ANTIQUE FURNITURE INTERIORS
From such an advertisement one may pretty clearly visualise the interior of the house, which would have been that of fairly well-to-do people. But there is no evidence that the furniture was considered exceptional in any way, and apart from its age the same furniture now would not be much out of the common. Judging from the date of the sale and the description of the different pieces it is probable that the bulk of the effects were notable that the only wood mentioned is mahogany, but considering the ingratiating ways of auctioneers, one concludes that in this case mahogany was merely selected for distinction as being more likdy to be appealing to prospective buyers than other woods. The advertisement as a document has, of course, no special interest, for hundreds of others of like character are easily to be found. Taken together, they afford a peep into ordinary middle-class homes of the time, and help one to realise what an enormous quantity of furniture must have been made in the country by utterly unknown makers.
Three great names always occur to us as representatives of the art of the cabinet-maker, and as far as style is concerned they do represent certain fairly well defined characteristics. But to credit furniture of the class under discussion with the authorship of Chippendale, Heppelwhite, or Sheraton is absurd. If a visit be paid to the nearest second-hand dealer’s shop it is almost certain that bits of furniture will be found quite palpably of eighteenth Century make, which cannot be identified as belonging to any one of the three styles mentioned. I have seen many pieces of furniture, particularly chairs, which possess features characteristic of ail three makers’ work. They might have been made anywhere and by anyone. Considered as fine specimens of Chippendale, Heppelwhite, or Sheraton they are, of course, worthless, but as genuine old examples of the craft of the cabinet-maker they are interesting and often in very sound condition. One cannot date them, for their design affords no assistance whatever, being impure and sometimes very naive in treatment. Attempts have been made to group and classify such furniture, but it is almost impossible, though occasionally a little local character will crop out enabling one to say in what part of the country the maker lived.
An earlier advertisement of similar character, this time from the London General Advertiser of 1751 (which contains, by the way, some publishers’ announce-ments of the issue of the well-known works on architecture by William Halfpenny) runs :
The foregoing was from a fashionable town house. The French elbow chairs mentioned were not imported examples, but were made in what was then called the French style. Another sale advertisement from the same journal later on in the year describes these chairs better : six fine French chairs, carved knees, elbows and Lion claws, stuffed backs and seats.” Most dealers and collee tors would call them Chippen-dale nowadays, and no doubt the great maker must have produced numbers of them. The word furniture in these advertisements, and in the trade catalogues of the time, is often used to denote curtains, metal handles, escutcheons and other applied details to woodwork, as well as the constructed articles them-selves. Thus we have 1 a mahogany Bedstead with check Furniture,” and in the sale of the effects of one John Thompion, ” window curtains in Mohair, printed cotton, check and other Furniture.” The same custom obtains with regard to some Uttings in the trade to-day.
It is usual and in fact correct to date the decay in English furniture-making from about 1800 or possibly a Kttle before, but as the country cabinet-maker had been slow in taking up new fashions as they appeared so was he slow to discard them when he had become familiar with their features. The result is that a good deal of furniture was made well into the nineteenth Century, of the utilitarian kind, which had little about it of the debased Empire feeling characteristic of later Sheraton work. As time went on it became worse through lack of good example from fashionable sources and through the increasing interest taken in mechanical means of production. But the writer has seen chairs, tables, sideboards, settees, corner cupboards and other pieces of furniture in country places, of quite pleasing design and of Georgian character which most certainly were not made before the nineteenth Century. Country-made mahogany (or more probably beech), ladder-back chairs, and corner or lozenge shaped chairs, chests of drawers (the latter rather given away by the mechanical turning of the feet), tables with large rectangular flaps, wardrobes with trays in the upper part, bureau book-cases, sofas, and other pieces are quite commonly met with which have a good deal of late eighteenth century character yet were made probably in the reign of
George IV. or even later.
Sofas quickly responded to the Empire feeling, but some examples are quite pleasant to look upon and are nothing like so vulgar and ornate as they became nearer the 1851 Exhibition. There are many round centre tables and rectangular sofa tables, both having spreading feet on castors, and usually spoken of as Georgian, which were in ail probability made long after George III., at any rate, was dead and buried. In the sense that much of such furniture was made before the last of the Georges departed this life, it may be said to be Georgian, but usually implies the eighteenth century before French influence in the time of Napoleon had made itself felt.
