“The dining-room is one of the principal apartments of a house, and ought always to be of a bold and an accommodating proportion. In noblemen’s dining-rooms, where the windows are all on the side opposite to the fires, there may then be a recess at each end of the room in which a sideboard may stand, with columns before it placed at the extremities, which produces a very august appearance and renders the service considerably more easy at dinner than where there is but one sideboard. The furniture of a dining-room ought to be bold, substantial and magnificent, in proportion to its dimensions.
“The dining-parlour must be furnished with nothing trifling, or which may seem unnecessary, it being appropriated for the chief repast, and should not be encumbered with any article that would seem to intrude on the accommodation of the guests. The large sideboard, inclosed or surrounded with Ionic pillars; the handsome and extensive dining-table; the respectable and substantial-looking chairs; the large face glass; the family portraits; the marble fire-places; and the Wilton carpet are the furniture that should supply the dining-room.”
The Prince of Wales’s dining-parlour in Carlton House is recommended as a good type.
“The Prince’s has five windows facing St. James’s Park. His windows are made to come down to the floor, which opens in two parts as a double door, leading to a large grass plot to walk in. If I remember right, there are pilasters between each window, but this is intended to have grass. In his is a large glass over the chimney-piece. To these glass frames are fixed candle branches. At each end is a large sideboard, nearly twelve feet in length, standing between a couple of Ionic columns, worked in composition to imitate fine variegated marble, which have a most beautiful and magnificent effect. In the middle are placed a large range of dining-tables, standing on pillars with four claws each, which is now the fashionable way of making these tables. The chairs are of mahogany, made in the style of the French, with broad top rails hanging over each back foot; the legs are turned, and the seats covered with red leather.”
PLATE LX
The curtains are “of the French kind.”
“Many dining-rooms of the first nobility have, however, only two columns and one sideboard, and those of less note have no columns.”
Correct drawing-room seats are shown on Plate [LXII.] The central one is purely Louis XVI. in style, painted in any colour and is covered with silk, but Sheraton recommends that the chair-frame be “finished in burnished gold, the seat and back covered with printed silk. In the front rail is a tablet with a little carving in its panels. The legs and stumps have twisted flutes and fillets done in the turning, which produce a good effect in the gold.”
Another parlour arm-chair, which he says can be made of carved mahogany or of black rosewood and gold, “will produce a lively effect,” particularly if “a brass beading is put round the stuffing to hide the tacks.” Specimen backs of chairs that may be of carved mahogany or painted are shown on Plate [LXII.], Nos. 1 to 9. These are dated 1792, Nos. 10 and 11 are specimen chair legs.