Transcriber's note:
Minor spelling and punctuation inconsistencies have been
harmonized. Italic text has been marked with _underscores_.
Obvious typos have been corrected.
COMPANION VOLUME BY THE SAME AUTHOR
CHATS ON OLD FURNITURE
_Illustrated by 72 Full-page Plates._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. THE RENAISSANCE ON THE CONTINENT
II. THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE
III. STUART OR JACOBEAN (Early Seventeenth Century)
IV. STUART OR JACOBEAN (Late Seventeenth Century)
V. QUEEN ANNE AND EARLY GEORGIAN STYLES
VI. FRENCH FURNITURE: THE PERIOD OF LOUIS XIV.
VII. FRENCH FURNITURE: THE PERIOD OF LOUIS XV.
VIII. FRENCH FURNITURE: THE PERIOD OF LOUIS XVI.
IX. FRENCH FURNITURE: THE FIRST EMPIRE STYLE
X. CHIPPENDALE AND HIS STYLE
XI. ADAM, HEPPLEWHITE, AND SHERATON STYLES
XII. HINTS TO COLLECTORS
CHATS ON
COTTAGE AND
FARMHOUSE FURNITURE
BOOKS FOR COLLECTORS
_With Coloured Frontispieces and many Illustrations._
_Large Crown 8vo, cloth._
CHATS ON ENGLISH CHINA.
By ARTHUR HAYDEN.
CHATS ON OLD FURNITURE.
By ARTHUR HAYDEN.
CHATS ON OLD PRINTS.
By ARTHUR HAYDEN.
CHATS ON COSTUME.
By G. WOOLLISCROFT RHEAD.
CHATS ON OLD LACE AND NEEDLEWORK.
By E. L. LOWES.
CHATS ON ORIENTAL CHINA.
By J. F. BLACKER.
CHATS ON MINIATURES.
By J. J. FOSTER.
CHATS ON ENGLISH EARTHENWARE.
By ARTHUR HAYDEN.
(Companion Volume to "Chats on English China.")
CHATS ON AUTOGRAPHS.
By A. M. BROADLEY.
CHATS ON OLD PEWTER.
By H. J. L. J. MASSÉ, M.A.
CHATS ON POSTAGE STAMPS.
By FRED J. MELVILLE.
CHATS ON OLD JEWELLERY AND TRINKETS.
By MACIVER PERCIVAL.
CHATS ON COTTAGE AND FARMHOUSE FURNITURE.
By ARTHUR HAYDEN.
(Companion Volume to "Chats on Old Furniture.")
LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN.
NEW YORK: F. A. STOKES COMPANY.
[Illustration: SIDEBOARD OF CARVED OAK. ENGLISH, SEVENTEENTH
CENTURY.
(_In the Victoria and Albert Museum._)
_Frontispiece._]
CHATS ON COTTAGE
AND
FARMHOUSE FURNITURE
BY
ARTHUR HAYDEN
AUTHOR OF "CHATS ON OLD FURNITURE," ETC.
WITH A CHAPTER ON
OLD ENGLISH CHINTZES
BY HUGH PHILLIPS
AND SEVENTY-THREE FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS
NEW YORK
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
(_All rights reserved._)
TO
MY OLD FRIEND
FREDERIC ARUP
I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME
IN MEMORY OF A HAPPY LABOUR
OF LOVE COMPLETED
PREFACE
The number of works dealing with old English furniture has grown
rapidly during the last ten years. Not only has the subject been
broadly treated from the historic or from the collector's point
of view, but latterly everything has been scientifically reduced
into departments of knowledge, and individual periods have received
detailed treatment at the hands of specialists.
Museums and well-known collections, noblemen's seats and country
houses have furnished photographs of the finest examples, and these,
now well-known, pieces have appeared again and again as illustrations
to volumes by various hands.
It is obviously essential in the study of the history and evolution
of furniture-making in this country that superlative specimens
be selected as ideal types for the student of design or for the
collector, but such pieces must always be beyond the means of the
average collector.
