Fig. 94.—Chimney-Piece at Drayton, by Webb.
From the Burlington-Devonshire Collection.
This departure is also very noticeable in the designs of chimney-pieces which Jones and Webb have left behind them. Fig. [91] shows one of those designed for the Queen’s House at Greenwich in 1637: in the panel below the pediment is inscribed “Henrietta Maria Regina.” Fig. [92] is “for Greenwich,” and bears the cipher H.M.R. It is very characteristic of Jones’s way of sketching his details; he has bestowed more care (and more affection) upon the little children at the side than upon the principal object itself. It is evident that the large panel over the chimney-piece was to be occupied by a picture, as also perhaps was that in the preceding example. In Jacobean times such a space would have contained the owner’s arms. Webb’s chimney-pieces follow those of his master in general conception, and they are the precursors of the type prevalent in the eighteenth century, largely used by Kent, who had access to these very drawings. Of the examples selected, one was for Drayton House, in Northamptonshire, and it is signed by Webb and dated 1653 (Fig. [94]); the other was for “Dr George Price his great chamber” (Fig. [93]). The whole series affords a good idea of the style of the period as compared with that of earlier times.
It is interesting to compare with these drawings of Jones and Webb a contemporary chimney-piece at Ford Abbey, in Dorset, attributed to Jones (Fig. [95]). It must be confessed, however, that the treatment is widely different in the two cases. This is not to say that the Ford Abbey example has no merit; on the contrary, there is a refreshing playfulness about the way in which the staid classic detail is bent from its usual austere lines.
Fig. 95.—CHIMNEY-PIECE IN THE DINING-ROOM, FORD ABBEY, Dorset.
Fig. 96.—BELTON HOUSE. The Chapel.