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.
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.
OAK CHEST OF DRAWERS.
Showing transition to Queen Anne type. Cabriole feet, bevelled panels, and fluted sides.
WILLIAM AND MARY TABLE. C. 1670.