"Feeling" is a word for the serious collector. Ability to read feeling amounts almost to a talent, and is certainly an instinct. Those who possess it know without recourse to detail where to place a piece of furniture never encountered before, and this even though it be one of those erratic pieces that appear in all periods. The feeling, then, of these chairs is French, but a transplanted French, growing under alien influence.
Descending upon details, the shape of the legs is so much at variance with those of the preceding fashion that they seem to alter the scheme of construction. By means of the change from a straight line to a curve the chair loses in honesty and in balance while growing in elegance.
Another point to notice is the change in the arrangement of stretchers, also the lifting from the floor of the elaborate front stretcher which is made to match the ornamental top of the chair back. The seat-frame retains the incising of the former fashion, and the square blocks at points of intersection carry the familiar carved rosette. The backs have strong points of interest. The radical change is in the uprights, which, instead of being wide, flat carvings of leafage, are gracefully designed posts. A long step in the way of beauty was made when this style of back was adopted, a treatment which developed later in the century into the exquisite carved backs, which even exceeded the French in graceful invention. An examination of the chairs of 1685 will show the perfection of the style which was begun by Charles II, adopted by James II and further developed under William and Mary.
To continue the lesson of the chairs, it was here that the old flat S curve began to alter into the richer, more robust C curve. The leg of chairs carved in C scrolls follows the shape of the curves, and furniture of this pattern has exceeding charm, especially when the front stretcher has been treated by an inspired hand. Much sought are the chairs and sofas of this period, and when covered with needle-point are keenly valued for use in the superb living-room which in modern homes often takes place of the drawing-room.
Happy indeed is the collector who can find such an old English sofa as that in the Metropolitan Museum on Plate 22. It is entirely characteristic, and shows not only the interesting fashion in carving, but the large advance in upholstering. Such comfortable work was unknown before the reign of Charles II. If we have curiosity as to the appearance of the gentlefolk who used such furniture, the embroidered cover of this piece shows lovely woman in her hours of ease, and mankind hovering near with a wish to please. But this very embroidery shows how difficult a matter it was for the English to draw with true hand and free, a purely decorative motive; for outside the figures of the medallions, the whole thing is meaningless and without consistency.
Plate XXII—WALNUT SOFA
Carved in C curves, time of James II covered with petit point embroidery
