class alone. The
+illustrations on p. 237 show some typical examples. The chair with
+the double tier is the oak adaptation of Chippendale with the
+retention of the old Jacobean form of support for the arm. These
+chairs with this added tier are often used as country barber's
+chairs. The rush-seated corner chair on the same page, probably made
+in Lancashire, is suggestive of the ladder-back form, and there
+are indications in its construction that it is subsequent to the
+Hepplewhite period.
+
+With these notes relative to the evolution of the chair, and with
+carefully selected illustrations of types likely to be of use to the
+collector, enough has been said to whet the curiosity of the reader
+to study the matter for himself. It requires keen and discriminating
+judgment to allocate specimens with passing exactitude as to time and
+place. The taste for the subject must be natural and not acquired.
+Training alone will give the eye the readiness to detect false
+touches and modern additions. The search for bargains goes on apace,
+and those who enjoy stalking their quarry in out-of-the-way places
+have an exciting quest nowadays for fine pieces. To those with
+endless patience, forbearing under disappointment, and having plenty
+of leisure, the search will offer abundant delight, if, to quote Mrs.
+Battle, they enjoy "the rigour of the game."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE WINDSOR CHAIR
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE WINDSOR CHAIR
+
+ Early types--The stick legs without stretcher--The tavern
+ chair--Eighteenth-century pleasure gardens--The rail-back
+ variety--Chippendale style Windsor chairs--The survival of the
+ Windsor chair.
+
+
+The Windsor chair in its early form is coincident with the early
+years of the eighteenth century. Its history and development
+therefore exhibit traces of the various styles in furniture which
+ran their courses throughout the century. It is essentially a chair
+which belongs to minor furniture, and in its use it is bound up with
+the country farmhouse, the country inn, or in the metropolis with the
+chocolate-houses and taverns, and later with the innumerable pleasure
+gardens which sprang up around the metropolis in the eighteenth
+century.
+
+There is more than a strong suggestion that the type originated in
+the country. The first forms have a similarity to the easily made
+three-legged stools. The seat is one piece of wood into which holes
+are bored to admit the legs. The origin of the term "Windsor chair,"
+according to a story largely current in America, is that George III.,
+the Farmer King, saw a chair of this design in a humble cottage near
+Windsor, and was so enamoured of it that he ordered some to be made
+for the royal use. The chair had a singular vogue in America, and it
+is stated that George Washington had a row of Windsor chairs at his
+house at Mount Vernon, and Jefferson sat in a Windsor chair when he
+signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
+
+=The Stick Legs without Stretcher.=--Obviously this is the earliest
+type, and the illustrations of these primitive forms (p. 247) show
+the simplicity of the joinery. The chair on the left with its almost
+straight top rail suggests a probable date. It was not till 1768 that
+Chippendale made the first straight top rail in English furniture.
+The seat is of the saddle-form. The spindles at the back in the
+lower row taper at each end. It will be observed in all the types we
+illustrate in this chapter that the arms extend in one piece around
+the chair. Nor has every example the saddle seat. On the same page is
+illustrated one with a plain seat, but still having the stick legs
+set at an angle towards the centre of the chair.
+
+Whatever interest attaches to this early type, from a collecting
+point of view, they cannot compare in beauty with the finer varieties
+of a later period, with cabriole leg and with pierced splat,
+displaying a pleasing diversity of patterns in pierced work, no two
+of which are always quite alike.
+
+ [Illustration: WINDSOR CHAIRS.
+
+ Earliest form; stick legs with no stretcher.
+
+ (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)]
+=The Tavern Chair.=--It was Dr. Johnson who declared that a tavern
+chair was the throne of human felicity. Undoubtedly the eighteenth
+century found the need of a comfortable chair for club meetings at
+taverns and alehouses. The country inn to-day has its Windsor chairs,
+many of them of great age. Nor were chairs of this type always with
+arms. There are many plainer chairs without arms and having what is
+termed "fiddle-string" backs; more often than not across this back
+there is a rail put transversely to strengthen it. Many of these
+chairs were made by local carpenters and wheelwrights. They employed
+any wood that happened to be in their workshop at the time; in
+consequence the variety of woods in which these chairs are found is
+great. Sometimes the seat is made from beech or elm and the arms are
+fashioned from the wood of the pear-tree. The curved horseshoe rails
+and back are more often than not constructed from the ash.
+
+=Eighteenth Century Pleasure Gardens.=--There is no doubt that we
+owe the considerable output of Windsor chairs in the middle of the
+eighteenth century to the growth of coffee-houses, and especially
+the numerous tea and pleasure gardens on the outskirts of London and
+other great towns. These semi-rural resorts began to be in great
+demand as a recreation for jaded eighteenth-century town-dwellers.
+The nobility and persons of fashion had Bath and Tunbridge Wells
+to fly to for country air and open-air recreation. The citizen and
+mechanic, the society beau, and the politician, crowded to Ranelagh
+Gardens, to Vauxhall, to Sadler's Wells, and to Hampstead, to
+enjoy sunny afternoons and summer evenings in the open air, or to
+spend Sundays. It was the eighteenth-century diversion similar to
+the nineteenth-century Crystal Palace and the twentieth-century
+Earl's Court. To quote Mr. Percy Macquoid in his lordly work on
+English furniture, "So great were the numbers of visitors to these
+places that attention was called to their increase in one of the
+contemporary weekly journals, where a calculation was made that on
+Sundays alone two hundred thousand people visited the tea-gardens
+situated on the northern side of London; and as half-a-crown per
+head was probably the least sum expended by them, it can be no
+exaggeration to state that £20,000 on a fine Sunday was taken at
+these places of amusement. Many cheap chairs must have been required
+at such places of entertainment."
+
+Between the year 1760 and the end of the century the Windsor chair
+was being made for general country use. "The backs and arms of
+these," continues Mr. Macquoid, "are made of hoops of yew, held
+together by a number of slender uprights and a perforated splat of
+the same tough and pliant wood; the seats were generally invariably
+of elm, as yew cut into a superficies of any size is liable to split;
+the legs and stretchers were generally of yew."
+
+ [Illustration: OLIVER GOLDSMITH'S CHAIR.
+
+ Wood, painted green, with circular seat, curved arms, and high
+ back. Bequeathed by Oliver Goldsmith in 1774 to his friend, Dr.
+ Hawes.
+
+ (_Bethnal Green Museum._)]
+
+=The Rail-back Variety.=--We have alluded to the use of the rail
+placed across the back from the top rail to the seat, crossing the
+uprights. It is not an elegant device, but it was used as a means
+of strengthening the back. It seems almost unnecessary, although
+possibly these chairs received a good deal of rough usage.
+Later, when the fiddle splat began to be employed, this transverse
+rail--sometimes there were two used--was discontinued. An historic
+example of the chair with transverse rails is that which was once
+in the possession of Oliver Goldsmith. There is no doubt about
+the authenticity of this, as it was bequeathed by the poet to his
+medical attendant, Dr. Hawes, who, by the way, was the founder of
+the Royal Humane Society. Goldsmith told his farmer friends at his
+cottage at Edgware that he should never in future spend more than two
+months a year in London, and at the time of his death in 1774 he was
+negotiating the sale of the lease of his Temple chambers. This chair
+(illustrated p. 251) has a rather small shaped seat, curved arms, a
+top rail that is of exceptional interest considering the date, which
+is, say, from 1770 to 1774, perhaps a little earlier. This was at the
+commencement of the Hepplewhite period, which lasted till 1790. The
+year 1768 was, as we have already said, the date at which chairs with
+straight top rails, designed by Adam and executed by Chippendale,
+were first made. The turned legs are interesting, showing the hoofed
+foot, and the turned stretcher retains an earlier form. The chair is
+of soft wood, probably beech, and is painted green. It is preserved
+at the Bethnal Green Museum, with the distinctive label on the stand:
+"Oliver Goldsmith's Chair."
+
+=The Splat Back and the Cabriole Leg.=--It is here that the Windsor
+chair assumes a character essentially charming and attracts the
+admiration of connoisseurs of styles that are peculiarly English.
+The splat back is a feature only found in English varieties of the
+Windsor chair. In America a great deal of attention has been paid to
+old types, and there the pliant hickory wood is used in the making
+of chairs of this form; but the splat back is never used in America,
+and when found by collectors there the piece is attributed to English
+manufacture.
+
+The splat, with its varying forms, denotes the date of the chair.
+From 1740 to 1770 the form with cabriole legs and with finely
+ornamented fiddle splat was at its best. We illustrate a sufficient
+number of specimens to show how graceful and perfectly well balanced
+these chairs had become. In contemplating pieces remarkable for the
+highest style, it must be admitted that their artistry and their
+simple unaffected sense of comfort do make a direct appeal to those
+who are willing to recognise fine qualities in minor furniture.
+
+The two chairs illustrated (p. 255) differ slightly in details of
+construction. That on the left has the plain urn splat, a survival
+of the Queen Anne type. The seat is finely shaped and the legs are
+cabriole form. The top rail is almost straight, and is ornamented
+at the two ends with turned discs. The three stretchers are turned,
+and in the adjacent chair the stretchers are similar, save in a
+slight variation in the pattern of the turning. But here the splat
+is perforated with an intricate design suggestive of the lines
+of Chippendale; the top rail is a departure in form, imparting a
+distinctiveness which lifts the chair from the ordinary type.
+
+ [Illustration: WINDSOR CHAIR.
+
+ With plain fiddle splat of Queen Anne type, Chippendale top rail
+ and cabriole legs, and three turned stretchers.]
+
+ [Illustration: WINDSOR CHAIR.
+
+ With pierced fiddle splat, shaped arms, cabriole legs, and three
+ turned stretchers.
+
+ (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)]
+
+ [Illustration: CHIPPENDALE WINDSOR CHAIRS.
+
+ Chippendale splats. The type of splat indicates the date of
+ Windsor chairs.]
+
+ [Illustration: HEPPLEWHITE WINDSOR CHAIR.
+
+ Exceptionally fine legs back and front. Urn back. Probably Welsh
+ carving.]
+
+ [Illustration: HEPPLEWHITE PERIOD WINDSOR CHAIR.
+
+ With wheel back, in yew.
+
+ (_By courtesy of Messrs. A. B. Daniell & Sons._)]
+
+=Chippendale Style Windsor Chairs.=--The page of chairs (p.
+257) tells its own story. The beautiful sweep of the curved back is
+always a sign of the old and true form. Later imitations or replicas
+seem somehow to lose this effect. It has been suggested that the back
+of this style was produced by the village wheelwright in horseshoe
+form, but possibly that is a conjecture which is more fanciful than
+real. It has also--collectors are often fond of inventing theories to
+fit little-known facts--been asserted that the wheel-back variety,
+which is of somewhat more modern growth, is due to the same origin.
