Jacobean Furniture and English Styles in Oak and Walnut

by Helen Churchill Candee

THE END OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

WILLIAM AND MARY. 1689-1702

THE style named for William and Mary embraces all the changes that occurred from late Carolean days until the time of Anne, and even includes some of the models and details that are given the name of that queen. Dutch influence comes largely into both, but was stronger in the style known as Queen Anne's. Mixed up with other influences were those not only of Holland but of the countries with which her political life was concerned. Spain contributed certain details, and as for the Dutch connections with the Near and the Far East, they supplied an infinity of inspiration.

Nothing more piquant to the decorative spirit could be imagined than the fantastic motifs of Indian and Chinese importation. To us, surfeited as we are from babyhood with Chinese toys and Indian stuffs, it is hard to look upon these things as startling novelties. But in those days of less travel they were delicious exotics. Among persons of fashion, there was a rage for the living evidences of the strange East, and more than popular as pets in the drawing-room became the exotic monkey and the vivid parrot. If these creatures, leashed to a standard, could be tended by a tiny black human, then fashion was pleased to an infantine joyousness.

Plate XXIV—INTERESTING CHAIR TRANSITIONAL BETWEEN STUART STYLES AND WILLIAM AND MARY

CHAIRS IN VARIANTS OF WILLIAM AND MARY

Covered with petit point of the time

WILLIAM AND MARY CANED CHAIRS, ONE WITH FLUTED SPANISH FOOT Plate XXV

Every ship that came in from far Eastern countries brought wise parrots and tiny frisking monkeys, and these were valued by decorative artists for models, as well as by my lady to pique gay conversation in her drawing-room.

William and Mary styles, like all of the seventeenth century, are at present in high vogue in America, and for this reason it interests us to study them. They come in after the use of oak has passed its vogue, and when walnut prevails, although woods of lighter colour, such as pearwood and sycamore, are employed. In chairs and sofas, carving prevails as decoration; but in cabinets and tables, the preference is for veneer and for inlay.

At this time occurs a change in the style of cabinets. Hitherto they had been closed cupboards; now, because of the fashion for collecting Delft china from Holland, a need came for cabinets that would display the collector's treasure. As furniture makers ever express the whims and needs of the day, so they at once invented the cabinet with shelf-top protected by glass. A feature of the design is the hooded top, so characteristic of William and Mary.

Two types of carving prevailed in chairs in the last twenty years of the seventeenth century, that of the broken C curve, originating under Charles II, and that of great elaboration which in some respects caught its details from the French. A study of the plates will show that the post-like upright which flanks the back is retained in both cases. Examples of fine carving under William and Mary show the free fancy of the designer and the skill of the worker who was possibly the designer as well. But the original chairs must be seen to gain any idea of the beauty of colour and finish. The whole bears the look of bronze that has been polished with caressing hands for centuries.

The shape of the leg in these finely carved chairs is to be noticed, as it is fathered by the chair-leg in vogue under Louis XIV in France, and in slight variations it prevails all through the William and Mary period. It is noticeable by a pear-shaped enlargement near the top. The Spanish foot is often seen on this style.

Petit point, gros point, or mere cross-stitch embroidery you may call it, was a fashionable occupation for dame and damsel. In Charles II's time the stuffed high-relief stump work pleased the court. Sorry stuff it looks now, much like the court ladies of that time, in that its colour and gilt are gone and its false art is pitifully exposed. But the good honest embroidery in wool and silk still stands, and is again tremendously in vogue.

Plate XXVI—CHEST OF DRAWERS IN BURR WALNUT VENEER

Mounted on legs, used in the last quarter of the XVII century

Plate XXVII—SMALL WALNUT TABLE

With spiral legs and inlay. Here is seen the beginning of the flat serpentine stretcher

It was Madame de Maintenon who gave such inspiration to the work in France that England copied. Her school at St. Cyr, which she conducted solely for the purpose of giving happiness and education to penniless daughters of fallen aristocrats, at that school the young girls executed work that ranks with objects of art. A well-known American collector has a large sofa executed thus under the hand of Madame de Maintenon which represents scenes from a play of Molière's, the piece having also been given by these same young girls, then the cartoons drawn by an artist of high talent.

