THE STEEL CHAIR.
At Longford Castle, Wiltshire.
There is a remarkable example of rather late German Renaissance oak carving in the private chapel of S. Saviour's Hospital, in Osnaburg Street, Regent's Park, London. The choir stalls, some 31 in number, and the massive doorway, formed part of a Carthusian monastery at Buxheim, Bavaria, which was sold and brought to London after the monastery had been secularised and had passed into the possession of the territorial landlords, the Bassenheim family. At first intended to ornament one of the Colleges at Oxford, it was afterwards resold and purchased by the author, and fitted to the interior of S. Saviour's, and, so far as the proportions of the chapel would admit of such an arrangement, the relative positions of the different parts are maintained. The figures of the twelve apostles—of David, Eleazer, Moses, Aaron, and of the eighteen saints at the back of the choir stalls, are marvellous work, and the whole must have been a harmonious and well-considered arrangement of ornament. The work, executed by the monks themselves, is said to have been commenced in 1600, and to have been completed in 1651, and though a little later than, according to some authorities, the best time of the Renaissance, is so good a representation of German work of this period that it will well repay an examination. As the author was responsible for its arrangement in its present position, he has the permission of the authorities of S. Saviour's to say that anyone who is interested in Art will be allowed to see the chapel.
GERMAN CARVED OAK BUFFET, 17TH CENTURY.
(From a Drawing by Prof. Heideloff.)