+This wheel is fretted with six triangular openings. One chair on
+this page has the wheel unperforated. In the examination of the
+details of the four examples there is nothing of great importance to
+differentiate them from each other in construction. The two at the
+top are suggestive of Chippendale in the ornament employed in the
+splat. The lower two incline more to the slightly later Hepplewhite
+period. Of these the one on the left has only fourteen upright rails
+at the lower portion and six in the upper portion of the back, in
+comparison with sixteen and eight in the other chairs. The legs of
+this chair are exceptionally fine both back and front. The work in
+the splat is slightly suggestive of Welsh carving, especially that
+style associated with Welsh love-spoons.
+
+Following the influence of Chippendale and Hepplewhite came the
+style of Sheraton, which after 1790 began to affect the character of
+some forms of minor furniture. That this was a very real factor is
+often shown most unexpectedly in cottage and farmhouse pieces. The
+satinwood and the painted panel, and the intricacies and subtleties
+of his employment of colour, were of course too far removed from
+the simple cabinet-work of the country maker to have the least
+effect upon him, even if he ever saw them. But the slenderness and
+elegance of the Sheraton styles did in a small degree have weight
+with cabinet-makers as a whole in the provinces. So that it is quite
+within reasonable surmise to attribute certain forms to the Sheraton
+school, or rather to the oncoming of the early nineteenth-century
+mannerisms. On p. 261 two examples are illustrated showing this
+influence. The one with the horseshoe back is devoid of the splat,
+which had now disappeared. The turned legs begin to show signs of
+modernity. The other has the top-rail familiar in later forms of
+cottage chair. The turned rails for the arms and the type of turning
+in the legs show signs of decadence. The fine days of the old Windsor
+chair were coming to an end.
+
+ [Illustration: WINDSOR CHAIR.
+
+ Horseshoe back, saddle seat, turned legs, with stretcher.
+ Sheraton style.]
+
+ [Illustration: WINDSOR CHAIR.
+
+ Curved top rail, turned arms, legs, and stretcher. Sheraton
+ style, pierced fiddle splat.]
+
+=The Survival of the Windsor Chair Type.=--Apart from the love of
+the simple form and especially well-conceived design of the Windsor
+chair, which have made it at once the especial favourite of artists
+and lovers of simplicity and utility, it has won the practical
+approval of generations of innkeepers, who to this day store hundreds
+of chairs for use at village festivals. What we have said in regard
+to the popularity of the gate-leg table applies in greater degree to
+the Windsor chair. The industry of turning the legs and rails of this
+type of chair is still carried on in Buckinghamshire. Until recent
+years much of this turning was done by hand by villagers in the
+district surrounding High Wycombe, where the parts are sent to be
+finished and made up. To this day some of the old chair-makers use
+the antiquated pole lathe. But the chairs have departed from their
+old stateliness. It is true that they have survived, almost in spite
+of themselves. They are not now the objects of beauty they once were.
+But they have, by reason of modern requirements, found a fresh field
+of usefulness. Will it be supposed that the modern office chair is
+in reality a Windsor? An examination will at once show this, even
+in the latest American types. The saddle-shaped seat is there, the
+straight turned legs, and the back is the same except that the upper
+extension has disappeared and the old centre rail has become broader
+as a properly-formed rest for the tired clerk's back. A perusal
+of a few catalogues of up-to-date office furniture will establish
+this. Here, then, is the last stage of the country Windsor chair.
+The twentieth-century Windsor has come to town and graces the head
+cashier's private office in a bank or the senior partner's room of a
+firm of stockbrokers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+LOCAL TYPES
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+LOCAL TYPES
+
+ Welsh carving--Scottish types--Lancashire dressers, wardrobes,
+ and chairs--Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridge, and Essex
+ tables--Isle of Man tables.
+
+
+The charm of collecting cottage and farmhouse furniture lies
+in the wide area over which it is found. Those who have given
+especial attention to collecting it have learned instinctively
+to differentiate between the work of various localities. Some
+well-defined types of cottage furniture are only to be found in
+certain counties, and nowhere else. Take for example the ladder-back
+and the spindle chairs. The latter are usually found in the northern
+half and the former in the southern half of England. It is obvious
+that craftsmen developing on original lines, or on lines more or
+less apart from outside influence, must establish designs peculiarly
+identified with their field of labours.
+
+The sturdy insularity of the British peasant, and his uneasy
+reception of foreign suggestion, have had a very pronounced influence
+upon his methods of work. He has the defects of his qualities, the
+stern, almost uncompromising conservatism in habit of mind and in
+his daily pursuits. A close study of the thoughts, and as far as
+is recorded the written ideals, of the rural labouring population
+exhibit an extraordinary fixity of purpose in clinging tenaciously
+to old customs. The country songs more often than not express
+disapproval of innovations and call up the memories of slowly
+vanishing customs. The farm hands recall wistfully the old style of
+Shearers' feasts and Harvest homes, when great festivities with song
+and dance and old country sports enlivened the company. In Yorkshire
+this was termed the Mel Supper, in Kent the Kern Supper, and in parts
+of the North of England it was called the Churn Supper. Annual feasts
+were given to labourers such as the Wayzgoose or Bean feast, which
+later name remains to this day. The good old days is a refrain not
+confined to the cottager in his relation with the farmer. The farmer,
+imbued with the same wistful regard for the vanished past, bewails
+the May Day tenants' feast of the eighteenth-century English squire.
+
+We get touches of disdain for the oncoming fashion of seclusion which
+invaded the farmhouse in "A Farmer's Boy," by Robert Bloomfield. He
+laments that the annual feast of the harvest home had lost its former
+joviality. This was written in 1798.
+
+"The aspect only with the substance gone." Evidently the mug that
+passed around was becoming a thing of the past.
+
+ "The self-same Horn is still at our command,
+ But serves none now but the plebeian hand."
+
+The picture he draws of the farmer who, in face of prevailing
+fashion, "yields up the custom that he dearly loves" is pathetic. The
+long table and dining in common together had seemingly vanished. "The
+_separate_ table and the costly bowl" touch the rustic poet's pride.
+He italicises the word "separate."
+
+ [Illustration: CHEST. DATED 1636.
+
+ With Welsh inscription on lid. (Standing on table of later date.)]
+
+ [Illustration: WELSH CUPBOARD.
+
+ With typical coarse style of carving. Should be 1650 at latest.
+ Inscribed I.S. 1710.]
+
+This loving regard for the past is natural at a time when the rural
+population jealously feared the oncoming of the age of machinery,
+which threatened to supersede many of their local industries and
+finally succeeded in so doing. The obstinate adherence to old forms
+was possibly part of a nervous fear of the unknown future. The
+love for existing forms of furniture was therefore part of this
+apprehensive retention of tradition. Not only was the resistance
+of town fashions a strong feature, but local prejudices prevailed
+against the adoption of designs belonging to rival counties. To
+this day the Staffordshire clothes-horse, carried on pulleys to
+the ceiling when not in use, differs from the clothes-horse of the
+cottager in the South with no such mechanical device. In Edinburgh,
+in the narrow closes, there is a kind of gallows projecting from the
+windows.
+
+These apparently minor details which find their embodiment in
+articles of everyday use, fascinate and hold the attention of the
+acute collector of cottage furniture.
+
+The same local types apply to the art of the potter and are well
+known to collectors. There are Sussex "tygs" and Nottingham "bears"
+and Sunderland and Newcastle jugs and mugs. Bristol had its
+characteristic earthenware, and the Lowestoft china factory was
+strongly Suffolk in its homely inscriptions with a touch of dialect.
+
+=Welsh Carving.=--Wales is famous for the abundance of the oak
+farmhouse furniture proudly kept to this day in families who have
+held the same homestead sometimes for centuries. One of the most
+noticeable features is the elaboration of the carving and its
+native representation, coarsely carved, without foreign influence,
+of birds and beasts and heraldic monsters which largely figure
+in the decorative panels of chests, and especially dressers. So
+popular was oak that it might almost be advanced that there never
+was any mahogany in Wales. But it is indisputable that the great
+outburst in carved mahogany chairbacks coincident with the advent of
+Chippendale and the publication of his _Director_, never penetrated
+Wales, although it led to the foundation of a remarkable school of
+woodcarving on the new lines in Ireland, known as Irish Chippendale,
+a study of which can be made in Mr. Owen Wheeler's volume on old
+furniture.
+
+The intense love of the Welsh woodcarver for intricacy is hardly
+less than that of the sturdy Swiss craftsmen environed by mountains.
+Perhaps the long winters and the solitary life influence the
+development of individual character in the applied arts. The Welsh
+love-spoons of wood, linked together and exhibiting delicate pierced
+work and minute carving of no mean order, are among other attractive
+specimens of native art. Ironwork of fine quality is also to be found
+in Wales.
+
+ [Illustration: LANCASHIRE DRESSER. ABOUT 1730-1750.
+
+ Oak inlaid with mahogany.]
+
+ [Illustration: ELM WARDROBE (WELSH). ABOUT 1670.]
+
+(_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)
+
+ [Illustration: FLAP-TOP TABLE.
+
+ Rare Hertfordshire Example. Diameter of top, 2 ft. 6 ins.
+
+ (_By the courtesy of Messrs. A. B. Daniell & Sons._)]
+
+ [Illustration: LANCASHIRE SPINDLE-BACK CHAIRS.]
+A carved oak chest of Welsh origin, dated 1636, with Welsh
+inscription on lid, is illustrated (p. 269). The table on which it
+stands is of a later date. The carving in this piece is delicate
+and the middle panel is typical of the representation of birds and
+foliage. The Welsh cupboard on the same page typifies the coarse
+woodcarving associated with Welsh farmhouse art. In style this really
+belongs to a date not later than 1650. But it is dated 1710 and
+bears the initials "I.S." This is an interesting example, showing
+how middle-Jacobean styles lingered in country districts remote from
+outside influence until the early eighteenth century.
+
+An elm wardrobe, probably about 1670 in date, shows another type,
+but still retaining the coarse character of its carving and its
+well-filled panels and uprights (illustrated p. 273).
+
+=Scottish Types.=--Scotland has antiquities of her own which are
+closely allied to those of all the Gaelic races. As with Welsh
+carved farmhouse furniture, there is a marked leaning towards coarse
+style. As a rule it is too utilitarian in appearance to display
+much carving. The spinning-wheel is still found in farmhouses, and
+is still used in Harris and the outlying islands. Sometimes these
+old Highland spinning-wheels come into the market with the smooth
+surface worn by generations of workers, a surface impossible to
+reproduce. The Scottish ironwork is especially interesting. Perhaps
+the most curious of the Scottish antiquities is the crusie. This is
+undoubtedly a survival of the classic oil lamp. It consists of a
+shallow trough with a spout in which the wick stands, the oil being
+contained in the trough (see illustration, p. 289).
