CAROLEAN STYLES OR THE RESTORATION
CHARLES II, 1660 TO 1685
If it was to the Queen of Charles II that the Carolean period of
furniture owed its Portuguese strain and the evidence of strange
things from the East, it was from a woman of quite another sort that
the predominating influence came. French styles were the vogue at
court, not because the Queen, poor dull woman, wished it, but because
Louise de Querouailles was the strong influence, and with her advent
came follies and fashions enough to please the light side of one of
the lightest of monarchs. France, in the person of Louis XIV, felt
that England would bear watching while a Stuart strutted and flirted,
oppressed and vacillated. And the French ways of those days being
directed by such craft as that of the astute Cardinal Mazarin, a woman
was sent from France to charm the King and stay closer beside the
throne than any man could bide.
Charles created the light and lovely Louise the Duchess of Portsmouth
and the mother of the little Duke of Richmond; and, that so much of
extravagant beauty might be royally housed, he spent much time and
more money in fitting her apartments at Whitehall. Three times were
they demolished at her whim, the extravagant fittings failing to suit
her insatiable caprice.
Such procedure was hotly stimulating to artists and artisans. In
the first attempt they sought to produce their best, but seeing it
displease, they were lashed on to more and yet more subtle effort until
at last the pretty lady of too much power had forced the production of
elegant new styles which smacked of her native France. Thus went by the
board the efforts of English styles to remain English, and thus began
that long habit of keeping an eye on French designs.
We think of Charles II as a figure-head of romance, because the rosy
mist of poetic fancy clings to the members of the Stuart family from
Mary of Scots down to--but not including--that Duke of York who minced
about the throne of Charles II with his soul concentrated on securing
from his brother his own personal advancement.
The horrors of Charles' reign, the Bloody Assizes, the Monmouth
incident, his neglect to recognise the seriousness of his
responsibilities, all these things are lost in the elegant frivolity of
the life led at his court. Cares, ennuis, tragedies, were flicked aside
by white hands thrust from brocades and lace, and a merry measure was
the antidote for soul-sickness.
Those who made music or danced to it, those who rhymed (the naughtier
the better) and sang their verses, those who led at toasts and
feasting, those who wore the richest dress, were the persons of
importance under the patronage of Charles II, in the time of the
Restoration.
Nell Gwynn, she of the quick smile and quick tear, and vulnerable
heart, was of the King's favour to the extent of honouring him with the
little Duke of St. Albans; and on her Charles lavished accessories of
elegant living similar to those he bestowed on Louise de Querouailles.
The bewitching actress lived her quickly changing moods among the
furniture that now graces our modern rooms here on this side of the
water.
We were not importing many of those elegances in 1664. That was the
date when Charles' brother James, Duke of York, left the luxurious
court at London and came to give royal dignity to the little American
town of New Amsterdam on the day when its Dutch dominion ended and the
city was re-christened New York.
While considering the fascinating women of the court, Hortensia
Mancini, for whom beautiful furnishings were made, must stand as
the most alluring of them all because she ever eludes the critic or
dissector. Somewhat of her uncle Cardinal Mazarin was in her astute
secretiveness, but a baffling quality all her own made her proof
against surrendering her soul to any man's probing or to any man's
charm. So rich she was that money could not tempt; so clever, with
Italian wit added to Italian culture, that none could surpass her in
repartee or discourse; so full of mystery was her dark and piquant
beauty that all might envy her--yet so passionately unhappy, that none
would wish to exchange with her.
Add to the list of women Barbara Palmer, Duchess of Cleveland, who
represented a heavy voluptuousness and a prolific motherhood for the
King, and we see the women favoured by the King's artisans, and for
whom the beautiful furnishings of the time were produced.
Though Charles II had no royal factories such as Louis XIV was
conducting in France, plenty of rich objects of art were yielded by the
workers. That astonishing aberration of taste, silver furniture, had a
vogue at this time, the King considering his favourite worthy of such
extravagance. It must have been ugly by its inappropriateness, however
pretty was the woman it served.