The present volume has been written for that large class of
collectors, who, while appreciating the beauty and the subtlety of
great masterpieces of English furniture, have not long enough purses
to pay the prices such examples bring after fierce competition in the
auction-room.
The field of minor work affords peculiar pleasure and demands
especial study. The character of the cottage and farmhouse furniture
is as sturdy and independent as that of the persons for whom it
was made. For three centuries unknown cabinet-makers in towns and
in villages produced work unaffected by any foreign influences.
Linen-chests, bacon-cupboards, Bible-boxes, gate tables, and other
tables, dressers, and chairs possess particular styles of treatment
in different districts. The eighteenth-century cabinet-makers
scattered up and down the three kingdoms and in America found in
Chippendale's "Director" a design-book which stimulated them to
produce furniture of compelling interest to the collector.
The examples of such work illustrated in this volume have been taken
from a wide area and are such as may come under the hand of the
diligent collector in various parts of the country.
In view of the increased love of collecting homely furniture
suitable for modern use, it is my hope that this book may find a
ready welcome, especially nowadays, when so many of the picturesque
architectural details of old homesteads are being reproduced in the
garden suburbs of great cities.
It is possible that the authorities of local museums may find in
this class of furniture a field for special research, as undoubtedly
specimens of local work should be secured for permanent exhibition
before they are dispersed far and wide and their identity with
particular districts lost for ever.
In regard to the scientific study of farmhouse and cottage furniture,
the ideal arrangement is that followed at Skansen, Stockholm, and
at Lyngby, near Copenhagen. In the former a series of buildings
have been erected in the open air, in connection with the Northern
Museum, gathered from every part of Sweden, retaining their exterior
character and fitted with the furniture of their former occupants. It
was the desire of the founder, Dr. Hazelius, to present an epitome
of the national life. Similarly at Lyngby, an adjunct of the _Dansk
Folkemuseum_ at Copenhagen, the life-work of Hr. Olsen has been given
to gathering together and re-erecting a large number of old cottages
and farmhouses from various districts in Denmark, from Iceland, the
Faroe Islands, and from Norway and Sweden. These have their obsolete
agricultural implements, and old methods of fencing and quaint styles
of storage. The furniture stands in these specimen homes exactly as
if they were occupied. It is a remarkable open-air museum, and the
idea is worthy of serious consideration in this country. Old cottages
and farmhouses are fast disappearing, and the preservation of these
beauties of village and country life should appeal to all lovers of
national monuments.[1]
[1] Those interested in the method pursued in Sweden and Denmark
and the grave necessity for speedy measures to preserve our
national cottages and farmhouses from effacement will find
illuminating articles on the subject from the pen of "Home
Counties" in the _World's Work_, August, October, and November,
1910, and in the American _Educational Review_, February, 1911,
in an article by Lucy M. Salmon. "Old West Surrey," by Gertrude
Jekyll (Longmans & Co.), 1904, contains a wealth of suggestive
material relating to cottage furniture and articles of daily use
of old-style country life now passing away.
In connexion with farmhouse furniture, old chintzes is a subject
never before written upon. A chapter in this volume is contributed
by Mr. Hugh Phillips, whose special studies concerning this little
known field enable him to present much valuable information which has
never before been in print, together with illustrations of chintzes
actually taken from authentic examples of old furniture.
A brief survey is made of miscellaneous articles associated with
cottage and farmhouse furniture. Some specimens of Sussex firebacks
are illustrated, together with fenders, firedogs, pot-hooks,
candle-holders, and brass and copper candlesticks.
The illustrations have been selected in order to convey a broad
outline of the subject. My especial thanks are due to Messrs.
Phillips, of the Manor House, Hitchin, for placing at my disposal
the practical experience of many years' collecting in various parts
of the country, and by enriching the volume with illustrations of
many fine examples of great importance and rarity never before
photographed.
To Messrs. A. B. Daniell & Sons I am indebted for photographs of
specimens in their galleries.