+
+=Lancashire Furniture.=--The especial characteristics of
+Lancashire-made furniture are a strong leaning to solid structure and
+a very noticeable reticence in carving. Well-balanced as a rule, and
+possessing good joinery, they have been favourites with collectors
+of furniture designed for modern use. A Queen Anne oak dresser
+illustrated (p. 135) shows this Lancashire sturdiness at its best.
+This style of large dresser with cabriole legs is associated with
+Lancashire cabinet work.
+
+A Lancashire dresser, the date of which is from about 1730 to 1750,
+shows the oak dresser inlaid with mahogany. The carved pediment and
+the carved underwork beneath the drawers mark this as an unusual
+specimen (p. 273).
+
+A typical Lancashire oak settle is illustrated (p. 279), showing the
+Jacobean style in the carved work and in the arms. In date this is
+about 1660. It will be noticed that the front of the seat has a row
+of holes, which, prior to the upholstered cushion, a later addition,
+were intended for ropes to support a cushion, much in the same manner
+as the iron laths of a modern bedstead.
+
+On the same page is illustrated an oak chest of drawers of Yorkshire
+origin, in date about 1770. Its plain lines suggest the Hepplewhite
+types of subdued character.
+
+In regard to spindle-back chairs, Lancashire offers distinctive
+varieties. Two examples are illustrated (p. 275) as indicating this
+local type.
+
+ [Illustration: OAK CHEST OF DRAWERS. _C._ 1770.
+
+ Yorkshire type.
+
+ Height, 3 ft. 3 ins.; width, 3 ft. 1 in.; depth, 1 ft. 5-1/2 ins.]
+
+ [Illustration: LANCASHIRE OAK SETTLE. _C._ 1660.]
+ [Illustration: ISLE OF MAN TABLE.
+
+ Showing three legs with knee breeches and buckle shoes.]
+
+ [Illustration: "CRICKET" TABLE. _C._ 1700.]
+
+ [Illustration: "CRICKET." _C._ 1750.
+
+ (These types are found in Hertfordshire, South Bedfordshire,
+ South Cambridge, and Essex.)]
+=Three Legged Tables.=--Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridge, and
+Essex have produced a type of tables termed colloquially "cricket
+tables," possibly because the three legs are suggestive of three
+stumps. The term is a foolish one and not very appropriate. A very
+interesting flap-top table with the three flaps to turn down,
+illustrated (p. 275), is a very rare Hertfordshire example. This is
+small in size, having only a diameter of two and a half feet.
+
+Two other tables, one in date about 1700 and the other, of slender
+form, in date about 1750, are typical of this class of table. A very
+interesting table is a specimen from the Isle of Man having three
+carved legs with knee-breeches and buckle shoes.
+
+Sussex is also well-known for her ironwork (see Chapter X.).
+
+Norfolk and Suffolk used to have a class of oak furniture of quaint
+type, less cumbersome than the Welsh. A type of Sheraton Windsor
+chair, often inlaid with brass, used also to be found there.
+
+On the whole, those localities which are removed from important towns
+are the richest in cottage furniture, for example, Wales, Devonshire,
+Cumberland, Northumberland, and parts of Yorkshire. In places, where
+the prosperity of the peasants is of long standing, the cottage
+furniture has been maintained whole almost until the present day.
+
+Altogether the study of local types affords considerable scope for
+critical study. It is essential that such pieces should be identified
+and classified before it is too late. Rapidly all cottage and
+farmhouse furniture is being scattered over all parts of England.
+Collectors transfer furniture from the North to the South, and
+the rural treasures of the peasant have been brought to towns and
+dispersed to alien districts. The Education Act of 1870 and the
+halfpenny newspaper have brought town fashions to the door of the
+cottager, and the motor has laid a heavy tribute on rustic seclusion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+MISCELLANEOUS IRONWORK, Etc.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+MISCELLANEOUS IRONWORK, ETC.
+
+ The rushlight-holder--The dipper--The chimney crane--The
+ Scottish crusie--Firedogs--The Warming-pan--Sussex
+ firebacks--Grandfather clocks.
+
+
+The everyday iron utensils and implements of the cottages were
+simple. It is one of the curious features of the English peasantry
+that just as they clung to their oak of generations back when
+mahogany was in vogue, so they adhered tenaciously to ironwork of
+almost mediæval character when other metals were in fashionable
+everyday use. Thus the cottager did not feel the oncoming desire for
+the brass, or later silver and plated candlesticks, but remained
+firm in his affection for the rushlight-holders in iron, the same
+types which his ancestors had used, and the firedogs and firebacks
+of earlier type remained to decorate his hearth. Thus ironwork and
+rarely brasswork form the sum total of the metal portion of cottage
+furniture. We will deal with these various utilitarian objects one by
+one.
+
+It must be remembered that the country farmer was not familiar with
+ready-made candles, and it probably no more entered his head to
+purchase candles in a town than it occurred to him to do other than
+bake his own bread. The cottager therefore made his candles for
+himself. If he were well-to-do and could afford to entertain his
+friends in modest fashion, he would doubtless like to illuminate his
+table with candles of symmetrical form. In which case he would use
+a candle-mould, and the wax bought in towns would serve for this
+purpose. But he was not always so rich, and perhaps he was happiest
+of all with the faintly glimmering rush dips which his forbears used.
+These afforded a rough-and-ready form of lighting. They burned and
+spluttered like a torch or flickered faintly as the tallow grew thin.
+Their form closely resembled an amateur's first attempt at making a
+cigarette. They were made in the following manner: the thin wirelike
+rushes which grew by the water's edge were gathered and stripped of
+their green surface till only the soft white pith remained. This
+served as a wick. The wax was then melted over a fire in a trough or
+candle-dipper, of which an illustration appears (p. 289).
+
+Across this long receptacle the pith wicks were laid till the wax
+soaked into them. They were then taken out for the wax to cool and
+were dipped once or twice afterwards in order to form their outer
+coating. By such a primitive process a kind of thin taper was
+formed. It was not parallel along its sides, but bulged and narrowed
+throughout its length in primitive manner.
+
+ [Illustration: RUSHLIGHT HOLDERS.
+
+ Showing rush fixed ready for lighting.
+
+ SCOTCH CRUSIE.
+
+ With holder.
+
+ RUSHLIGHT HOLDERS.
+
+ Showing forceps for holding
+ rushlight.]
+
+ [Illustration: SUFFOLK PIPE CLEANER.
+
+ The long clay "churchwarden" pipes were placed in this iron
+ rack and put into the fire, after which they came out perfectly
+ cleaned.
+
+ CANDLE-DIPPER.
+
+ (_In the collection of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)]
+
+ [Illustration: QUEEN ANNE POT-HANGER.
+
+ With original grate. Same date.
+
+ (_By the courtesy of Messrs. Phillips, Hitchin._)]
+
+ [Illustration: KETTLE TRIVET.
+
+ Brass and Iron. Dated about 1770.]
+
+Such a taper, from its uneven thickness, would naturally not
+fit the socket of a candlestick, and the only receptacle would be a
+scissor-like mechanism with jaws capable of clasping it at any point.
+Thus we find the rushlight-holder of common use, as illustrated (p.
+289).
+
+The illustrations show two rush-holders with the rushlights affixed
+in position ready for lighting, and one showing how the jaws or
+forceps clip the rushlight. In practice about an inch or an inch and
+a half was above the clip and the rest below. A rushlight some twelve
+to fifteen inches long would burn half an hour, and it had to receive
+constant attention, being pushed upwards every five minutes. But it
+must be remembered that the persons who used this primitive form of
+light did not use it for reading nor for a long period at a time.
+They usually went to bed early after sunset.
+
+In regard to rushlight-holders the earliest form was without the
+accompanying candle-socket, but when the use of tallow dip candles
+became prevalent, later forms are found, as illustrated, with the
+candle-socket in addition to the holder for the rushlight.
+
+The Scottish crusie is an iron trough of dimensions like a small
+sauceboat, which was used for lighting purposes, and was often
+suspended, as in the one illustrated (p. 289), from a crane or
+hanger. This crusie was filled with oil and the illumination given
+by a floating wick, much in the same manner as classic examples, to
+which the shape bears a distant resemblance.
+
+The firedogs were always simple, doubtless the product of the local
+blacksmith. Where they had hooks along the backs they held crossbars
+to prevent the logs falling into the room. The dates of these, as
+of all cottage ironwork, are almost impossible to fix, owing to the
+survival of the earlier types even so late as the middle of the
+nineteenth century.
+
+=The Chimney Crane.=--A most important part of the cottager's
+fireplace was his chimney crane. These were of two kinds, the
+pot-hook and the swing-arm variety. The pot-hook hung in the chimney
+from a chain, and from its teeth was fixed a catch which might be
+lowered or raised to keep the cauldron at a level with the flames.
+
+The swing-arm type is more elaborate, and was made to fit very large
+fireplaces, where the fire might not invariably be in the same spot
+on the hearth. This type was used in the kitchens of the better
+farmhouses. Its end was fixed to the wall of the hearth, and the pot
+could be swung backwards and forwards and sideways, besides being
+raised or lowered to the fire.
+
+The pot-hook is of great antiquity, and belongs to days when man
+first learned to cook his food. Frequently in this country early
+examples are dug up. There are fine specimens to be seen of the late
+Celtic period at the Owens College Museum, at the Northampton Museum,
+at the Liverpool Museum, at the Pitt Rivers Museum at Farnham, at the
+Victoria and Albert Museum, and elsewhere.
+
+"Pot-hooks and hangers" is an English phrase denoting the beginning
+of things academic, and the French phrase _pendre la crémaillère_
+(literally to hang the pot-hook) is used to-day in reference to what
+we term a "house-warming" party on settling in a new abode.
+
+Another interesting cottage treasure is the cake-baker. This was a
+kind of thick frying-pan having a lid, which protected the dough from
+the heat when it was held over the smouldering ashes. The tops of
+these are often incised with quaint patterns, the impress of which
+appears on the cake.
+
+Kettle-trivets are sometimes found in cottages, possibly relics from
+better houses or having belonged to the more prosperous farmer.
+They are not wholly of iron, being partly of brass. The specimen
+illustrated (p. 291) is of late eighteenth-century days.
