THE END OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
WILLIAM AND MARY. 1689-1702
THE style named for William and Mary embraces all the changes that
occurred from late Carolean days until the time of Anne, and even
includes some of the models and details that are given the name of that
queen. Dutch influence comes largely into both, but was stronger in the
style known as Queen Anne's. Mixed up with other influences were those
not only of Holland but of the countries with which her political life
was concerned. Spain contributed certain details, and as for the Dutch
connections with the Near and the Far East, they supplied an infinity
of inspiration.
Nothing more piquant to the decorative spirit could be imagined
than the fantastic motifs of Indian and Chinese importation. To us,
surfeited as we are from babyhood with Chinese toys and Indian stuffs,
it is hard to look upon these things as startling novelties. But in
those days of less travel they were delicious exotics. Among persons of
fashion, there was a rage for the living evidences of the strange East,
and more than popular as pets in the drawing-room became the exotic
monkey and the vivid parrot. If these creatures, leashed to a standard,
could be tended by a tiny black human, then fashion was pleased to an
infantine joyousness.
[Illustration: Plate XXIV--INTERESTING CHAIR TRANSITIONAL BETWEEN
STUART STYLES AND WILLIAM AND MARY]
[Illustration: CHAIRS IN VARIANTS OF WILLIAM AND MARY
Covered with petit point of the time]
[Illustration: WILLIAM AND MARY CANED CHAIRS, ONE WITH FLUTED SPANISH
FOOT
Plate XXV]
Every ship that came in from far Eastern countries brought wise parrots
and tiny frisking monkeys, and these were valued by decorative artists
for models, as well as by my lady to pique gay conversation in her
drawing-room.
William and Mary styles, like all of the seventeenth century, are at
present in high vogue in America, and for this reason it interests us
to study them. They come in after the use of oak has passed its vogue,
and when walnut prevails, although woods of lighter colour, such as
pearwood and sycamore, are employed. In chairs and sofas, carving
prevails as decoration; but in cabinets and tables, the preference is
for veneer and for inlay.
At this time occurs a change in the style of cabinets. Hitherto they
had been closed cupboards; now, because of the fashion for collecting
Delft china from Holland, a need came for cabinets that would display
the collector's treasure. As furniture makers ever express the whims
and needs of the day, so they at once invented the cabinet with
shelf-top protected by glass. A feature of the design is the hooded
top, so characteristic of William and Mary.
Two types of carving prevailed in chairs in the last twenty years of
the seventeenth century, that of the broken C curve, originating under
Charles II, and that of great elaboration which in some respects caught
its details from the French. A study of the plates will show that the
post-like upright which flanks the back is retained in both cases.
Examples of fine carving under William and Mary show the free fancy of
the designer and the skill of the worker who was possibly the designer
as well. But the original chairs must be seen to gain any idea of the
beauty of colour and finish. The whole bears the look of bronze that
has been polished with caressing hands for centuries.
The shape of the leg in these finely carved chairs is to be noticed,
as it is fathered by the chair-leg in vogue under Louis XIV in France,
and in slight variations it prevails all through the William and Mary
period. It is noticeable by a pear-shaped enlargement near the top. The
Spanish foot is often seen on this style.
Petit point, gros point, or mere cross-stitch embroidery you may call
it, was a fashionable occupation for dame and damsel. In Charles II's
time the stuffed high-relief stump work pleased the court. Sorry stuff
it looks now, much like the court ladies of that time, in that its
colour and gilt are gone and its false art is pitifully exposed. But
the good honest embroidery in wool and silk still stands, and is again
tremendously in vogue.
[Illustration: Plate XXVI--CHEST OF DRAWERS IN BURR WALNUT VENEER
Mounted on legs, used in the last quarter of the XVII century]
[Illustration: Plate XXVII--SMALL WALNUT TABLE
With spiral legs and inlay. Here is seen the beginning of the flat
serpentine stretcher]
It was Madame de Maintenon who gave such inspiration to the work in
France that England copied. Her school at St. Cyr, which she conducted
solely for the purpose of giving happiness and education to penniless
daughters of fallen aristocrats, at that school the young girls
executed work that ranks with objects of art. A well-known American
collector has a large sofa executed thus under the hand of Madame de
Maintenon which represents scenes from a play of Molière's, the piece
having also been given by these same young girls, then the cartoons
drawn by an artist of high talent.