The following from an auctioneer’s advertisement in Gore’s General Advertiser, Liverpool, 1823, illustrates furniture which is stated specifically to be ” recently new.” After commencing with the conventional ” That ” and enumerating various household articles of no particular interest, the advertisement refers to a set of dining tables with elliptical ends which would be put down as not a bit later than 1790 by most judges of furniture to-day. There is a curious reference to “an excellent Pedal Harp ” by Erard, and an assortent of ” Loo, Pembroke, Card, Snap and Dressing Tables Auctioneers’ phraseology then, as now, was conventional, and advertisements of the contents of different houses resemble one another sometimes too closely to be of much value to the student of old furniture. It is only when the run of the wording is broken by obvious attempts to describe some particular thing that one can visualise the article.
The York Courant for 178g contains several para-graphs of local colour. One John Jameson advertises that he has been conducting his business of ” cabinet, Turnery and Toy Manufactory ” for twenty years and has ” supplied the First Families in England and Scotland, particularly in the articles of German and other Spinning Wheels.” This reference to eighteenth-century spinning wheelsand late ones at that should be carefully remembered by those who imagine that an oak one with plenty of picturesque turnery about it must of necessity be Jacobean at least. There are hundreds of spinning wheels in the possession of people who would be horrified at the mere suggestion that they could be a bit later than Charles II. Yet they mostly date from the third quarter of the eighteenth century, when more wheels were required than ever before, and when the spinning jenny invented in 1764 had not as yet driven out the occupation of the domestic spinster. Spinning wheels were, of course,made by a turner, not a cabinet-maker.
The York Courant for the same year also contains an advertisement of a sale of furniture which the auctioneer in a footnote says ” has been little more than a year in use.” It may be quoted in full as a record of the contents of a Yorkshire house of about 1797.
” Ail the elegant and modem Household Furniture
of William Barnett, Esq., of Abberford, consisting of Bedsteads with Mahogany posts, beautiful chintz, Dimity, and other Hangings, and Window curtains ; excellent bordered Feather Beds, Mattresses, Blankets Quilts, and Counterpanes ; Mahogany chairs, Dining, Card, Tea and Pembroke Tables ; single and double chests of Drawers, Basin Stands, Dressing Tables, etc ; two sophas, cushions and covers ; neat painted and stained chairs, two mahogany side-Board Tables and cellaret ; Pier and Dressing glasses in gilt and other frames ; Floor, Staircase and Bed carpets ; two Passage Lamps and Floor Cloth ; Handsome Fire Irons ; a mangle, cloths and tables ; Kitchen requisite, Brewing Vessels and other efiects.”
The term ” basin-stand ” is interesting, and in ail probability refers to those of mahogany with round holes eut out for the reception of the various pieces of toilet ware. There are three-legged or tripod basin-stands made of mahogany which are usually credited to Chippendale. In second-hand dealers* parlance they are often known as wig-stands.” The ” side-board tables and cellaret indicate the development of the sideboard, which was first a table to stand near the wall, being afterwards supplied with side drawers and a centre drawer, a form which has never since been improved upon.
Other phrases which occur in eighteenth century auctioneers’ advertisements are : ” Six neat cabriole Drawing Room chairs and two elbow ditto, two neat mahogany knife cases, with table and desert knives and forks complete, Black handles, hooped and tipped with silver ; and three Shagreen Knife cases.” The Bristol Gazette for 1786 refers to ” Fluted Four Post, Field and other Bedsteads ” and Gore’s General Advertiser also refers to ” Field ” bedsteads and a “Press” bedstead.The London General Advertiser, 1751, enumerates amongst the furniture of a Hackney gentleman, a travelling Field Bed ” …” a Bureau Bedstead, and a neat Settee ditto.”
The term ” field-bed refers to a folding bed, but subsequently its meaning became extended. Murray’s Oxford dictionary gives the meaning to be ” A portable or folding bed chiefly for use in the field,” and supports the interpretation by the following quotations among others. 1590 : “A fair field-bed with a canopy.” 1709 : ” The Spanyard made his brags that he had turned the English ensigns into Spanish field-beds.” A second meaning is given as “a camp or trestle bedstead,” the illustrations being, 1592 : ” This field-bed is to cold for me to sleepe.” 1645 : ” The night is fled, and Dayes best Chorister kickes his field-bed with Scorne.” A further illustration dated 1754 suggests that field-beds were then commonly used in houses.