+
+=The Warming-pan.=--There is an especial charm in the old brass
+warming-pan of the farmhouse and the treasured highly-polished
+ornament of many a proud cottager to-day. Many modern-made
+warming-pans from Holland and elsewhere have found their way into
+the possession of unsuspecting collectors. But fine old English
+warming-pans are interesting, and summon up memories of careful
+housewives and well-aired lavender-smelling sheets in ancient
+old-world inns. On fine examples inscriptions may be found, and the
+incised work of the pattern on the brass covers is often individual
+in character.
+
+Of the examples illustrated (p. 307) one has an incised inscription
+around the edge, "The Lord only is my portion." The other has a
+dotted geometrical pattern with a star-like design of conventional
+floral incised work.
+
+It is unfortunate that the diligence of the housewife has often
+obliterated much of the fine work of some of these designs. The
+warming-pan offers in itself a complete field for the collector. He
+can compare the work of seventeenth-century Dutch examples, with
+their quaint religious inscriptions and their finely embossed and
+engraved ornamentation, with English specimens of the same date.
+That the warming-pan was in use in Elizabethan days is proved by
+references in Shakespeare. It has a long history, from Sir John
+Falstaff, when Bardolph was bidden to put his face between the
+sheets and do the office of a warming-pan, to Mr. Pickwick--to quote
+Sergeant Buzfuz, "Don't trouble yourself about the warming-pan--the
+warming-pan! Why, gentlemen, who does trouble himself about a
+warming-pan?"
+
+=Sussex Firebacks.=--The fireback was usually part of the cottager's
+belongings, though perhaps only one would figure in his house, where
+possibly his only hearth was in his living-room.
+
+These were cast and forged in various parts of the country, and large
+numbers appear to have been made in Sussex, which is, or rather
+was, the greatest hunting-ground for good specimens of cottagers'
+ironwork. Some highly interesting specimens of these are to be herein
+illustrated.
+
+The records of the Sussex iron industry go back to a very early date,
+and the town of Lewes, in the thirteenth century, raised taxes by
+charging a toll on every cartload of iron admitted. Under Edward
+III. the Sussex ironworks provided three thousand horseshoes and
+twenty-nine thousand nails for the English army in its campaign in
+Scotland. The local rhyme--
+
+ "Master Hogge and his man John
+ They did cast the first cannon"--
+
+is not without reason, as in Bodiam Castle and elsewhere are mortars
+of Sussex work of fifteenth-century style. In the sixteenth century a
+considerable number of firebacks was made, some with the royal arms
+and with the royal cipher, "E.R.," and bearing dates and sometimes
+makers' names.
+
+ [Illustration: COUNTRY FIREDOGS. EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.]
+
+ [Illustration: FIRE GRATE. EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.]
+
+The earliest form was stamped with the _fleur-de-lys_ or with
+portions of twisted cable to form some sort of symmetrical design.
+We are enabled, by the kindness of Mr. C. Dawson, F.S.A., of Lewes,
+to reproduce some Sussex firebacks from his collection. An example
+of the first half of the sixteenth century, illustrated (p. 301),
+shows the rope-like border impressed on the sand mould, and the field
+impressed with repetitions of a _fleur-de-lys_ from a single stamp.
+Another interesting fireback is the "Royal Oak" design, with the
+initials "C.R." This is commemorative of the escape of Charles II.
+from pursuit by Cromwell's Ironsides and his refuge in the oak-tree.
+It will be observed that this specimen has a moulded edge, which
+is from a single wood pattern carved in one piece. Amidst the oak
+foliage will be seen three crowns, and this exuberance of loyalty
+bears a resemblance to certain chairs of the period (copied by the
+score nowadays), in which the crown finds a place in the stretcher.
+
+One fireback illustrated (p. 303) shows an ironmaster with his hammer
+at his forge. The adjacent piece has the Tudor rose surmounted by
+the royal crown, and bears the date 1650, slightly earlier than the
+"Royal Oak" example.
+
+All the foregoing specimens are native in their conception of design.
+They approximate closely to the Jacobean carved panel with its narrow
+range of subjects, and have a relationship to Stuart needlework with
+its royal symbolism. Later came the Dutch influence, most marked in
+its effect upon the shape, height, and character of these firebacks.
+This became especially noticeable in the eighteenth century, and
+in the illustrations (p. 303) of two wooden patterns from which
+the firebacks were made at Ashburnham, Sussex, this is clearly
+shown. The designs are ornate and represent either some scriptural
+or mythological subject. The woodcarving is of a style strongly
+under Dutch influence, and the tall proportions suggest gravestones
+(indeed, in Sussex there are headstones made of iron, with pictures
+and inscriptions).
+
+The mode of casting these iron firebacks in sand and the employment
+of wooden patterns to form the mould into which the molten metal was
+to run is familiar to any foundry in casting iron. In regard to the
+early examples with the twisted cable rim, it is conjectured that
+pieces of twisted rope were actually laid on the wet sand to produce
+this pattern--that is, before the use of carved wooden patterns
+such as are illustrated. In regard to the bolder "cable twist"
+pattern, it is believed this was produced by impression of pieces of
+rope stiffened with glue, and twisted around iron rods.
+
+ [Illustration: SUSSEX IRON FIREBACK. FIRST HALF OF SIXTEENTH
+ CENTURY.
+
+ Rope-like border impressed on sand mould. The field impressed
+ with repetitions from a single _fleur-de-lys_ stamp.]
+
+ [Illustration: SUSSEX IRON FIREBACK.
+
+ The Royal Oak Design, commemorative of the Restoration. Late
+ Seventeenth Century. Moulded edge and carved in one piece from a
+ single pattern.
+
+ (_In the collection of Charles Dawson, Esq., F.S.A., Lewes._)]
+
+ [Illustration: SUSSEX FIREBACKS.
+
+ Tudor Rose surmounted by Royal
+ Crown. Dated 1650.
+
+ Depicting Ironmaster at his Forge.
+ (Very rusty and worn.)]
+
+ [Illustration: ORIGINAL WOODEN PATTERNS.
+
+ Dutch influence. Eighteenth Century. From which firebacks were
+ made at Ashburnham, Sussex.
+
+ (_By the courtesy of Charles Dawson, Esq., F.S.A., Lewes._)]
+
+The size of the wooden pattern is slightly larger than the resultant
+fireback, owing to the shrinkage of the metal on cooling. This
+diminution in design is a factor in the potter's art, when figures
+in some cases lose nearly a third of their original proportions when
+moulded in the clay prior to firing.
+
+Firebacks have attracted a considerable amount of interest. There are
+many collectors, and a great deal of close study has been applied to
+the subject. Country museums in the vicinity of the Weald of Sussex
+and Kent contain many notable examples, especially those of Lewes,
+Hastings, Brighton, Rochester, Maidstone, and Guildford. In the first
+mentioned there are some very rare and beautiful examples of Sussex
+firebacks.
+
+Especially interesting in connection with the Sussex ironworks is the
+illustration (p. 309) of a clock face made by a local maker, Beeching
+of Ashburnham, in the late seventeenth century. This brass dial of a
+thirty-hour clock, with single hand and alarum, is ornamented with
+designs showing various phases of the iron industry as carried on in
+Sussex. There is a cannon with diminutive figures holding the match.
+There are cannon-balls, and a liliputian fireback with a crown on
+it. Men with pickaxes, men felling trees, and others tending the
+furnaces, symbolise the business of a foundry.
+
+It was not until 1690 that the minute numerals were placed outside
+the minute divisions in clock faces, so that this face, having the
+minute numerals absent and the minute divisions in the inner circle,
+presumably belongs to the late seventeenth century.
+
+=Grandfather Clocks.=--A volume on cottage and farmhouse furniture
+would be incomplete without some reference to grandfather clocks.
+At the beginning of the eighteenth century this type of clock had
+become popular. The early brass-bracket clock known as "Cromwellian,"
+varying from six to ten inches in height, had a spring. With the use
+of the long pendulum and revolving drums, around which catgut is
+wound to support the heavy weights, these unprotected parts required
+a wooden case.
+
+The "lantern" or "bird-cage" clocks (wallclocks from which the
+pendulum and weights hung unprotected) lasted till about 1680, when
+the first grandfather type with wood case came into use.
+
+The early examples with cases exhibiting fine marquetry are outside
+the scope of the class of furniture now under consideration. In such
+specimens there is frequently a round or oval opening covered with
+glass in the centre of the panel.
+
+In earlier types the metal dial is square, and later it became
+lunetted at top, and the wood case had a corresponding curve. In
+clocks made for great houses there were chimes, and their works
+were by well-known town makers. But in cottage examples, instead
+of the eight-day movement, more often than not the clock only ran
+for twenty-four hours. There is little attempt at ornament in
+these plain oak varieties. The case is soundly constructed, and
+sometimes, in exceptional examples, the head is surmounted by
+brass ball finials, as in the finer examples. As a rule the country
+cabinet-maker confined himself to an ornamental scrolled head. In
+later examples the metal dial--and these come at the beginning of the
+nineteenth century--is painted with some rustic scene with figures,
+and frequently there is a revolving dial showing the days of the
+month.
+
+ [Illustration: WARMING-PANS.
+
+ Finely decorated with incised work. One with inscription, "The
+ Lord only is my portion."
+
+ (_By the courtesy of Mr. S. G. Fenton._)]
+
+ [Illustration: GRANDFATHER CLOCK.
+
+ With Oak Case.
+
+ Made by J. Paxton, St. Neots. Height, 6 ft. 10 ins.]
+
+ [Illustration: BRASS DIAL OF THIRTY-HOUR CLOCK.
+
+ Single Hand and Alarum. Late Seventeenth Century.
+
+ Ornamented with designs showing various phases of the iron
+ industry, as carried on at Ashburnham, Sussex.
+
+ (_In the collection of Charles Dawson, Esq., F.S.A., Lewes._)]
+
+The entire head covering the dial is often removable in old clocks to
+which there is no hinged door, as in later made examples.
+
+These country grandfather clocks are much treasured by their owners,
+and have been handed down in families for generations. Owing to the
+indefatigability of collectors and their persistent and tempting
+offers, many have left their old homes. The demand has been great,
+and thousands of "grandfather" clocks have been made during the last
+twenty years and sold as "antique," or old cases with plain panels
+have received the unwelcome attention of the modern restorer and have
+been carved to please a popular whim for carved oak panels.
+
+In regard to dates of grandfather clocks the records of the
+Clockmakers' Company give a list of makers of the eighteenth century,
+enabling the period to be fairly accurately fixed. The walnut
+cases inlaid with floral marquetry, often attributed to the period
+1690-1725, that is William and Mary and Queen Anne, frequently belong
+to a quarter of a century later. The case-makers clung more closely
+to old designs than did the clockmakers. Hence the case very often
+is of apparently older style than the works, though both were made
+contemporaneously. In addition to this, new clocks were put in older
+cases, or _vice versa_, which, like putting new pictures in old
+frames, adds to the gaiety of collecting.
