chance to come across an old chair fine in the lines of its design, do not give it up as hopeless should you notice that it is disfigured with paint, dowdy, broken-down upholstery, and the like. A good restorer of old furniture will be able to work wonders with a piece of the sort. I remember discovering an old chair so hidden under the disguise of paint, putty, and car-plush as to have discouraged any but a discriminating enthusiasm. When this chair was turned over to a restorer he delivered it from its bondage of humiliation and it came forth an excellent and treasured genuine example of the finest Hepplewhite style. The “stuffing” had completely hidden a splendid ostrich-plume back.
To collect anything sensibly requires an interest in the available data concerning it. One might as well collect buttons manufactured in 1920 as to pay no attention to the study of things gathered together in pleasurable pursuit. So, too, it is with chairs. A chair-collector looks beyond the mere utilitarian fact that each chair can be sat upon with comfort, or can’t be.
First of all he must acquaint himself with the various periods: Italian Renaissance, French Renaissance, Flemish, Spanish, Elizabethan, Carolean, and Jacobean (Tudor to Stuart), William and Mary, Queen Anne, the Early Georgian, the French periods of the Henris, the Louis, the Empire, the styles of Chippendale, Adam, Hepplewhite, and Sheraton, and the early American forms.
The collector will find many excellent works in English by eminent authorities on furniture, all of which devote proper space to the subject of the chairs of the particular period of which they are treating. There the chair enthusiast will learn that walnut came to be widely used in English chairs after 1650; that Hepplewhite suggested haircloth for chair coverings; that the Carolean crown is a distinguishing feature of the Restoration period; that Queen Anne chairs are marked by simplicity, their beauty depending mainly on their fine lines, graceful curves, delicate veneering, and restraint where inlay is used; that mahogany came into use between 1720 and 1725, and not into general use before 1730; that Chippendale’s best pieces were made between 1730 and 1760; that in all real Chippendale ball-and-claw terminations the claw is carved to suggest vividly a gripping strength, and not as merely resting passively on the ball as in the imitations and in nearly all modern reproductions. These are but a few of the many interesting facts every old-furniture collector should know, points that enable one to collect chairs intelligently and with joy in the pursuit of a delectable hobby that is also a very practical one.
CHAPTER XII
ENGLISH DRINKING-GLASSES
THERE are few general collectors who have not, at some time, come under the enchantment of old glass. It is remarkable that objects so fragile in fabric should have survived the vicissitudes of centuries, as have specimens not only of European glass but of the ancient glass of Syrian, Phœnician, Greek, and Roman manufacture as well.
Glass-making in England had an early origin, derived, it would seem probable, from the Roman invaders. We know it to have flourished to some extent at Cheddingfold in the thirteenth century, continuing there for several hundred years, as we glean from a reference in Thomas Charnock’s “Breviary of Philosophy,” published in 1557, wherein is written: “You may send to Cheddingfold to the glassmaker and desire him to blow thee a glass after thy devise.” An entry in Evelyn’s Diary for February 10, 1685, refers to “his Majesty’s health being drunk in a flint glass of a yard long, by the Sheriff, Commander, Officers and Chiefe gentlemen.” This reminds us that flint glass was discovered and came into vogue prior to 1680; or in that year its fame had caused it to be so highly regarded elsewhere in Europe that manufactories to compete with English ones were established at Liège in that year. The early flint glass of England differed somewhat from the later product. Probably the flint glass as we know it now was not introduced before 1730, or perfected until over a century later.