Occasionally one comes across curious and interesting pieces in the most unexpected places, but in these days when every one is more or less on the alert to pick up antiquities, and dealers scour the country from end to end, anything of value is almost immediately snapped up, whilst as a rule larger prices are asked out of London than in it.
“FURNITURE SUPPORTS”
A friend of mine who is a great and discriminating collector of all sorts of antiquities, the Hon. Gerald Ponsonby, some years ago discovered, in Dublin, a set of what are known as “furniture supports,” which are extremely rarely to be met with. They were never general all over the kingdom, and, to the best of my belief, were confined to the South of England. There are four of these supports, which are formed of Staffordshire pottery. The face of one of them is believed to be intended to represent Sir Robert Peel. The coat is scarlet with a black stock; the hair and whiskers are brown; the eyes black, and the eyebrows black also; the cheeks are a vivid red; whilst the stand itself is of a deep mottled pink. The base is 2-7/8 inches in length by 2 inches in width, and it is 2-1/4 inches in height. The height from where the head begins, taken over the nose to the base, is 4½ inches, the circumference immediately under the chin being 8 inches. These supports were used to stand chests of drawers upon, so that when cottage floors were washed the bright woodwork of the legs should not be spoilt. The legs of the chest of drawers were placed upon the stand at the back of the head, the face of the support being outwards.
The old four-posters which were once absolutely discarded and considered fit for nothing but the lumber-room or the wood-heap have now once more come into fashion, being eagerly sought for by collectors in old-world villages and country towns.
JACOBEAN FURNITURE
When thoroughly cleaned and put into good order, with the addition of a modern spring mattress, they make by no means an unattractive couch. As a rule those four-posters are low, for people had low bedrooms in old days. In many of them the woodwork above the shelf at the head of the bed is a good deal charred—this is the result of burning by the candles placed there by their former occupants, who would seem to have been very careless as to fire. A great many oak bedsteads have very thick pillars at the foot, the bases of which in some cases resemble the legs of the old dining-tables, which were in most cases relegated to outhouses and attics about the time of the downfall of the Stuarts. These tables were in many cases adorned with some slight degree of inlaid work, and could be lengthened by pulling out flaps at each end. At the particular period when these tables were in use, furniture was not very abundant in English houses, but what there was of it was very useful and solid, elaborate ornamentation being principally confined to the chairs, specimens of which may still sometimes be found in out-of-the-way villages. Authentic pieces of Jacobean furniture of oak of English growth and of somewhat severe design may generally be recognised by its colour, which is something quite different from the dull black surface of modern imitations. Its patina, indeed, if such a word can be applied to furniture, is one which time alone can give, and this not even the most skilled manipulator can copy. In the time of the Charleses there was also a certain quantity of richly upholstered furniture in which velvet and tapestry had their place. At Knole, Lord Sackville’s beautiful treasure-house, are many fine examples of this sort of work, amongst them a bed and a complete set of bedroom furniture given by King James I., the coverings being of red silk ornamented with gold thread and silver spangles.
A curious feature of Knole is the attic which for generations has been known as the Dumb-bell Gallery, on account of its containing a quaint wooden machine something like a windlass without handles. Around the middle of the roller is wound a rope, and at each end are four iron arms terminating in a ball of lead. The rope formerly passed through a hole in the floor into a gallery below, and any one pulling it would cause the roller to revolve and rewind the rope again, giving the person pulling it the same exercise as is obtained by ringing a church bell. In the seventeenth century, bell-ringing was a very popular pastime, and probably it was about this time that the machine was set up in order to afford opportunities for silent practice.
In all likelihood the modern wooden dumb-bell was developed from the handles of the windlass dumb-bell by some athlete who understood its possibilities. An illustration of this windlass and its handles is given in an excellent privately printed account of Knole which Colonel Sackville West has written.
A dumb-bell machine of the same kind, or rather the remains of it, was also in existence up to some few years ago at New College, Oxford—indeed, it may be still there to-day.
KNOLE