+
+In general the London clock-cases are only roughly indicative, in
+comparison with the Company records, of contemporary styles of
+furniture. In country-made pieces the wood cases are anything from
+twenty to forty years behind London fashions. For example, the arched
+top occurs after 1720 in London, and after 1735 in the provinces. In
+the _Director_ of Chippendale and in Sheraton's and Hepplewhite's
+books of designs there are illustrations of clock cases. The
+progression of styles of eighteenth-century grandfather clock cases
+is from plain oak to figured walnut, black and red lacquer, floral,
+"seaweed," or mosaic marquetry, and in the latter decades of the
+eighteenth century inlaid mahogany cases, and many of these have
+finely veneered panels. In many country clocks oak cases are veneered
+in mahogany, but as a rule country made grandfather cases are plain
+oak. The example illustrated (p. 307) indicates the plain type of
+solidly made provincial piece. The clock was made by J. Paxton at St.
+Neots.
+
+The mahogany-cased grandfather clock is never found in cottages.
+There are no Chippendale styles in this field for the collector to
+search for. The plainness of the country style has happily in many
+instances preserved them from alien hands. An interesting revival,
+chiefly on account of expense, is found in the Dutch clock, with
+china face painted with flowers, which the cottager bought in early
+and middle nineteenth-century days. This form of clock reverted to
+the unprotected pendulum and weights, and is an object-lesson in what
+the style of English clock was before the use of a long wooden case.
+But these Dutch clocks are interesting rather than valuable, and have
+not yet claimed the attention of collectors.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+OLD ENGLISH CHINTZES
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+OLD ENGLISH CHINTZES
+
+BY HUGH PHILLIPS
+
+ The charm of old English chintz--Huguenot cloth-printers settle
+ in England--Jacob Stampe at the sign of the Calico Printer--The
+ Queen Anne period--The Chippendale period--The age of machinery.
+
+
+The present chapter has been added with perhaps some justification,
+since it seemed to the writer that such a subject as old English
+chintzes might appropriately take its place beside the equally homely
+craft of the rural cabinet-maker.
+
+For the chintz is the _tapisserie d'aubusson_ of the peasant--it
+covers his chairs and drapes his windows, giving warmth and wealth of
+colour to the otherwise barren appearance of his cottage. Further,
+it reflects his simple horticultural tastes, for the brilliantly
+coloured roses, pansies, and convolvuluses which shine prominently on
+the glazed surface of the cloth are those flowers which are always to
+be found in his garden.
+
+Chintz or printed cotton is the only decorative fabric known to the
+village upholsterer. When persons of wealth hung their windows with
+silk brocades and covered their chairs with costly needlework and
+damasks, the rural cabinet-maker was supplying his modest _clientèle_
+with these homely patterns printed upon common cloth.
+
+These unassuming fabrics were as much cherished by the cottagers as
+anything which they possessed. The classical ornament of expensive
+silks they did not understand, and the freely treated birds and
+flowers which figured on chintz represented the Alpha and Omega of
+beauty in textile design.
+
+So great, indeed, is the fascination of these for the cottagers that
+to-day, in districts less penetrated by modern advance, the rural
+populace will not extend their affections to the up-to-date designs
+of upholsterers, but insist upon the old spot and sprig patterns of
+their ancestors.
+
+There is much wisdom in the conservative taste of the peasant, for
+the old chintz of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was
+of the highest artistic merit. In the heyday of its fame the fabric
+was exceedingly fashionable amongst the richest persons, and there
+are abundant records of the popularity of old English chintzes upon
+the Continent. For, at its best periods, the chintz was not a base
+imitation of more expensive fabrics; it did not, for instance,
+occupy the relationship of pewter to silver or moulded composition
+to genuine woodcarving. On the contrary, the designing of chintzes
+is an art of distinction, governed by canons which bear little
+relationship to other decorative textile crafts. For where the
+silk-weaver is confined to solid patterns which will appear in his
+transverse threads, the printer of cloths can wander unrestrained
+into designs of wonderful intricacy and beauty: every colour in
+nature he can imitate, and no object is too delicate or too rich to
+stamp upon his cotton. Indeed, his art stops little short of that of
+the painter of pictures.
+
+ [Illustration: OLD TRADE CARD SHOWING CALICO PRINTERS AT WORK.
+
+ "Jacob Stampe living at ye Sighn of the Callico Printer in
+ Hounsditch Prints all sorts of Callicoes Lineings Silkes Stuffs
+ New or Ould at Reasonable Rates."
+
+ (_From old print at British Museum._)]
+
+ [Illustration: ENGLISH PRINTED CALICO. ABOUT 1690.
+
+ With contemporary portraits.
+
+ (_By courtesy of Mr. T. D. Phillips._)]
+
+A glance at the illustrations will more closely confirm this, for
+such designs could not be imitated by any other textile process, the
+multitudinous twists and curves and the delicate shades and patches
+of colour being only possible to the printer.
+
+Interesting as is the study of old chintzes, the history of the art
+in England is even more fascinating. From the obscurity of a small
+local craft it became one of our great national industries.
+
+Of its earliest history in England we know nothing, and a search
+among old documents fails to reveal any traces of chintz-printing
+before the Renaissance. There are several vague references to the
+subject in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but none of them
+disclose any solid information. Thus the question of who was the
+first chintz-printer remains an unsolved riddle. It appears, however,
+that in the seventeenth century there was a gradual immigration of
+foreign workmen of Dutch and French nationalities who were well
+versed in the art of cotton-printing--then well established upon the
+Continent. These people came over in gradually increasing numbers,
+their arrival culminating in the huge influx of foreigners about 1650
+to 1700.
+
+The majority of them were by trade silk-weavers and printers. Their
+departure was a serious blow to France, for they transferred to
+England what had been great national industries in France. Settling
+in and about London, the refugees peaceably recommenced their work,
+and soon the weaving of silks in Spitalfields and the printing of
+chintzes in Richmond, Bow, and Old Ford became a source of great
+prosperity to this country.
+
+On p. 319 is an illustration of a seventeenth-century trade card
+of one of the chintz-printers, or, as they were then called,
+calico-printers. Here we see in a most lucid manner the process by
+which chintzes were produced in the time of James II. The inscription
+runs: "Jacob Stampe living at Ye Sighn of the Callico Printer in
+Hounsditch Prints all sorts of Callicoes Lineings Silkes Stuffs, New
+or Ould, at Reasonable Rates."
+
+A printer is standing at a table upon which is stretched a length
+of cloth, which falls in folds on the floor. He holds in his hand a
+wooden block, which he is applying at intervals to the cloth. The
+other hand contains a mallet, which is about to strike the wooden
+block and stamp the colour firmly into the threads of the material.
+Behind him is an apprentice boy, standing over a tub of colour,
+preparing the blocks for his master to use.
+
+ [Illustration: HAND-PRINTED CHINTZ.
+
+ Queen Anne Period.]
+
+ [Illustration: HAND-PRINTED CHINTZ.
+
+ Chinese style. Middle Eighteenth Century.]
+
+By so clumsy a process very delicate work could not be produced,
+and, indeed, the few examples of this period which remain are very
+heavy in character. One of these, which has been lent by Mr. J. D.
+Phillips, the owner, is illustrated on p. 319. It belongs to the
+end of the seventeenth century and corresponds to the William and
+Mary period of English furniture, being contemporary with the pieces
+illustrated on pp. 77, 117 in the earlier chapters. It will be seen
+that this example contains two portraits in costume of the late
+Stuart period, possibly intended for portraits of William and Mary.
+Their portraits are of frequent occurrence on Lambeth delft of this
+period.
+
+The printer has only produced the outline, the colour being added by
+hand with a brush, for at this date the printing of colour by the
+successive application of blocks had not been mastered. The black
+ink to-day lies thick upon the cloth, as coarsely as though it had
+been dabbed on with a stencil. The material is a rough hand-woven
+canvas. Printed cloths of the period of Charles II. and James II. and
+William and Mary are exceedingly rare and seldom met with, as, owing
+to their roughness, they have been destroyed by subsequent owners. A
+few, however, are to be found on walnut chairs under the coverings
+of later date. Often, indeed, one meets a chair covered in Victorian
+horsehair which will reveal underneath the successive coverings of
+many generations of owners, including perhaps the material in which
+it was first upholstered.
+
+As the seventeenth century wore on and we enter upon the early
+years of the eighteenth century--the days of Queen Anne--the
+chintz-printers became more prosperous. Their work, owing to its
+increasing delicacy, met with great public approval, and it began
+to supplant woven silks for the purposes of curtains, coverings, and
+dresses. Thus the silk-weavers of Spitalfields found a declining
+market for their goods and soon came into friction with the printers.
+Much bad feeling ensued, and eventually their quarrels resulted
+in the distribution of defamatory literature which is to-day most
+amusing. The weavers circulated the curious "Spittlefields Ballad"
+against "Calico Madams," or the ladies who wore chintz dresses.
+
+THE SPITTLEFIELDS BALLADS
+
+OR THE
+
+WEAVER'S COMPLAINT AGAINST THE CALLICO MADAMS
+
+ Our trade is so bad
+ That the weavers run mad
+ Through the want of both work and provisions,
+ That some hungry poor rogues
+ Feed on grains like our hogs,
+ They're reduced to such wretched conditions,
+ Then well may they tayre
+ What our ladies now wear
+ And as foes to our country upbraid 'em,
+ Till none shall be thought
+ A more scandalous slut
+ Than a tawdry Callico Madam.
+
+ When our trade was in wealth
+ Our women had health,
+ We silks, rich embroideries and satins,
+ Fine stuffs and good crapes
+ For each ord'nary trapes
+ That is destin'd to hobble in pattins;
+ But now we've a Chince
+ For the wife of a prince,
+ And a butterfly gown for a gay dame,
+ Thin painted old sheets
+ For each trull in the streets
+ To appear like a Callico Madam.
+
+ [Illustration: HAND-PRINTED CHINTZ.
+
+ Exotic-Bird style. Middle Eighteenth Century.]
+
+ [Illustration: HAND-PRINTED CHINTZ.
+
+ Gothic style. Late Eighteenth Century.]
+
+The poet in several long stanzas warms in his indignation, and
+finally directs his verse against the male friends of all fair
+wearers of chintzes, suggesting that--
+
+ "It's no matter at all
+ If the Prince of Iniquity had 'em,
+ Or that each for a bride
+ Should be cursedly tied
+ To some damn'd Callico Madam."
