JACOBEAN STYLES TO CHARLES II
Brutally natural we may call the earlier characters in English history, but attached to the Stuart name there is always poetic romance. And without romance what would our lives be! So when we sit in our loved library or dining-room at home, embellished by a few bits of furniture such as the Stuarts lived among, those bits are like consolidated stories, things to dream about in the hours of ease.
James I and his son Charles cared about things they lived with, and cared, too, about giving them as much as possible a certain lightness of effect, in revolt from Tudor bulk. Perhaps the necessity for surpassing strength was waning. Men no longer wore tons of armour, furniture in the seventeenth century no longer journeyed from castle to castle. Inigo Jones was at work also, with his marvellous talent at classical architecture, setting a standard of cheerful elegance in design that lightened the Tudor magnificence.
When James I began to rule in 1603, Inigo Jones, a lightsome young man of thirty, was employed by the King as a composer of masques. After developing his architect's talent he produced the palace at Whitehall, Hatfield House and other residences. His also was the invention that threw over the steps to the Thames the noble water-gate, York Stairs, that stands there now, a record of the merry days when ladies and cavaliers, all gay as flowers, crossed the greensward, filed under this richly carved arch, and were handed into elegantly equipped barges on the river.
While things of an artistic sort were progressing in England, other events closely concerning us in America were also active. The entire century runs two parallel lines of history, one that of the gaiety of the house in power, the other that of the struggle of the people divided into religious sects. While "'twas merry in the Hall, when beards wagged all," persecution was rife among religionists, and the Puritans were finding it hard to stay in their own loved land.
Thus came the sufferers to America to plant new homes; and thus coming, brought with them such furniture as was in vogue at the time of migrating. And so it happens that our earliest bits of furniture, chairs that supported grim Pilgrim fathers, tables which were set out by provident Puritan mothers and maids, are Jacobean in mode. The chair of Elder Brewster which has asylum in Hartford, Conn., is a fine example of the heavy turned work of the day, and numerous oak chairs show the strap-work and other low-relief carving so well known in early Jacobean pieces.
One especial class of chair (Plate 12) when found in England is called for one of its shires, Yorkshire, but when drawn from New England hiding places, we name it a wainscote chair. The design of the back easily gives reason for the name, for it is formed from a bit of panelling similar to that in vogue for walls. Stolid and strong are these chairs, square-built and stayed with four strong stretchers, usually near the floor.
The collector considers the charm irresistibly increased when the front stretcher is well worn with the friction of many feet, the resting feet of a long procession that has walked down the centuries. Even better is the smoothness of the chair-arms which comes by contact with the human hand, that restless member with a habit of idly rubbing an inviting surface. Like all makers of chairs, the ancient cabinet-maker left back-legs in utilitarian simplicity, while he limited variety to the front-legs. In this type of chair, turning gave the usual ornamentation. This baluster effect had many varieties, but all united in finishing with a square block at the bottom and where the seat-frame met the leg, or where the front stretcher crossed, if it was placed high.
Plate XII—OAK CHAIRS
Called both Wainscote and Yorkshire chairs
Plate XIII—SPIRAL TURNED CHAIR, CHARACTERISTIC OF FIRST HALF OF CENTURY
The ornamentation of the back was done with the light spirit that distinguished early Jacobean styles from the preceding Italian models, yet without the elegance that appeared later in the century. These chairs undoubtedly have charm and interest, but as works of art they are not comparable to those which preceded, nor to those which followed. They were, however, distinctly English, and as such, command interest.
A close study of the motifs used by the wood-carver shows all the favourite lines, the guilloche, that ever interesting play upon circles, the S curve in pairs, the rounded arch, the half-circle, the rose and the tulip. Cushions were a part of the chair's equipment. The tired ladies of the seventeenth century were not asked to recuperate on a thick oak plank unsoftened by padding. Loose cushions of velvet and of embroidery were usual, for this was an age when handsome fabrics were made all over Europe, and freely used in flashing blue and ruby red against the oak.
Nearly allied to the wainscote chair, yet infinitely more refined, is the chair of spiral parts, with back and seat upholstered. Without arms it was favoured by ladies of voluminous petticoats who pattered about the thrones of James I and Charles I. With arms it is sometimes called Cromwellian, suggesting that the doughty Dictator ruled therefrom. But the austerity of the wainscote chair seems more fitting to his resolute manner.
This turned chair with its padded back and seat, so often dignifies our modern interiors that it is worth our while to know about it. While the wainscote chair belonged more especially to cottage furniture which was made all over England according to varying local taste, this chair was more or less of an aristocrat, and furnished the halls of wealth. Its origin is Italian. France used it freely, but she too got her first model from the Italians. In the time these chairs prevailed, England outside of London was scant of luxury. The homes of all but the wealthiest were short of the comforts that ameliorate the jolt of life's car in these our modern days.