Heppelwhite’s ” Cabinet-maker’s and Upholsterer’s Guide,” dated 1788, also shews that they were used for household purposes, being simply tent bedsteads, the principal feature of which were the ” sweep ” tops to carry the drapery forming the tent. Two drawings of them are given in the book. They had four turned posts of quite simple and unimportant
character to support a light framework above, which was variously shaped, sometimes hooped, sometimes like a roof with sloping sides and a fiat top. It was the form of this framework, stretched over with dimity or other material, and the curtains suspended from it, which combined to give the bed its character. The author has frequently seen them in old farmhouse and cottage bedrooms, but the term neld-bed appears to have now become obsolete. No particular value attaches to these old-fashioned beds, which were made well into the nineteenth century, but they have the interest of old association and are getting rapidly scarcer.
An amusing reference to tent bedsteads which could readily be taken to pieces and transported with the higgage when visits were paid by important people to houses at a distance is to be found in a letter written in 1779 by Dr. Thomas Eyre to Lord Herbert (after-wards Earl of Pembroke) who was in Vienna. It describes the visit of the King and Queen to Wilton House.
To accommodate their majesties with a good bed,” he writes, I made interest with Mr. Skill, Mr. Beck-ford’s steward, to lend us his superb state bed, which was brought to Wilton, slung on the carriage of a wagon, without the least damage, at no small ex-pense ; but what signifies money when we want to entertain the princes of the land ; . . . when we had bustled our hearts out of a week before the time, lo and behold, when they arrived they brought a snug double tent bed, had it put up in the Colonade room where the state bed was already placed, in a crack, (sic) and slept, for anything I know to the contrary,
extremely quiet and well directly under Lord and Lady Pembroke’s and your honour’s picture by Sir Joshua Reynolds.”
A very careful description is given of a field-bed in Thomas Sheraton’s ” Cabinet Dictionary ” (1803), in which its connection with the camp bedstead is made clear. The author also gives a drawing which is much more detailed than the one in Heppelwhite’s book and illustrates the exact construction of the bed. Sheraton’s interpretation is a four post bedstead built so that the parts are easily separated and folded up. The posts, rails, and tester laths are each hinged in two or three places and when ail are taken down will pack into a case three feet eight inches long and nfteen inches square. He says in his notes on neld-beds, however, that they may be considered for domestic use, and suit for low rooms, either for servants or children to sleep upon ; and they receive this name on account of their being similar in size and shape to those really used in camps.” N0 doubt the name ” field-bed was applied indiscriminately for long after Sheraton’s time to indicate tent-beds of ail sorts, even though they may not have been made to fold up.
The press-bed referred to in the foregoing advertise-ment was simply the eighteenth-century interpretation of that very unsatisfactory arrangement by which a bed folds up to look like a wardrobe in the daytime. Heppelwhite gives no drawing of them, explaining the omission by saying : ” Of these we have purposely omitted to give any designs, their generai appearance varying so little from Wardrobes, which piece of furniture they are intended to represent, that designs
for them are not necessary.” Attention is called to the engraving of a wardrobe in the book which is described as having ” ail the appearance of a Press-Bed ; in which case the Upper drawers would be only sham, and form part of the door which may be made to turn up all in one piece, and form a tester, or may open in the middle and swing on each side ; the under drawer is useful to hold parts of the bed furniture ; may be 5 feet 6 inches high and 4 feet
long.”
Georgian furniture of the merely useful type was made in considerable quantities in the American colonies and has distinct character, mostly arising, however, from lack of means to interpret very correctly the features of English styles already developed, or from no particular desire being shewn to do more than adapt the main lines of the designs in the construction of articles of Utility. There are chairs made in America on the Windsor chair principle, and the American development of the rocker from the ladder back English and Dutch chairs is an interesting phase of the history of furniture.
Plenty of furniture was exported, but apparently for private individuals. The shipping records shew instances, but they are the barest possible notes, and are very rarely illuminating.
the omission by saying : ” Of these we have purposely omitted to give any designs, their generai appearance varying so little from Wardrobes, which piece of furniture they are intended to represent, that designs for them are not necessary.” Attention is called to the engraving of a wardrobe in the book which is described as having g ail the appearance of a Press-Bed ; in which case the upper drawers would be only sham, and form part of the door which may be made to turn up all in one piece, and form a tester, or may open in the middle and swing on each side ; the under drawer is useful to hold parts of the bed furniture ; may be 5 feet 6 inches high and 4 feet long.”