+
+It is not surprising that the weavers should find it difficult to
+set their productions against those of the cloth-printers, for the
+chintzes of this period are surpassingly beautiful. One of them
+is illustrated on p. 323. Here the material is no longer a rough
+canvas, but is now a light dress cambric, similar to the thin smooth
+chintz cloth which has survived till to-day. A delicate pattern of
+intertwining stems winds upwards, the stalks having blossoms of
+finely cut outline and brilliant colours. Old chintzes of this period
+may be recognised by their lightness and by the long thin designs of
+intermingling flowers of Indian type. These were all more or less
+borrowed from the Marsupalitan printed cloths brought over by the
+India trading companies, and the flowers and colourings of this date
+are nearly always very closely copied from Eastern originals, the
+cornflower and carnation being among those most frequently met with.
+
+The ill-feeling between the printers and weavers was of long
+duration, and eventually took the form of open riots and street
+demonstrations similar to those of to-day. On one occasion, in
+1719, they went from Spitalfields to Westminster and protested
+against the popularity of chintzes and suggested that their use be
+forbidden. On the return journey they manifested their feelings by
+tearing off the chintz gowns of various ladies whom they met upon
+the route. Evidently Parliament pandered to these labour riots, for
+in 1736 printed cloths were forbidden by Act of Parliament, but this
+legislation was of short duration; the Act was soon repealed and the
+fascinating material became the rage once more.
+
+The next stage at which we look upon chintz-printing is about
+1760, in the middle of the period of Chippendale furniture. This
+is the golden period of its printing. Technically and artistically
+the hand-printed chintz now reached its climax. Colour-work by
+superimposed blocks was in full swing, and the designer had, in
+the works of contemporary artists, a wider field for the selection
+of subjects suitable for his fabric. Among the many varieties of
+chintzes which we find at this date the most prominent are the Gothic
+and Chinese designs to suit the current taste in furniture, and the
+exotic bird patterns, which are perhaps the finest of all.
+
+ [Illustration: HAND-PRINTED CHINTZ. ABOUT 1760.
+
+ By R. Jones, of Old Ford, London.]
+
+The formation of the designs has changed considerably by this time
+and we no longer find the intertwining or serpentine form as in the
+Queen Anne chintzes. The flowers and objects to be printed are now
+massed together and represented as little disjointed islands
+floating in mid-air. By this distinctive feature they may easily be
+recognised. One of these charming exotic bird chintzes is illustrated
+on p. 327. Here a pheasant is resting under a palm-tree upon a small
+island of densely packed foliage. The whole idea of the design
+is taken from the Chinese porcelain of the period. The bird, the
+flowers, and every object portrayed come from the East and are drawn
+in the manner constantly seen upon the _Famille Rose_ dishes and
+vases of the period. These exotic bird patterns are not exclusively
+found upon chintzes, for the collector of English porcelain will be
+familiar with them in the early productions of the Bow and Worcester
+factories.
+
+Another feature which one notices in printed fabrics at this date is
+the buff ground. The cloth is white, and the pattern is printed upon
+it in this state so that the pinks, blues, and greens of the flowers
+may have every advantage of transparency. The buff background is then
+printed in afterwards, leaving a thin margin around the design. In
+this manner great richness and depth is given to the colours without
+undue harshness, which would be the result if they were exhibited
+upon a white background. The illustration on p. 323 shows a chintz in
+the Chinese manner, designed to conform with the oriental furniture
+of Chippendale. Here again we see the detached islets of vegetation,
+but instead of exotic birds we have Chinese vases containing flowers,
+and in the foreground a rococo shell, one of the then little-known
+species from the East greatly treasured in England. The carnations
+and foliage will be readily recognised as copies from Chinese
+paintings. One might illustrate a very large number of these Chinese
+chintzes, but space will only permit one example. This particular
+specimen is probably unique; it is taken from an old roll of chintz
+printed about 1760 and left over after the owner had curtained
+his house. The roll (about twenty yards long) has been carefully
+preserved and handed down from generation to generation, so that its
+original colours and soft glaze remain intact.
+
+A chintz in the Gothic manner is illustrated on p. 327. It differs
+slightly from the others in that the island formation is combined
+with serpentine foliage. In the centre is a patch of ground upon
+which are the ruins of a Gothic church. The artist, however, has not
+forgotten to please those patrons who might prefer the Chinese style,
+and therefore he has quietly added the incongruous elements of prunus
+flowers in the foreground and palm-trees in the background. At first
+this quaint admixture may appear a bad art, but it must be remembered
+that at this quaint period the whole principle of decorative design
+was upset by the rococo school, and quaintness and delicacy of detail
+outweighed the greater considerations of line and proportion. We
+find a similar treatment of design later on in many Spode plates,
+especially in blue transfer-printed subjects.
+
+ [Illustration: PRINTED CHINTZ.
+
+ Hepplewhite Period.]
+
+ [Illustration: PRINTED CHINTZ.
+
+ Victorian Period.]
+
+In the third quarter of the eighteenth century we enter upon a new
+era in the history of chintzes. We may appropriately call it the
+age of machinery, for from this date the mechanical processes came
+in whereby chintz-printing was raised from the position of a
+comparatively small craft to that of a huge national industry. The
+great manufacturing towns in the North, such as Manchester, were
+rising in importance, and Lancashire was forming the basis of its
+gigantic cotton trade. Following these trade movements, the old
+industry of cloth-printing gradually left its centre in London and
+was developed on a larger scale in the North of England.
+
+In spite of this great commercial spirit which seized the printing of
+textiles, hand-block printing did not pass away, for it has survived
+till to-day as the best method for fine artistic work; cretonnes and
+chintzes produced in this manner, even during the nineteenth century,
+are always good. Mechanical roller work, however, was responsible for
+a large output of work which is little worthy of preservation, and
+in the nineteenth century we find much machine-printed chintz which,
+to say the least, is not reminiscent of the fine handwork which
+preceded it in the mid-eighteenth century. The earliest machine-work
+was carried out by means of engraved copper plates applied to the
+cloth in a printer's press. One of these is illustrated on p. 331.
+It is exceedingly fine in its details, and very few old specimens of
+this pattern are in existence. In several places are inserted the
+printer's name and date, "R. Jones, Old Ford, 1761." The design is
+doubtless borrowed from the _Toiles de Jouy_, printed by a Bavarian
+at Jouay, near Versailles, about this time. The drawing, however, is
+finer than any specimens of his work which have come to the author's
+notice. A shepherdess is tending to her flock amid a classical ruin
+while she is listening to the music of a flute. In another portion of
+the design, a cock and hen are mourning for the loss of one of their
+brood which has been carried off by an eagle. This design is worthy
+of interest for its superior quality, as it must have been produced
+for some very fine house. There is another specimen printed in red in
+the Victoria and Albert Museum. The one which is illustrated here was
+found upon an exceedingly fine Chippendale bedstead.
+
+During the Hepplewhite and Sheraton periods of furniture the chintz
+ceases to have its pattern detached and grouped. Architectural
+details with figures disappear, and once more the designer returns to
+flowers as his subject for illustration. The foliage, however, now
+takes the form of vertical stripes, being contained within lace-like
+ribands placed at even distances. On p. 335 is an illustration of a
+chintz about 1790 in which these features will be noticed.
+
+In the nineteenth century we find the chintz covered with disjointed
+sprigs, as though the flowers had been plucked and cast upon the
+cloth. Their outline is softened by a margin of dots. An illustration
+of this style is shown on p. 335.
+
+ [Illustration: PRINTED CHINTZ.
+
+ From the Calico Printing Factory at Sobden, in Lancashire.
+ Printed in 1831 under the direction of Richard Cobden.
+
+ (_In the collection of Mrs. Cobden Unwin._)]
+
+One need not pursue the history of chintzes further, for to do so
+would entail a discussion of modern methods. Suffice it to say that
+in the nineteenth century we come across the hideous black grounds,
+the base imitation of woven designs, leopard skins, and other
+inartistic perversions. We must rather bid adieu to this beautiful
+art ere it has begun to decline. It will afford the reader much
+pleasure if he should form a collection of old specimens and frame
+them around his walls, for then he will fully appreciate their charm.