Louise de Querouailles had hers set in a room lined all with mirror
glass, which at that time was an expensive novelty. But it pleased the
King to wander into the apartment of his favourite satellite and see
the lovely image of the Duchess of Portsmouth sitting among her silver
movables, reflected so many times in the walls that the world seemed
peopled only with adorable women. Nell Gwynn also had her mirror room.
It was the Duke of Buckingham who made the mirror-lined room possible
by establishing a factory for mirrors. Previous to this time they were
exceeding rare in England. Now a leaf was taken from Italy's books and
mirrors were made at home, with bevelled edges, and also with bright
blue glass framing, inside the wooden frame.
Grinling Gibbons was at work on his carvings and inventions, and we
have record of him as a decorator in a letter in which he tells his
lady client: "I holp all things will please you." It was the year
after the Great Fire, 1667, that Gibbons began to make a feature of
the garlands and swags of flowers and fruit, carved with excessive
exuberance, that are associated with his name and that of Queen Anne
in decoration. To gain his effects he used the fine soft limewood as
yielding to his tool almost like a plastic stuff.
In social England Bath played an important part, and thither went for
new scenes the merry gossiping crowd for their routs and aristocratic
carousing. This was the time of the sedan-chair, of the dropped note,
the flirted handkerchief, the raised eyebrow and the quick eye-flash,
all full of poignant meanings of their own. Life was a pretty game,
insistently a pretty one, and following the mode, its accessories
were pretty. At Bath the same elegant crowd played as in London,
transferred by shockingly primitive coaches over outrageously rutted
roads. The wonder is they ever cared to undertake such hardships as
those imposed on travellers in England in the seventeenth century. But
at Bath we see them, at the famous spas, with Nell Gwynn, way-ward and
ardent, charming the men, slighted by the women.
To be specific about the furniture styles of the times is satisfactory
to the student, to the desired end that old pieces may be known from
imitation, and that good adaptations may be distinguished from bad.
In general it may be said that lightness continued to be the ideal in
construction, particularly in chairs and tables, and that carvings
grew ever finer in workmanship. Chair backs also grew narrower and
higher. Caning was retained, but seats were covered with a squab
cushion, or upholstered. A minute examination of the chairs on Plate 21
leads to the detection of certain characteristics. This Plate shows a
particularly good example of the chairs as they depart from the fashion
which prevailed immediately before the Fire, and as they merged into
the style of William and Mary.
These chairs have details in common with chairs that preceded them,
but as a whole, they are entirely different. They do not tell the
same story, convey the same message, as the chairs of Charles I, for
example. And that shows the subtle power of furniture to express
the spirit of the times in which it was made. "Feeling" is a word
for the serious collector. Ability to read feeling amounts almost to
a talent, and is certainly an instinct. Those who possess it know
without recourse to detail where to place a piece of furniture never
encountered before, and this even though it be one of those erratic
pieces that appear in all periods. The feeling, then, of these chairs
is French, but a transplanted French, growing under alien influence.
[Illustration: Plate XX--STUART SETTEE WITH CARVING. SECOND HALF
OF XVII CENTURY]
[Illustration: Plate XXI--CHARLES II CHAIRS OF VARYING STYLES IN
CARVING]
Descending upon details, the shape of the legs is so much at variance
with those of the preceding fashion that they seem to alter the scheme
of construction. By means of the change from a straight line to a curve
the chair loses in honesty and in balance while growing in elegance.
Another point to notice is the change in the arrangement of stretchers,
also the lifting from the floor of the elaborate front stretcher which
is made to match the ornamental top of the chair back. The seat-frame
retains the incising of the former fashion, and the square blocks at
points of intersection carry the familiar carved rosette. The backs
have strong points of interest. The radical change is in the uprights,
which, instead of being wide, flat carvings of leafage, are gracefully
designed posts. A long step in the way of beauty was made when this
style of back was adopted, a treatment which developed later in the
century into the exquisite carved backs, which even exceeded the
French in graceful invention. An examination of the chairs of 1685 will
show the perfection of the style which was begun by Charles II, adopted
by James II and further developed under William and Mary.