But the whole country was sprinkled with inns and taverns wherein were gathered such luxuries as the times afforded, and thither went the man of the family, bored by the too rigid manner of the home. Those who travelled, too, in the saddle or by lumbering coach, fell happily into the warm embrace of the chairs at the hospitable inn at each stop on the journey. The post-road made the string, the inns the pearls, and in this way the surface of England was covered with a net for the delectation of the restless. But old-time descriptions of the highways, their ruts and sloughs, their highwaymen even, show how laborious were the journeyings and how more than glad were travellers to alight.
Ben Jonson declared a tavern chair to be the throne of human felicity. Thus he spoke praise, not only of the inn but of such furniture as pleases us in these days. If, therefore, any husband of to-day rebel against the stiffness of backs, or weakness of legs, of the antique chairs at home, let him be reminded of Jonson's opinion on these same chairs.
The chair with spiral legs and other members runs through the larger half of the century, and has significant variations. One shown on Plate 13 has a female head on the uprights of the arms, which represents Mary of Modena. The figure is given at full length in a model that our furniture manufacturers have many times repeated.
While baluster legs for chairs and other furniture were a product of the reign of the first James, we may set down the more elegant spiral twist as an evidence of a better developed taste for which a few leaders were responsible. Such a man as Inigo Jones must have influenced widely the public taste in all liberal arts. Although his examples were set in the larger art of architecture, the crowd swaggering about the Banqueting Hall, which still excites our delight at Whitehall, must have been inspired to introduce a daintier style at home.
It was in 1625 that Charles I succeeded his father, and soon after invited Van Dyck to be of those who surrounded the royal person. It sometimes seems to the art-seeking tourist, that Charles' patronage of art had as motive the production of an infinity of portraits of his own much-frizzed, much-dressed self. But apart from painting portraits of the King, which the model made a bit pathetic, through the attempt to associate majesty with preciosity, Van Dyck had a large part in improving England's taste. Another name is that of Sir Francis Crane, he who helped his royal master with the noble art of tapestry-making at the Mortlake Works.
To continue with the use of the spiral leg—as its modern use creates interest in the subject—it is found as the support on those most enticing of tables, the gate-leg. Not that all gate-leg tables are thus made. Alas no, economy travels heavily in all ages, so the less expensive baluster turning prevailed. But the spiral is the favourite and gives great value to the old tables. Rarely indeed are they to be found at bargains since we in America have taken to collecting Jacobean furnishings.
Gate-leg tables are labelled with the name of Cromwell by those liking to fix a date by attaching to it a ruler. Without doubt, the great Commoner leaned his weary elbows on such a table when things went wrong, or curved a smiling lip above it—if he could smile—when the table was weighted with savoury Puritan viands. But for many years before Cromwell, English homes had found the gate-leg table a mobile and convenient replacer of the massive refectory tables of Tudor or Roman inspiration.
Plate XIV—OAK CABINET, DATED 1653
Decorated with split spindles, and with inlay mother-of-pearl, ivory and ebony. The legs show tendencies not developed until the next century under Queen Anne
Plate XV—OAK GATE-LEG DINING TABLE
With oval top and rarely proportioned spiral legs. A drawer distinguishes the piece
In large size these tables set a feast for the family, in smaller drawing they held the evening light; or, smaller yet, they assisted the house-mother at her sewing. The wonder is not that we of to-day find them invaluable, but that mankind ever let them go out of fashion. Collect them if you have the purse, but if you must buy a modern copy, remember that mahogany was not in use for furniture in England until the century after, for modern manufacturers flout chronology and produce gate-leg tables in the wood of which the originals were never made. They even lacquer them, in defiance of history.
Since the fashion is for old tables in the dining-room, these Jacobean gate-leg tables are found practical as well as beautiful. The large size, about four and a half feet wide by six feet long, accommodates a moderate family and presents none of the inconveniences that make certain antiques mere objects of art or curios. I must confess to a thrill of delight when sitting at such an old oak board set out with old lace and silver, not only for its obvious beauty, but by the thought of the groups who have gathered there through three hundred years, groups of varying customs, varying habits of thought, varying fashions in dress, yet human like ourselves, and prone to make of the dining-table a circle of joy.