+In examining his own collection the author has spent many a pleasant
+hour, for these gaily coloured chintzes are among the most articulate
+relics which have come down to us. They breathe the spirit, the
+feelings, and the ideals of the periods wherein they were made. They
+show lucidly the various changes in fashion and the rise and wane
+in the popularity of certain forms of decoration. So delectable are
+their soft, faded colours, so fascinating are the designs, and above
+all, so enchanting is the old-world musty scent which always clings
+to them, that it would be hard indeed to withhold one's affection
+from them.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+ Adam style table, 186
+
+ America, the Windsor chair acclimatised in, 246
+
+ America, spindle-back chairs, 239
+
+ America, carved chests of Puritan colonists, 60
+
+ America, types coincident with Jacobean, 60
+
+ Anachronism in country makers' work, 204
+
+ Anne, Queen, chintz printing in time of, 325
+
+ Anne, Queen, style--cabriole leg, advent of, 167
+
+ Anne, Queen, chests of drawers, 67
+
+ Anne, Queen, scandal at Court of, 158
+
+ Anne, Queen, so-called style, 167
+
+
+ Back--the chair, and its development, 203
+
+ Bacon cupboards, 154
+
+ Ball and claw foot, introduction of, 162
+
+ "Barley sugar" turning, illustrated, 105
+
+ Bedfordshire tables, 283
+
+ Bedstead, Jacobean, illustrated, 77
+
+ Bevel of panel indicating date, 204
+
+ Bible-boxes, 34, 139-154
+
+ Bloomfield, Robert, quoted, 268
+
+ Bobbins, Buckinghamshire, 153
+
+ Brittany dressers, 134
+
+ Broken corners, Queen Anne style, 167, 169
+
+ Buckinghamshire bobbins, 153
+
+ Bureau bookcase and cupboard, 176
+
+ Bureaus, marquetry in coloured woods, 169
+
+ Byzantine types of furniture existent in Elizabethan days, 37
+
+
+ Cabriole leg, advent of the, 167
+
+ Cabriole leg (Queen Anne period), 129
+
+ Cambridge tables, 283
+
+ Candle dipper, the, 288
+
+ Cane-back chairs, 203, 207
+
+ Cane-back chairs, late Stuart, 199
+
+ Cane-back chair, its influence on farmhouse styles, 208
+
+ Caning in chairs out of fashion, 162
+
+ Chairs--
+ America, Windsor chair, types of, 246
+ Back, the, its development, 203
+ Caned-back chair, its influence on farmhouse styles, 208
+ Caned chairs, late Stuart, 199, 203, 207
+ Caning out of fashion, 162
+ Charles II. period styles, 211
+ Chippendale styles, 179
+ Chippendale, Windsor styles, 254
+ Corner chairs, 240
+ Country Chippendale, Hepplewhite and Sheraton, 221
+ Cupid's bow top rail, 218
+ Cushions, their use with, 199, 207
+ Derbyshire chairs, 203
+ Elizabethan turned chairs, 37
+ Evolution of the chair, 189-241
+ Fiddle splat chairs, introduction of, 162
+ Fiddle splat, Queen Anne style, 217
+ Fiddle splat, Windsor, at its best, 254
+ "Fiddle-string" backs, 249
+ Goldsmith, Oliver, his chair, 253
+ Grandfather variety, 168, 230
+ Hepplewhite country styles, 221
+ Hepplewhite Windsor chairs, 254
+ Horseshoe back, Windsor, 259, 260
+ Jacobean, typical form, 196
+ Ladder-back chairs, 233
+ Lancashire rush-bottom chairs, 241
+ Lancashire spindle back chairs, 278
+ Modern office-chair, derivation of, 260
+ Prince of Wales's feathers in back, 227
+ Ribbon-back, introduction of, 179
+ Rush-bottomed chairs, 233
+ Shell ornament employed, 167
+ Sheraton country styles, 221
+ Sheraton Windsor chairs, 259, 260
+ Spindle-back chairs, 234
+ Splat, Queen Anne, the, 217
+ Straight-backed chairs, 203
+ Stretcher, evolution of the, 200
+ Tavern chairs, 249
+ Wheel-back Windsor chairs, 259
+ Woods used, Windsor chairs, 249, 250
+
+ Charles II. chests of drawers, 62
+
+ Charles II. period, impetus given to furniture design, 95
+
+ Charles II. period, styles of chairs, 211
+
+ Chests, Gothic, 34
+
+ Chests, sixteenth century, 34
+
+ Chests, Welsh carving, 277
+
+ Chests of drawers, 60
+
+ Chests of drawers, Charles II. period, 62
+
+ Chests of drawers, Queen Anne style, 67
+
+ Children's stools, Jacobean, illustrated, 77
+
+ Chimney crane, the, 294
+
+ China and glass cupboards, 180
+
+ Chinese designs in chintzes, 333
+
+ Chinese style of Chippendale, 227
+
+ Chintz printing becomes a national industry, 321
+
+ Chintzes, old English, 317-341
+
+ Chippendale and his contemporaries, 180
+
+ Chippendale clock cases, 312
+
+ Chippendale quoted, 227, 228
+
+ Chippendale, ribbon designs of, 179
+
+ Chippendale style, provincial, 221
+
+ Chippendale style Windsor chairs, 254
+
+ Chocolate houses, polemic against, 170
+
+ Chronology, seventeenth-century, 45-48
+
+ Claw-and-ball foot, introduction of, 162
+
+ Clock and dresser combined, 129
+
+ Clocks, grandfather, 306
+
+ Club foot, introduction of, 162
+
+ Cobbett, William, quoted, 67
+
+ Coffee-drinking and coffee-houses, 170
+
+ Coffee, women's petition against, 170
+
+ Corner chairs, 240
+
+ Cottage furniture and earthenware compared, 31
+
+ Country cabinet-maker, his mixture of styles, 211
+
+ Country Chippendale, Hepplewhite and Sheraton, 221
+
+ Country furniture, its sturdy independence, 24
+
+ Country makers little influenced by contemporary fashion, 50
+
+ Cradles, 148
+
+ Cromwellian chests with drawers, 52
+
+ Crusie, the Scottish, 277, 293
+
+ Cupboard, the bacon, 154
+
+ Cupboard, Welsh carving, 277
+
+ Cupboards, corner, introduction of, 162
+
+ Cupboards and drawers, taste for, 125
+
+ "Cupid's bow" underframing, 107, 185
+
+ "Cupid's bow" top rail of chair, 218
+
+ Cushions, their use with chairs, 199, 207
+
+
+ Delany, Mrs., quoted, 153
+
+ Denmark, the conservation of old farmhouse furniture in, 38
+
+ Derbyshire chairs, 203
+
+ Design books, eighteenth-century, publication of, 222
+
+ _Director_, by Chippendale, a working guide, 223
+
+ Drawer accommodation a feature in late dressers, 130
+
+ Drawers, chests of, 60
+
+ Drawers, chests of, Charles II. period, 62
+
+ Drawers, chests of, Queen Anne style, 67
+
+ Dresser and clock combined, 129
+
+ Dressers, farmhouse, 115-135
+
+ Dressers--
+ Brittany, 134
+ Lancashire, 134
+ Normandy, 134
+ Welsh, 133
+
+ Dutch artisans print early English chintzes, 321
+
+ Dutch influence early eighteenth century, 168, 170
+
+
+ Earthenware and cottage furniture compared, 31
+
+ Eighteenth-century dressers, 130
+
+ Eighteenth-century pleasure gardens, 249
+
+ Eighteenth-century styles, 157-187
+
+ Elizabethan turned chairs, 37
+
+ English chintzes, old, 317-341
+
+ English farmhouse furniture, desirability of its preservation, 42
+
+ English joiners' work, its solidity, 51
+
+ Essex tables, 283
+
+ Exotic bird patterns in chintzes, 333
+
+
+ "Farmer's Boy" (Robert Bloomfield) quoted, 268
+
+ Farmhouse furniture (English), desirability of its preservation, 42
+
+ Farmhouse furniture influenced by walnut styles, 208
+
+ Farmhouse styles contemporary with the cane-back chair, 208
+
+ Feet--
+ Arcaded foot, Charles II. period, 62
+ Ball, 62;
+ illustrated, 65
+ Claw-and-ball foot, introduction of the, 162
+ Club foot, its introduction, 162
+ Hoof foot, the, 176
+ Scroll or Spanish foot, 104, 203
+ Spanish foot, the, 104, 203
+ Spanish foot, in corrupted form, illustrated, 105, 109
+ Trestle, in Gothic style, 90
+
+ Fiddle splat chairs, introduction of, 162
+
+ Fiddle splat, Queen Anne style, 217
+
+ Fiddle splat Windsor chair at its best, 254
+
+ "Fiddle-string" backs, 249
+
+ Firebacks, Sussex, 296
+
+ Firebacks, Sussex, fine examples exhibited, 305
+
+ Firedogs, cottage and farmhouse, 294
+
+ Food of country population, seventeenth century, 81
+
+ Foreign styles, slow assimilation of, 67
+
+ French artisans print early English chintzes, 321
+
+
+ Gate-leg tables, 85-112
+
+ Gate-leg table, double gates, 96;
+ illustrated, 93
+
+ Gate-leg table, established as a popular type, 90
+
+ Gate-leg table, square top, illustrated, 105
+
+ Geometric panels, chests of drawers, 61;
+ dressers, 121
+
+ Georgian styles, early types, 179
+
+ Gibbons, Grinling, the style of, 56
+
+ Goldsmith, Oliver, his chair, 253
+
+ Gothic brackets to chests, 34
+
+ Gothic chests, 34
+
+ Gothic trestle, gate-leg table, 89
+
+ Grandfather chair, the, 230
+
+ Grandfather chair, curved lines of, 168
+
+ Grandfather clocks, 306
+
+ Grandfather clock combined with dresser, 129
+
+ Great Seal of Queen Anne, showing style of ornament, 168
+
+
+ Hardwick Hall, suite at, 55
+
+ Hepplewhite clock cases, 312
+
+ Hepplewhite influence on village work, 207
+
+ Hepplewhite quoted, 229, 230
+
+ Hepplewhite style, provincial, 221
+
+ Hertfordshire tables, 283
+
+ Hogarth, the line of beauty the curve, 168
+
+ Hoof foot, the, 176
+
+ Horseshoe-back Windsor chairs, 130, 257, 260
+
+
+ Incongruity of provincial cabinet-maker, 211
+
+ Inlaid work rarely employed, 55
+
+ Inlaid work with walnut, 169
+
+ Inlaid work, woods used, 169
+
+ Irish Chippendale, 272
+
+ Ironwork, miscellaneous, 287-313
+
+ Ironwork, Scottish, 277
+
+ Isle of Man tables, 283
+
+
+ Jacobean cradles, 148
+
+ Jacobean dressers with geometric panels, 121
+
+ Jacobean furniture, typical styles, 49
+
+ Jacobean oak chair, typical form, 196
+
+ Jacobean period, its characteristics, 95
+
+ Jacobean period, late styles of, 115
+
+ Jacobean style, its transition to William and Mary, 207
+
+ Jacobean Sussex firebacks, 299, 300
+
+ Joinery, the solidity of English, 51
+
+ Jones, R., of Old Ford, chintz printer, 337
+
+
+ Kettle trivet, the cottager's, 295
+
+
+ Lacquer employed in clock-cases, 312
+
+ Ladder-back chair, the, 233
+
+ Lancashire chintzes, 337
+
+ Lancashire dressers, 134
+
+ Lancashire furniture, 278
+
+ Lancashire Queen Anne settle, 167
+
+ Lancashire rush-bottom chair, 241
+
+ Legs--
+ "Barley sugar" turning illustrated, 105
+ Cabriole leg, introduction of the, 167
+ Egg and reel turning, 43;
+ illustrated, 93
+ Eight legs (gate table), 99
+ Elizabethan bulbous leg, 60
+ Jacobean straight-turned leg, 60
+ Jacobean, various forms of turning, 89
+ Queen Anne cabriole leg, 129
+ Six legs, gate table, illustrated, 99
+ Split urn leg, illustrated, 91, 119
+ Straight leg again in vogue, 180
+ Urn-shaped leg, 60
+ Urn-shaped splat, 121;
+ illustrated, 91, 119
+
+ Linen-fold pattern on chests, 32
+
+ Local types, 33
+
+ Local types of furniture, 267-284
+
+ London and the vicinity, chintz printed in, 322
+
+ Longleat, oak furniture at, 55
