Figs. 40, 41 and 42.—“Sophas.” Fig. 43.—Lower part of Chair, by Marot. Figs. 44 and 45.—Lambrequins, by Marot.
Marot’s armchairs owe their effect almost entirely to upholstery: the framework is certainly solid, heavy and ungainly. He prefers carved feet of animals’ claws to the popular Dutch bulb. A typical form of the seat and legs appears in Fig. 43. The top of the back is usually a straight line, though, if the chair is designed for a prince or noble, the centre sometimes rises in a carved crown or coronet. The woodwork is generally gilded.
Marot’s sconces usually had only one candle socket (see Plate [XLIX]). When the mirror was of silver, or any burnished metal, its surface was generally convex. When it was of glass it was flat, but very often the edges were bevelled. The three examples on Plate [XLIX] show the characteristic ornamental details of mascarons, floral scrolls, and heavy chutes of the bell-flower or wheat-ear. The same ornamentation, intermingled with “pommes,” geometrical lines and broken scrolls, distinguishes the two large mirrors above. Other handsome oval and rectangular mirrors appear on Plate [L]. The lower one on the right, with cornucopias disgorging chutes of fruit, bears the crossed double L of Louis XIV, with a royal crown, and therefore must belong to Marot’s early period before he went to Holland. The mascarons and human figures on the other mirrors on this plate also belong to the early Louis Quatorze period.
On Plate [LI] are two more mirrors, large and small, one above an inlaid console table and three candle or candelabra stands. These are interesting as showing the extent to which Marot made use of caryatides and swags in decorative work. It will be noticed that his Junos, Floras and Venuses are functional as well as graceful and decorative. With their heads and arms they have real work to do and weights to support.
Tables of Marot’s design are represented on Plate LII, which also gives a series of eight mascarons. Plate [LIII] shows three of Marot’s tall clocks, with details of decoration and designs for key handles. The little frieze of designs for keyholes at the top of the Plate show that the forms of china-ware were even invading goldsmiths’ work.
It will be noticed that the grandfather’s clock in Marot’s mind was somewhat more ornate than the modern idea of that timepiece. Chippendale owed a heavy debt to Marot’s forms of clocks and candlestands.
Marot’s designs for rooms show the limit to which porcelain could be used as a decorative feature. There are brackets, brackets everywhere. Vases of different shapes and sizes stand on the ledges, oval, circular or straight, above the doors and stud the cornices; but it is the chimney-pieces that serve, as the tiered dressoir did in Mediaeval days for plate, in the display of porcelain. The corner chimney-pieces of Hampton Court with their diminishing shelves give some faint idea of the many plates of Marot’s designs. Some of these show brackets and shelves that support hundreds of cups, saucers, pots, bowls, bottles and vases. In one extreme case more than three hundred pieces may be counted on the chimneypiece and hearth alone. These are not merely suggestions, for we have evidence that, in Holland, rooms decorated in this style really existed. Thus one poet sings:
Of The Porcelain Room
.... Geheel zijn huis, ja zelfs het klein gemak,
Blonk als een diamant—duizend fijne kopjes