So petit point was almost a high art in France in the time of William
and Mary, and England did her best to follow the fine pattern set
her. If, in judging whether this work be French or English, the mind
hesitates, it is well to take the eye from the medallions and study
how the designer filled the big field outside. In French drawing
the whole is a harmonious composition; in the English, the hand is
crude and uncertain, and the motifs meaningless, though bold, without
coherence or co-ordination. Nowadays the lady who wishes to embroider
a chair gets from Paris a medallion already complete and fills in the
surrounding territory at her pleasure. It would seem that the ladies in
England did the same in the seventeenth century, but with less taste.
Among minor points of interest, those little points used by the amateur
in identifying, is the marked change in the stretcher. Away back in the
beginning of the century, as seen on chairs and tables, it was heavy,
made of square three-or four-inch oak, and placed almost on the ground.
The first change was in using thinner wood; the next was in giving the
stretcher a look of ornamental lightness by turning. When this happened
the front stretcher of chairs was lifted from the ground to spare it
the heavy wear apparent in older pieces. When carving attacked the
stretcher, then it was placed well out of the way of harm, and it took
on the ornamental effect of the chair's back. The Portuguese style of
stretcher copied closely the carving on the top of the back in graceful
curves.
It was when the larger pieces of furniture took on a certain lightness
of effect that a change in their stretchers occurred, and this was in
the period of William and Mary. The stretcher became wide, flat and
serpentine. In chairs it wandered diagonally from the legs, meeting in
the centre. In tables its shape was regulated by the size of the table
top. In chests of drawers it wavered from leg to leg of the six which
like short posts supported the weight. If the piece of furniture was
inlaid these flat stretchers offered fine opportunity for continuing
the work.
Strangely enough the stretcher, in chairs at least, disappeared at just
the time it was most needed. That was at the introduction of the curved
or cabriole leg, in the early days of Queen Anne. Those who know by
experience how frail the curve makes this sort of construction, sigh
with regret that the fine old Queen Anne pieces of their collection
cannot be consistently stayed according to the older method.
[Illustration: Plate XXVIII--CARVED CHAIRS. PERIOD OF WILLIAM AND MARY
With all the fine characteristics of the carved designs of the time]
[Illustration: Plate XXIX--WALNUT CHAIRS, WILLIAM AND MARY
With the exquisitely carved backs, stretchers and legs characteristic
of the time]
It was in the interesting time of William and Mary that the kneehole
desk made its appearance. A certain enchanting clumsiness marks these
desks from later products on the same line, and a decided flavour of
Chinese construction. Such a desk was recently rooted out of the dark
in an obscure Connecticut town, it having been brought over in the
early days, and, not being mahogany, has lain despised by local dealers
until one more "knowledgeable" than his fellows discovered that it was
Elizabethan!
A contribution made by China was the art of lacquering. Although it
was not in the fulness of its vogue until the century had turned the
corner in Queen Anne's reign, it had its beginnings in the earlier
importations of lacquer and the desire of the cabinet-makers to imitate
the imported art.
Varnish as we know it had never been in use, else had we missed the
wonderful hand polish on old oak and walnut that cannot be imitated.
And when it appeared it was only to use it in the Chinese manner, as a
thick lacquer over painted or relief ornament. As the art of lacquering
grew, cabinets of great elaboration became fashionable, and these
were in many cases imported from China as the cunning handicraft of
the Chinese exceeded that of the English in making tiny drawers and
tea-box effects. Then these pieces were sent to England where they
were painted and lacquered by ladies as a fashionable pastime, and were
set on elaborate carved stands of gilt in a style savouring more of
Grinling Gibbons than of China,--which is the true accounting of the
puzzling combination of lacquer and gold carving.
