The turned legs with square bases and tops indicate date as early as 1610. The deep apron carved with fretted arch is an unusual feature
Plate IX—OAK CHAIRS
Early XVII Century Italian Inspiration
The chair on Plate 9 with a crescent-shaped carving on the back had its first inspiration in Venice, that great port getting the idea from the wares of Constantinople which the merchant ships brought to her with prodigality. All of these chairs are of the square construction that endures, and all have baluster legs but of different styles of turning. All are understayed with honest stretchers, but one has the front stretcher close to the floor, indicating a little earlier mode. The colonnade of arches forming the back is nearer its Italian origin where a column supports the arch rather than a bulbous spindle.
One more feature to note on these chairs, that is common to both late Tudor and early Jacobean styles, is the decoration of split spindles or pendants applied to a flat surface. This decoration is a favourite for wood panelling, for chests of drawers and all large pieces about the middle of the century.
We have but to call to mind the costume of Henrietta Maria, the queen of Charles I, to realise why these armless chairs were the most popular of the time; the voluminous skirts of the ladies of the court—whom others imitated—could not have been squeezed into an arm chair with courtly grace.
The sort of room in which this furniture was set—how happy we of to-day would be to have their panelling! Occasionally an entire room is taken from some old English home and set up in one of our American dwellings, such as the rooms now owned by Mr. Frederick Pratt and Mr. W. R. Hearst. And thus we know what beauty surrounded the English family three hundred years ago. Panelling in squares covered the walls from floor to ceiling or to a high level, above which hung tapestries or embroideries. And as the architect of the house composed the panelling it was drawn with such skill as to miss either hap-hazard or monotony.
The linen-fold panel of Gothic and early Tudor popularity was no longer repeated. The true Jacobean panel is small and square with carving on the pilasters and cornice in rooms of elegance. To this day no more home-like way of treating the walls of large rooms has been devised than this wood panelling, which gives a sense of seclusion and of richness that is never so well imparted except by the use of tapestry—and the combination of the two nearly approaches perfection.