So petit point was almost a high art in France in the time of William and Mary, and England did her best to follow the fine pattern set her. If, in judging whether this work be French or English, the mind hesitates, it is well to take the eye from the medallions and study how the designer filled the big field outside. In French drawing the whole is a harmonious composition; in the English, the hand is crude and uncertain, and the motifs meaningless, though bold, without coherence or co-ordination. Nowadays the lady who wishes to embroider a chair gets from Paris a medallion already complete and fills in the surrounding territory at her pleasure. It would seem that the ladies in England did the same in the seventeenth century, but with less taste.

Among minor points of interest, those little points used by the amateur in identifying, is the marked change in the stretcher. Away back in the beginning of the century, as seen on chairs and tables, it was heavy, made of square three-or four-inch oak, and placed almost on the ground. The first change was in using thinner wood; the next was in giving the stretcher a look of ornamental lightness by turning. When this happened the front stretcher of chairs was lifted from the ground to spare it the heavy wear apparent in older pieces. When carving attacked the stretcher, then it was placed well out of the way of harm, and it took on the ornamental effect of the chair's back. The Portuguese style of stretcher copied closely the carving on the top of the back in graceful curves.

It was when the larger pieces of furniture took on a certain lightness of effect that a change in their stretchers occurred, and this was in the period of William and Mary. The stretcher became wide, flat and serpentine. In chairs it wandered diagonally from the legs, meeting in the centre. In tables its shape was regulated by the size of the table top. In chests of drawers it wavered from leg to leg of the six which like short posts supported the weight. If the piece of furniture was inlaid these flat stretchers offered fine opportunity for continuing the work.

Strangely enough the stretcher, in chairs at least, disappeared at just the time it was most needed. That was at the introduction of the curved or cabriole leg, in the early days of Queen Anne. Those who know by experience how frail the curve makes this sort of construction, sigh with regret that the fine old Queen Anne pieces of their collection cannot be consistently stayed according to the older method.

Plate XXVIII—CARVED CHAIRS. PERIOD OF WILLIAM AND MARY

With all the fine characteristics of the carved designs of the time

Plate XXIX—WALNUT CHAIRS, WILLIAM AND MARY

With the exquisitely carved backs, stretches and legs characteristic of the time

It was in the interesting time of William and Mary that the kneehole desk made its appearance. A certain enchanting clumsiness marks these desks from later products on the same line, and a decided flavour of Chinese construction. Such a desk was recently rooted out of the dark in an obscure Connecticut town, it having been brought over in the early days, and, not being mahogany, has lain despised by local dealers until one more "knowledgeable" than his fellows discovered that it was Elizabethan!

A contribution made by China was the art of lacquering. Although it was not in the fulness of its vogue until the century had turned the corner in Queen Anne's reign, it had its beginnings in the earlier importations of lacquer and the desire of the cabinet-makers to imitate the imported art.

Varnish as we know it had never been in use, else had we missed the wonderful hand polish on old oak and walnut that cannot be imitated. And when it appeared it was only to use it in the Chinese manner, as a thick lacquer over painted or relief ornament. As the art of lacquering grew, cabinets of great elaboration became fashionable, and these were in many cases imported from China as the cunning handicraft of the Chinese exceeded that of the English in making tiny drawers and tea-box effects. Then these pieces were sent to England where they were painted and lacquered by ladies as a fashionable pastime, and were set on elaborate carved stands of gilt in a style savouring more of Grinling Gibbons than of China,—which is the true accounting of the puzzling combination of lacquer and gold carving.

The metal mounts or hardware of furniture throughout the seventeenth century was simple beyond necessity, yet this simplicity has its charm. In earliest days, iron locks and hinges of a Gothic prudence as to size and invulnerability, ushered in the century, but it was still the time of Shakespeare, and that time threw a glance back to the Gothic just left behind.