In presenting this volume it is my intention that it should be a
companion volume to my "Chats on Old Furniture," which records the
history and evolution of the finer styles of English furniture,
showing the various foreign influences on English craftsmen who made
furniture for the wealthy classes.
ARTHUR HAYDEN.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
INTRODUCTORY NOTE 25
The minor collector--The originality of the village
cabinet-maker--His freedom from foreign influences--The
traditional character of his work--Difficult to establish dates
to cottage and farmhouse furniture--Oak the chief wood
employed--Beech, elm, and ash used in lieu of mahogany and
satinwood--Village craftsmanship not debased by early-Victorian
art--Its obliteration in the age of factory-made furniture--The
conservation of old farmhouses with their furniture in
Sweden and in Denmark--The need for the preservation
and exhibition of old cottages and farmhouses in Great
Britain.
CHAPTER II
SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY STYLES 43
Typical Jacobean furniture--Solidity of English joiners'
work--Oak general in its use--The oak forests of England--Sturdy
independence of country furniture--Chests of
drawers--The slow assimilation of foreign styles--The
changing habits of the people.
CHAPTER III
THE GATE-LEG TABLE 83
Its early form--Transitional and experimental stages--Its
establishment as a permanent popular type--The gate-leg
table in the Jacobean period--Walnut and mahogany varieties--Its
utility and beauty contribute to its long survival--Its
adoption in modern days.
CHAPTER IV
THE FARMHOUSE DRESSER 113
The days of the late Stuarts--Its early table form with
drawers--The decorated type with shelves--William and
Mary style with double cupboards--The Queen Anne
cabriole leg--Mid-eighteenth-century types.
CHAPTER V
THE BIBLE-BOX, THE CRADLE, THE SPINNING-WHEEL,
AND THE BACON-CUPBOARD 137
The Puritan days of the seventeenth century--The Protestant
Bible in every home--The variety of carving found in
Bible-boxes--The Jacobean cradle and its forms--The
spinning-wheel--The bacon-cupboard.
CHAPTER VI
EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STYLES 155
The advent of the cabriole leg--The so-called Queen Anne
style--The survival of oak in the provinces--The influence
of walnut on cabinet-making--The early-Georgian types--Chippendale
and his contemporaries.
CHAPTER VII
THE EVOLUTION OF THE CHAIR 189
Early days--The typical Jacobean oak chair--The evolution
of the stretcher--The chair-back and its development--Transition
between Jacobean and William and Mary forms--Farmhouse
styles contemporary with the cane-back chair--The
Queen Anne splat--Country Chippendale, Hepplewhite,
and Sheraton--The grandfather chair--Ladder-back types--The
spindle-back chair--Corner chairs.
CHAPTER VIII
THE WINDSOR CHAIR 243
Early types--The stick legs without stretcher--The tavern
chair--Eighteenth-century pleasure gardens--The rail-back
variety--Chippendale style Windsor chairs--The survival of
the Windsor chair.
CHAPTER IX
LOCAL TYPES 265
Welsh carving--Scottish types--Lancashire dressers, wardrobes,
and chairs--Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Cambridge,
and Essex tables--Isle of Man tables.
CHAPTER X
MISCELLANEOUS IRONWORK, ETC. 285
The rushlight-holder--The dipper--The chimney crane--The
Scottish crusie--Firedogs--The warming-pan--Sussex
firebacks--Grandfather clocks.
CHAPTER XI
OLD ENGLISH CHINTZES. (By Hugh Phillips) 315
The charm of old English chintz--Huguenot cloth-printers
settle in England--Jacob Stampe at the sign of the Calico
Printer--The Queen Anne period--The Chippendale period--The
age of machinery.
INDEX 343
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
SIDEBOARD OF CARVED OAK (ENGLISH,
SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY) _Frontispiece_
CHAPTER I--INTRODUCTORY NOTE
PAGE
CHESTS (SIXTEENTH CENTURY) 29
ELIZABETHAN CHAIR 35
CHEST (SEVENTEENTH CENTURY) 35
INTERIOR OF FARMHOUSE PARLOUR 39
INTERIOR OF COTTAGE 39