The metal mounts or hardware of furniture throughout the seventeenth
century was simple beyond necessity, yet this simplicity has its charm.
In earliest days, iron locks and hinges of a Gothic prudence as to size
and invulnerability, ushered in the century, but it was still the time
of Shakespeare, and that time threw a glance back to the Gothic just
left behind.
Knobs were needed as drawers appeared, and these were conveniently and
logically made of wood, and were cut in facets like a diamond. But
the prevailing metal mount for the rest of the century was the little
drop handle that resembles nothing so much as a lady's long earring.
It is found on old Jacobean cabinets, side-tables, and all pieces
having drawers and cupboards. Its origin is old Spanish, and that
smacks always of Moorish. With unusual fidelity this little drop handle
clung until under Queen Anne (1703) the fashion changed to the wide
ornamental plate with looplike handle, and _that_ in turn served, with
but slight variations, throughout the century.
[Illustration: QUEEN ANNE SINGLE CHAIR
Made of walnut with carved motives gilded.
This type of chair shows the strong effect of Chinese motifs,
especially on the legs.]
[Illustration: QUEEN ANNE ARM CHAIR
Upholstered in gros point with splat black and Dutch shell on
curved legs.
_Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York_]
[Illustration: WALNUT QUEEN ANNE CHAIRS
With cabriole leg and claw and ball foot adapted from Chinese Spanish
leather set on with innumerable nails elegantly covers the taller.
These chairs foreshadow the Georgian styles.
Plate XXX]
[Illustration: Plate XXXI--QUEEN ANNE CHAIR
With marquetry back and carved cabriole leg with hoof and serpentine
stretcher _Courtesy of P. W. French_]
In summing up the seventeenth century as a whole, it seems to show a
British and insular attempt to form its own styles, to dress its homes
and palaces in a British way, regardless of what the world else-where
was doing. Bits of outside product came drifting across the Channel,
but these were not treated with too great seriousness. They were never
adopted intact with all the feeling of foreign thought shining from
their elegant surfaces, but rather were cut apart and certain bits were
used to tack onto the more British work. And it is just here that is
found the secret of the charm which lies in old English furniture. It
is the endeavour of England to tell her own story, and her story is
necessarily different from that of France, Portugal, Spain, Holland,
the East. So, although she borrows motifs from foreign lands, it is
only to indicate her historical connection with them and not to make a
witless copy of their wares.
This holds true even at the time when two great artists dominated the
decorative arts in Europe, Rubens and Le Brun, and that decorative
monarch, Louis XIV, ruled art as well as politics. Yet the insularity
of England kept her, happily, from realising the fine flowering of
French art to imitate it, and, instead, she expressed her own sturdy
characteristic development.
And so we love the evidences of sincerity and the pursuit of beauty
that our English ancestors made for us, and in our homes of ease,
with these things about us, we like to dream of the men and women
who created and used these dignified time-kissed old pieces. And in
dreaming we forget the frailty and cruelty of courts and rulers and
think on the nobility and courage of the lesser yet greater folk who
laid the foundation of our country.
THE END
TABLE OF INTERESTING DATES
+James I. 1603 to 1625+
Shakespeare died 1616
First American Colonies, Yorktown, 1607
First American Colonies, Plymouth, 1620
+Charles I. 1625 to 1649+
Inigo Jones, Architect, died 1651
Van Dyck, court painter
Sir Francis Crane
+Commonwealth Under Cromwell, 1649 to 1660+
+Charles II. 1660 to 1685+
The Restoration Queen Catherine of Braganza, 1660
Bombay Influence and East India Company, 1660
Great Fire of London, 1666
Sir Christopher Wren, 1632-1723
St. Paul's commenced, 1675
Grinling Gibbons, 1648-1726
Mirror Factory, 1673
Chatsworth Built, 1670
+James II. 1685 to 1688+
Revocation of Edict of Nantes, 1685
Spitalfields Silk Factories, 1685
+William and Mary. 1689 to 1702+
Daniel Morot
Hampton Court, principal parts built
+Queen Anne. 1702 to 1714+