Georgian furniture of the merely useful type was made in considerable quantities in the American colonies and has distinct character, mostly arising, however, from lack of means to interpret very correctly the features of English styles already developed, or from no particular desire being shewn to do more than adapt the main lines of the designs in the construction of articles of utility. There are chairs made in America on the Windsor chair principle, and the American development of the rocker from the ladder back English and Dutch chairs is an interesting phase of the history of furniture.
Plenty of furniture was exported, but apparently for private individuals. The shipping records shew in-stances, but they are the barest possible notes, and are very rarely illuminating. From the V Liverpool Trade List” for 1798 one sees at a glance tliat woven and printed goods were the principal exports to the lately formed United States. Thousands of yards of dimity, Irish linen, checked linen, printed calico, muslin, blankets, gingham, quilting and other materials for household purposes used to go out every week, but the furniture which would be an indispensable corollary of ail these fabrics must in the main have been con-structed in America, where wood was plentiful and cheap, for it only occasionally figures in the returns. To Jamaica, for instance, on one occasion, ” cabinet ware of the value of 50 ” was sent, to Virginia10 worth, to Maryland 80, to South Carolina 50, and Martinique 27. Sometimes this is given as ” household furniture I and only in the cases of clocks, watches, and looking-glasses are the items separately enum-erated. To Martinique by one boat from Liverpool in 1798 went forty-eight looking-glasses, to Jamaica two pier glasses, and to Tortola on one occasion six dozen time-glasses. It is interesting to note in these lists of exports constantly recurring items such as I 20 carnage guns, 30 swivels, 4 carronades, 50 sword blades, 174 fowling pieces, and 14 pairs of pistols,M going for the most part to the Southern States, where Royalist sympathies in the War of Independence were strongest.
Windsor chairs are among these humble pieces of furniture of mere utility, and have been considered sufhciently interesting to justify a chapter to them-selves. But there are dressing tables, small corner washstands, with holes to take basin and dishes, little cupboards, sometimes inlaid with stringing or band appreciate to some extent. The small collector to whom the search for old things is as interesting as possession will still find local types if he applies himself with patience and assiduity in parts of the country which remained longest in rural simplicity after the Coming of the railway. Parts of Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Lancashire, Wales and East Anglia, are still not denuded of old furniture, though the finest pieces have in most cases already found their way into big private collections. There is a kind of round table with three legs used in farmhouses and cottages all over England which sometimes shows features of unusual interest. It may be made of ash or oak and is known in the home cou nties as a ” cricket ” table, some say because of the three legs suggesting the three stumps of the wicket. This is a very doubt reason for the name, and the writer has seen little wooden fireside stools in Derby-sbire, localy termed crickets, which had four legs and so met i mes only two ends connected by a tenoned rail somewhat after the fashion of Jacobean joined stools. So me ti mes these three-legged tables are connected by an underframing shaped fashion im-mediately beneath the circular top, and many of them have no lower rails whatever and no arrangement for letting. They are simply tables made on the prindple of three-legged stools, are usually ex-ceedingly strong and very suitable for inclusion in the rurnisbing of a country cottage. The legs are mostly square and tapering from top to bottom, splaying out to give stability. Some of these tables are more nearly related to the seventeenth-century gate-leg variety, though they have no gate. One picturesque form has a circular top which turns on a central pivot to permit of three flaps falling down, thus Converting the shape of the top into a triangle at will. There are lower rails to this table and the legs are often very neatly turned.
The country-made dresser is an attractive piece of furniture to the collector of modest means. Nearly always the backing to the upper part has been added though the shelves may be original. A quaint reference to the eighteenth Century dresser is found in the 1744 edition of Thomas Tusser’s Five Hundred Points of Husbandry,” where, in commenting upon the author’s conclusions on hair being found in the cheese, the Editor says : ” Wenches when they can get a Looking Glass, will be running into Places where they are least suspected and be combing and tricking themselves up ; and therefore it is not without reason, some neat House wifes cannot endure a Looking Glass to hang over a Dresser.” This clearly pictures the old dresser as a necessary piece of household furniture at which domestic work was done, the shelves being used as convenient places on which to stand pots and pans needed while operations were in progress. The dresser was not used principally in the eighteenth Century as a sideboard, and whatever decorative character the upper shelves had must have come from the pride of neat arrangement exhibited by house mistresses who liked to have the crockery with which they worked clean, tidy, and handy on hooks. An eighteenth-century dresser will have come from a kitchen, not from a parlour, which as we have seen was furnished with side tables and sideboards.