+
+ Lyngby (near Copenhagen), collection of old farmhouse furniture at, 41
+
+
+ Macaulay quoted, 158
+
+ Macaulay, "State of England in 1685" quoted, 76
+
+ Mahogany gate-leg tables, 103
+
+ Mahogany styles, their gracefulness, 179
+
+ Mahogany, the chief designers of, of the golden age, 104
+
+ Marlborough, Duchess of, and her intrigues, 158
+
+ Marquetry bureaus in coloured woods, 169
+
+ Marquetry, woods used in, 169
+
+ Minor cabinet-makers' work lacking harmony, 212
+
+ Modern office-chair, derivation from Windsor type, 263
+
+ More, Hannah, and the agricultural classes, 175
+
+ Morris, William, his influence on furniture, 111
+
+ "Mule" chests, 52
+
+
+ Norfolk, oak furniture, 283
+
+ Normandy dressers, 134
+
+ Normans, furniture, styles of, introduced by, 37
+
+ North, Roger, quoted, 170
+
+
+ Oak, erroneously used to carry out walnut designs, 212
+
+ Oak, general in its use, 55
+
+ Oak supplanted by walnut in fashionable furniture, 207
+
+ Oak the chief wood employed, 33
+
+ Office-chair, derivation from Windsor type, 263
+
+ Oriental patterns in chintzes, 333
+
+
+ Panelling, bevel of, indicating date of, 204
+
+ Panels, sunk, Jacobean style, 62
+
+ Patterns, wood, used for firebacks, 300
+
+ People, changing habits of the, in seventeenth century, 72
+
+ Pepys's _Diary_, quoted, 79
+
+ Pleasure gardens, eighteenth-century, 249
+
+ Pot-hook, the, 294
+
+ Pot-hooks, fine examples, where exhibited, 294
+
+ Prince of Wales's feathers, 227
+
+ Provincial furniture many decades behind fashion, 50
+
+
+ Queen Anne, cabriole leg, 129
+
+ Queen Anne dressers, 122
+
+ Queen Anne flap tables, 89
+
+ Queen Anne period, the splat of the, 217
+
+
+ Restoration period, chests of drawers, 62
+
+ Ribbon designs, introduction of, 179
+
+ Roads in provinces, bad state of, 79
+
+ Rush-bottom chair, the, 233
+
+ Rushlight holder, the, 288
+
+
+ Scandinavian origin of Elizabethan chair, 37
+
+ Scotland, Union with, proclamation by Queen Anne, 161
+
+ Scottish types of ironwork, 277
+
+ "Seaweed" marquetry in clock-cases, 312
+
+ Settle, Lancashire form, 278
+
+ Settle, Queen Anne style, 167
+
+ Seventeenth-century, chronology of, 45-48
+
+ Seventeenth-century settle (Lancashire), 278
+
+ Seventeenth-century sideboard, typical style, 56
+
+ Seventeenth-century styles, 49-82
+
+ Seventeenth-century styles, types of, 72
+
+ Shell ornament, early eighteenth-century, 167
+
+ Sheraton clock-cases, 312
+
+ Sheraton influence on country makers, 234
+
+ Sheraton influence in Windsor chairs, 259
+
+ Sheraton style, provincial, 221
+
+ Sideboard, typical seventeenth-century style, 56
+
+ Sixteenth-century chests, 34
+
+ Sizergh Castle, oak room at, 55
+
+ Spanish foot, its use, 104, 107
+
+ Spanish Succession, War of the, 161
+
+ Spindle-back chair, the, 234
+
+ Spindle-back chairs (Lancashire), 278
+
+ Spinning-wheels, 153
+
+ Spitalfields weavers, complaint as to chintz fashions, 326, 330
+
+ Splat, the Queen Anne, 217
+
+ Staffordshire pottery and cottage furniture compared, 31
+
+ Stands for chests of drawers, 67
+
+ Stockholm, collection of farmhouse furniture at, 38
+
+ Stools, children's Jacobean, illustrated, 77
+
+ Straight-backed chairs, 203
+
+ Stretcher, evolution of the, 200
+
+ Stretcher, Yorkshire splat form, 96
+
+ Suffolk oak furniture, 283
+
+ Sussex firebacks, 296
+
+ Sussex ironworks, the, 295, 296
+
+ "Swan head" to cupboard, 168
+
+ Sweden, the conservation of old farmhouse furniture in, 38
+
+ Swift quoted, 161
+
+
+ Tables--
+ Adam style, 186
+ Arcaded spandrils, illustrated, 179
+ Bedfordshire types, 283
+ Cambridge types, 283
+ Collapsible form (Charles II.), 103
+ Cross stretcher, =X= form, 103
+ Cupid's bow underframing, 107;
+ illustrated, 109
+ Elizabethan bulbous-leg form, 60
+ Essex types, 283
+ Flap tables (Queen Anne), 89;
+ (Georgian), illustrated, 183
+ Gate-leg, 85-112
+ Gothic trestle, gate-leg table, 89
+ Hertfordshire types, 283
+ Isle of Man table, 283
+ Scalloped-edge tea-table, illustrated, 181
+ Scalloped underframing, illustrated, 73
+ Sixteenth-century style, 52
+ Spandrils, arcaded, illustrated, 179
+ Stretchers, splat form, 89;
+ illustrated, 97
+ Tea-table, Queen Anne style, 185
+ Three-legged, 283
+ Underframing, Cupid's bow, illustrated, 109
+ Various local types, 283
+ Yorkshire type, 89
+
+ Tapers, how made by cottagers, 288
+
+ Tavern chair, the, 249
+
+ Tea-drinking becomes national, 170
+
+ Tea-gardens, eighteenth-century, 249
+
+ Tea-table, Queen Anne style, 185
+
+ Three-legged tables, 283
+
+ Transition from Jacobean to William and Mary styles, 207
+
+ Trestle in gate-leg table, 89
+
+ Triangular gate form, 86;
+ illustrated, 87
+
+ Tripod tables, 185
+
+ Turning, various patterns in Jacobean leg, 89
+
+
+ Union with Scotland, 161
+
+
+ Varangian Guard introduce Byzantine furniture into Scandinavia, 37
+
+ Veneer, in walnut, early eighteenth-century, 169
+
+ Village cabinet-maker, originality of, 32
+
+
+ Wales, Prince of, feathers in chair back, 227
+
+ Walnut gate-leg tables, 103
+
+ Walnut in general use, 207
+
+ Walnut styles, early eighteenth-century, 169
+
+ Walnut supplanted by mahogany, 207
+
+ Warming-pan, the, 295
+
+ Wardrobe, Lancashire type, 278
+
+ Welsh carving, 272
+
+ Welsh dressers, 133
+
+ Wesley and the Methodist movement, 175
+
+ Whitefield and the colliers, 175
+
+ Wheel-back Windsor chairs, 257
+
+ William and Mary dressers, 126
+
+ William and Mary gate-leg tables, 104
+
+ William and Mary period, finely turned work, 75
+
+ William and Mary style, its development from Jacobean, 207
+
+ Windsor chair, the, 243-263
+
+ Windsor chair, the, Sheraton influence, 259
+
+ Windsor chair, its survival, 260
+
+ Windsor chairs, Chippendale style, 254
+
+ Wood patterns used for firebacks, 300
+
+ Woods employed in farmhouse furniture, 33
+
+ Woods used in Windsor chairs, 249, 250
+
+ Woods used in walnut marquetry, 169
+
+ Women's petition against coffee, 170
+
+
+ Yorkshire chairs, 203
+
+ Yorkshire splat stretcher to tables, 96
+
+
+UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON.
+
+
+
+
+VOLUMES FOR COLLECTORS
+
+BY THE SAME AUTHOR
+
+
+CHATS ON OLD FURNITURE
+
+Companion volume to "Chats on Cottage and Farmhouse Furniture"
+
+_Press Notices, First Edition_
+
+"Mr. Hayden knows his subject intimately."--_Pall Mall Gazette._
+
+"The hints to collectors are the best and clearest we have seen; so
+that altogether this is a model book of its kind."--_Athenæum._
+
+"A useful and instructive volume."--_Spectator._
+
+"An abundance of illustrations completes a well-written and
+well-constructed history."--_Daily News._
+
+"Mr. Hayden's taste is sound and his knowledge thorough."--_Scotsman._
+
+"A book of more than usual comprehensiveness and more than usual
+merit."--_Vanity Fair._
+
+"Mr. Hayden has worked at his subject on systematic lines, and has
+made his book what it purports to be--a practical guide for the
+collector."--_Saturday Review._
+
+
+CHATS ON ENGLISH CHINA
+
+_Press Notices, First Edition_
+
+"A handsome handbook that the amateur in doubt will find useful,
+and the china-lover will enjoy for its illustrations, and for the
+author's obvious love and understanding of his subject."--_St.
+James's Gazette._
+
+"All lovers of china will find much entertainment in this
+volume."--_Daily News._
+
+"It gives in a few pithy chapters just what the beginner wants to
+know about the principal varieties of English ware. We can warmly
+commend the book to the china collector."--_Pall Mall Gazette._
+
+"One of the best points about the book is the clear way in which the
+characteristics of each factory are noted down separately, so that
+the veriest tyro ought to be able to judge for himself if he has a
+piece or pieces which would come under this heading, and the marks
+are very accurately given."--_Queen._
+
+
+CHATS ON ENGLISH EARTHENWARE
+
+(Companion volume to "Chats on English China")
+
+"Complementary to the useful companion volume, in this 'Chats'
+Series, on English China which Mr. Hayden issued five years
+ago."--_Times._
+
+"Is a compendious account of our native English faïence, abundantly
+illustrated and accurately written."--_Guardian._
+
+"A thoroughly trustworthy working handbook."--_Truth._
+
+"It is a mine of knowledge, gathered from all quarters, and the
+outcome of personal experience and research, and it is written with
+no little charm of style."--_Lady's Pictorial._
+
+"Mr. Hayden knows and writes exactly what is needed to help the
+amateur to become an intelligent collector, while his painstaking
+care in verifying facts renders his work a stable book of
+reference."--_Connoisseur._
+
+"The volume has been written as a companion to Mr. Hayden's 'Chats
+on English China' in the same series, and those who recall the
+admirable character of that book will find this to be in no way
+inferior."--_Nation._
+
+"The illustrations are profuse and excellent, and the author and the
+publishers must be commended for offering us so many reproductions of
+typical specimens that have not appeared in any previous handbook.
+The illustrations alone are worth the cost of the book."--_Manchester
+Guardian._
+
+"Mr. Hayden's book is filled to overflowing with beautiful and most
+instructive and helpful illustrations, and altogether it is one that
+will give immense pleasure to collectors, and much information to the
+admiring but ignorant."--_Liverpool Courier._
+
+
+CHATS ON OLD PRINTS
+
+A Practical Guide to Collecting and Identifying Old Engravings.
+
+"Mr. Hayden writes at once with enthusiasm and discrimination on his
+theme."--_Daily Telegraph._
+
+"Any one who, having an initial interest in matters of art, wants to
+form sound and intelligent opinions about engravings, will find this
+book the very thing for him."--_Literary World._
+
+"These 'Chats' comprise a full and admirably lucid description of
+every branch of the engraver's art, with copious and suggestive
+illustrations."--_Morning Leader._
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Chats on Cottage and Farmhouse
+Furniture, by Arthur Hayden
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44603 ***
generated by cgit v1.2.3 (git 2.25.1) at 2026-01-03 21:42:06 +0000