To continue the lesson of the chairs, it was here that the old flat
S curve began to alter into the richer, more robust C curve. The leg
of chairs carved in C scrolls follows the shape of the curves, and
furniture of this pattern has exceeding charm, especially when the
front stretcher has been treated by an inspired hand. Much sought are
the chairs and sofas of this period, and when covered with needle-point
are keenly valued for use in the superb living-room which in modern
homes often takes place of the drawing-room.
Happy indeed is the collector who can find such an old English sofa
as that in the Metropolitan Museum on Plate 22. It is entirely
characteristic, and shows not only the interesting fashion in carving,
but the large advance in upholstering. Such comfortable work was
unknown before the reign of Charles II. If we have curiosity as to the
appearance of the gentlefolk who used such furniture, the embroidered
cover of this piece shows lovely woman in her hours of ease, and
mankind hovering near with a wish to please. But this very embroidery
shows how difficult a matter it was for the English to draw with true
hand and free, a purely decorative motive; for outside the figures of
the medallions, the whole thing is meaningless and without consistency.
[Illustration: Plate XXII--WALNUT SOFA
Carved in C curves, time of James II covered with petit point
embroidery]
[Illustration: Plate XXIII--GILT MIRROR. TIME OF CHARLES II
When mirrors were freely made in England]
For a clue to the inspiration of English work in the last quarter of
the century, which embraces that of Charles' reign, that of James II
and of William and Mary, it is advisable to turn a keen eye on the
artistic and political actions of France. The Great Louis was on the
throne, and the great Le Brun was the leader in the decorative art of
the day.
One of the political mistakes of Louis XIV was the Revocation of the
Edict of Nantes, that edict which had protected from persecution
so large a number of Protestant workers in the liberal arts. Among
these people were tapestry weavers, silk weavers, glass workers, wood
carvers, members of all the crafts that contribute to the beauty of the
home. Eventually they came to England for safe haven.
It is impossible to over-estimate the benefit to England in an æsthetic
way of the advent of all these skilled workers, men whose equal were
to be found in no other country. Louis XIV had made a royal hobby of
exquisite furnishings. He had placed their manufacture among the royal
pleasures and also among the state duties. He had glorified the art
of furnishing as it had never before been done, by the magnificent
institution of the Gobelins factory. Here men learned their craft--an
infinite variety of crafts--and achieved perfection. All at once many
of these workers were forced to flee or meet death under the new
dictum of the King. And thus England received the outcasts to her own
enrichment.
One of the industries in which England was behind the Continent was
the manufacture of silk. The French refugees were soon established in
London at Spitalfields, reproducing the magic weaves they had formerly
made for the imperious pleasure of the royal favourites in France.
Satins, brocades, taffetas of wondrous dye and lustre, flowed from the
looms of the able weavers who thus drowned their nostalgia in excess of
a loved and familiar occupation.
One result of this mass of beautiful material being thrown to a
delighted public, was the change made in the fashion of interior
wall-treatment. The beautiful oak panelling of other days oppressed
with its seriousness the light mood of Charles II and his light
companions. The gay sheen of silk was more sympathetic and enlivening.
On the walls, then, went the silk. In Anne's time the panels grew
larger, then became a wainscot and sank to the height of a man's
bewigged and capricious head; then lowered to a chair's height for the
Georgian era. And above flowed the gracious lines of silken fabrics
concealing all the walls, made in Spitalfields by the French refugees
and their followers.
The pretty Duchess of Portsmouth had her rooms hung with silk and
with wondrous tapestries from France, though England made both silks
and tapestries. Beds of the day retained the high posts and tester or
canopy, heavily draped, and the bed was similarly covered. The bed was
carved, even to the tester, in French inspiration, and was elegant
indeed. In such a bed came the King at last to lie in mortal illness in
the palace at Whitehall, where the lovely Louise had first place by the
royal invalid, while the Queen was treated as a negligible quantity.
The Duchess of Cleveland, that other favourite, was not far in the
background, and the King in his last hours remembered still another
when he implored: "Don't let poor Nell starve."