The inlaid cabinet on Plate 11 is an aristocrat. Though it is dated 1653 it exhibits the split spindles of earlier years, and these are executed with such nice feeling that they accord well with the Italian look of the piece. In truth, its principal decoration is Italian, an elaborate use of inlay in mother of pearl, ivory and ebony. Its feet, too, are entirely un-English, yet it remains a Jacobean piece of English make. The influences always at work in England left their mark on the development of English styles. Always and always a monarch was marrying a foreign wife, or importing a court painter or architect, and these folk naturally brought with them the fashions of their own countries. It seemed as though the English knew that native art was not a flower of the first order of beauty and so were modest about it, and ever willing to adopt the art of other countries.
It is the custom of the inexact to include in Jacobean furniture all the styles of the seventeenth century up to the time of William and Mary, and this gives to such loose classification an extraordinary variety. Furniture does not die with a monarch, nor do new designs start up in a night; goods last after the master has gone, and the new master uses the old style until a later one has been evolved. James died and Charles I took his place in the year 1625, but the lightening and elaborating of furniture came not all at once, and depended as much on mechanical invention and the use of new woods as on the rise and fall of monarchs.
And yet, as the first man to be pleased was the king, and as the king in Charles' case had a lighter nature than his forerunners and had moreover a Continental encouraging of that lightness, we fancy we see an evidence of gaiety, of jocundity, in the furniture of his day. He was a king who intended to take all the privileges of his state, and one of these was to surround himself with beauty of the type that brought no reminders of hard living nor serious thinking, no hint of grim Puritan asceticism.
So the oak of England which had supplied austerity was now carved into shapes hitherto unknown. Typical of the results of elaborate oak carving are the chairs in Plate 17. The arm-chair is a typical example of a chair of the middle years of the century, and later. Here the square construction of the chair is not altered from Tudor days, but note how every part has been lightened, until an elegance and beauty have been attained which make it worthy of the finest rooms of any time. The carver when given free rein has left little of the chair untouched. Legs, stretchers and uprights, are all made with a well proportioned spiral, and at each square of joining a rosette is carved.
Here also is seen an innovation in the ornamental stretcher across the front which, instead of being near the ground, is raised to a height out of reach of a ruthless boot which might mar its elaboration. This stretcher shows the use of the long curving palm in place of the classic acanthus, and also introduces the fat little cherubs which French designers affected.
Other points to notice are the very open back, composed of spirals and three rows of carving. It was at this time that pierced carving came into vogue, so far surpassing in beauty the wainscote backs.
The incising of the seat-frame is another peculiarity of the middle of the century. Perhaps the most interesting matter of all is the caning. Wooden seats were the only ones hitherto; although cushions had been used to soften them, they lacked at best the reciprocal quality that we call "giving." Springs were far in the future, but a luxury-loving aristocracy seized at once upon this amelioration.
There is more or less quibbling upon the subject of caning, as to the date of its introduction. No one can fix it exactly, which robs the enthusiast of the pleasure of announcing with oracular precision, that his chair is of certain year because of its caning. The middle of the century saw it, the first part did not, but it lasted through varying styles of furniture, and is lasting still.
Its origin is undoubtedly Eastern, for the tenacious splints from which it is woven are from warmer climes than England's. And that brings us again to one of those little facts in history of which our household gods are ever reminding us, the trade that united India with Portugal, Portugal with Flanders, and the Flemish with England.
Plate XVI—OAK DAY BEDS
Carved after manner in vogue in second half of XVII Century
Plate XVII—STUART CHAIRS
Of lightened construction, open carving and incised seat frame
The small chair in the Plate is, to the careless eye, a little sister to the larger, but the wise observer notes at once the substitution of the S curve heavy in carving for the more elaborate pierced palm. Also the cane panels in the back, and the very decided change in the shape of the front legs. The heavy S curves are the same which later on gain in thickness and evolve into the ogee curve seen later, and which is often mistakenly ascribed to William and Mary, although originating earlier and receives the name of James II. Arbitrary names are hard to make consistently exact; dates are hard to place on every piece, but is it not enough to know within a very few years the time of making of one's valuable antiques?
To finish the scrutiny of the smaller chair, note the curve of the front legs, the first attempt at deserting the straight perpendicular line of construction. This is the beginning of an insidious French influence which prevailed throughout the last third of the century. It beautified, of course, as the gift of France to the world is the luxe of the eye, but from the time of its introduction dates the end of the furniture which was of solely English invention.
So comes the end of this early Jacobean mode, in its best time of flowering when it was drowned in a flood of foreign influence. It was in the styles prevailing through the reigns of the first two Stuarts and of Cromwell, that England expressed only herself in her furniture. It is this which makes the periods rich with originality and of peculiar interest. When the Jacobean styles began Shakespeare was living those sad years whose disillusion produced his later plays, and Jacobean styles were at their height at the Restoration when Charles II played the part of king for his royal pleasure.
CHAPTER III