Knobs were needed as drawers appeared, and these were conveniently and logically made of wood, and were cut in facets like a diamond. But the prevailing metal mount for the rest of the century was the little drop handle that resembles nothing so much as a lady's long earring. It is found on old Jacobean cabinets, side-tables, and all pieces having drawers and cupboards. Its origin is old Spanish, and that smacks always of Moorish. With unusual fidelity this little drop handle clung until under Queen Anne (1703) the fashion changed to the wide ornamental plate with looplike handle, and that in turn served, with but slight variations, throughout the century.

QUEEN ANNE SINGLE CHAIR

Made of walnut with carved motives gilded. This type of chair shows the strong effect of Chinese motifs, especially on the legs.

QUEEN ANNE ARM CHAIR

Upholstered in gros point with splat black, and Dutch shell on curved legs. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

WALNUT QUEEN ANNE CHAIRS

With carbriole leg and claw and ball foot adapted from Chinese Spanish leather set on with innumerable nails elegantly covers the taller. These chairs foreshadow the Georgian styles. Plate XXX

Plate XXXI—QUEEN ANNE CHAIR

With marquetry back and carved cabriole leg with hoof and serpentine stretcher Courtesy of P. W. French

In summing up the seventeenth century as a whole, it seems to show a British and insular attempt to form its own styles, to dress its homes and palaces in a British way, regardless of what the world else-where was doing. Bits of outside product came drifting across the Channel, but these were not treated with too great seriousness. They were never adopted intact with all the feeling of foreign thought shining from their elegant surfaces, but rather were cut apart and certain bits were used to tack onto the more British work. And it is just here that is found the secret of the charm which lies in old English furniture. It is the endeavour of England to tell her own story, and her story is necessarily different from that of France, Portugal, Spain, Holland, the East. So, although she borrows motifs from foreign lands, it is only to indicate her historical connection with them and not to make a witless copy of their wares.

This holds true even at the time when two great artists dominated the decorative arts in Europe, Rubens and Le Brun, and that decorative monarch, Louis XIV, ruled art as well as politics. Yet the insularity of England kept her, happily, from realising the fine flowering of French art to imitate it, and, instead, she expressed her own sturdy characteristic development.

And so we love the evidences of sincerity and the pursuit of beauty that our English ancestors made for us, and in our homes of ease, with these things about us, we like to dream of the men and women who created and used these dignified time-kissed old pieces. And in dreaming we forget the frailty and cruelty of courts and rulers and think on the nobility and courage of the lesser yet greater folk who laid the foundation of our country.

THE END

[TABLE OF INTERESTING DATES]

James I. 1603 to 1625

Shakespeare died 1616
First American Colonies, Yorktown, 1607
First American Colonies, Plymouth, 1620

Charles I. 1625 to 1649

Inigo Jones, Architect, died 1651
Van Dyck, court painter
Sir Francis Crane

Commonwealth Under Cromwell, 1649 to 1660

Charles II. 1660 to 1685

The Restoration
Queen Catherine of Braganza, 1660
Bombay Influence and East India Company, 1660
Great Fire of London, 1666
Sir Christopher Wren, 1632-1723
St. Paul's commenced, 1675
Grinling Gibbons, 1648-1726
Mirror Factory, 1673
Chatsworth Built, 1670

James II. 1685 to 1688

Revocation of Edict of Nantes, 1685
Spitalfields Silk Factories, 1685

William and Mary. 1689 to 1702

Daniel Morot
Hampton Court, principal parts built

Queen Anne. 1702 to 1714

Transciber's Notes:

Punctuation errors repaired. italics converted to _
bold converted to =
small caps converted to +
gesperrt converted to ~
page 33 ...he native effort fred... typo repaired at ...the native effort freed...
illustration caption typo stretches repaired for stretchers
illustration caption typo carbriole repaired at cabriole
'patine' is the French version of the Latin/Italian, and English word 'patina'
page 11 word screscent repaired for crescent
This book contains instances of hyphenated and unhyphenated variants of words. All retained.