V Queen Anne Style
Anne. 1702-1714.
1707. Act of Union between England and Scotland. First United Parliament of Great Britain met.
1713. The National Debt had risen to £38,000,000.
With the age of Queen Anne domestic furniture departed from the ornate characteristics which had marked previous epochs. The tendency in English furniture seems to have made towards comfort and homeliness. The English home may not have contained so many articles of luxury then as does the modern house with its artistic embellishments, and a popular taste rapidly ripening into a genuine love of the fine arts. “A modern shopkeeper’s house,” says Lord Macaulay, “is as well furnished as the house of a considerable merchant in Anne’s reign.” It is very doubtful whether this statement holds good with regard to the days of Elizabeth or the days of the early Stuarts, but there certainly seems to have been in the dawn of the walnut period a curtailment of luxurious effects that might well tempt a casual observer to generalise in the belief that the days of Anne spelt dulness in art.
The settle, the illustration of which is given (p. 149), bearing the date 1705, the year after Blenheim, shows that Jacobean models of early days were not forgotten. The inlaid borders are very effective, and there is nothing vulgar or offensive in the carving. It is simple in style and the joinery is good. A walnut mirror, carved and gilded (illustrated p. 137), exhibits the same solidity. There is nothing to show that the glorious age of Louis XIV. had produced the most sumptuous and richly decorated furniture the modern world had seen. The simplicity of this carved mirror frame is as though art had begun and ended in England, and probably it is this insularity of the furniture of this period, and the almost stubborn neglect of the important movements going on in France that makes the Queen Anne style of peculiar interest.
The oak desk illustrated (p. 139), dated 1696, is similar to the one at Abbotsford, in which Sir Walter Scott mislaid his manuscript of “Waverley,” where it lay among his fishing-tackle for eleven years.
Another piece of the same period is the cupboard with carved doors and drawers beneath (illustrated p. 140).
Some pretty effects were now obtained by veneering, which was largely coming into practice. The pieces with the burr-walnut panels, marked in a series of knot-like rings, are especially sought after. This pattern was obtained from the gnarled roots of the walnut-tree, and applied in a decorative manner with excellent result.
In the fine cabinet, the illustration of which is given (p. 141), the style is typical of this period. The panels of the doors are of exquisite finish, and show a beautiful walnut grain of peculiarly-pleasing mottled appearance, and the mellow effect which time has given to this specimen cannot be imitated with any degree of success in modern replicas. In the illustration showing this piece when open, the rich effect of the walnut in the middle panel may be noticed; the contemporary brass handles to the nest of drawers are typical of this style.
In chairs and in tables the elegant cabriole and colt’s-foot legs were now commonly adopted, and apparently, simple as is the construction, it is only when Queen Anne pieces come to be repaired that it is found how expensive an undertaking it is, owing to their ingenious construction and the patient labour that was expended upon them, to produce unpretentious and harmonious effects.
The assertively English spirit which was the dominant note of the furniture of the early eighteenth century continued up till the early years of the reign of George II. During this period, which covers half a century, walnut was the wood mostly used in the manufacture of furniture, and this walnut period shows a quiet dignity of style and a simple proportion, reticently elegant and inornate without being severe.
The Queen Anne oak settle, with shaped panelled back and scroll arms, which appears as the headpiece to this chapter, is especially representative of the kind of piece in common use at the time; oak was still employed in furniture of this nature. The legs show the newer design, which was already departing from the elegant turning of earlier Jacobean days.
In the Queen Anne chair which is illustrated in the group of chairs of this period (p. 143), with open back and carved scroll foliage, the cabriole legs are finely carved with lion masks and acanthus leaf ornament, on lion’s claw-and-ball feet. The seat is removable, and is stuffed. Queen Anne chairs had high carved or plain splat backs. The armchair in the same group shows this type of back. The Dutch shell-pattern often appears either on back or at the juncture of the leg with the seat. Chairs decorated in marquetry, in Dutch fashion, were in use at this period. The one illustrated with the two above-mentioned chairs is inlaid with birds and flowers, and the legs are cabriole. The seat follows the growing usage of being loose and stuffed.
Dutch marquetry cabinets on stands, with straight uprights, were imported and became a feature in the early eighteenth century drawing-room (see illustration, p. 147). The earlier forms had straight sides, but later, as the fashion grew, bureaux and large cabinets, with the dimensions of a modern wardrobe, had taken their place, with bombé or swelled sides, and profusely decorated in marquetry, with vases and tulips and unnamed flowers of the cabinetmaker’s invention, birds, butterflies, and elaborate scrollwork, in which ivory and mother-of-pearl were often employed as an inlay.
The stands on which the smaller cabinets stood were turned with the spiral leg of Jacobean days, and later they have the cabriole leg, with ball-and-claw or club feet. Cabinets and stands are frequently found together, in which the one is much earlier than the other.
Rich damask began to be used in the furnishing of hangings, and in some of the palatial furniture of the period the looms of Spitalfields produced the coverings. In Queen Anne’s bedroom the hangings were of rich silk velvet.
Clocks of the variety termed “Grandfather,” either with fine walnut cases or inlaid with marquetry, came into more general use in the days of Queen Anne. An elaboration of carving on grandfather clock cases as a rule is to be regarded with suspicion. Plain panels are not so saleable as carved ones; the want is supplied, and many fine old clock cases are spoiled by having the touch of a modern hand. The clock illustrated is an untouched specimen. The walnut case is a fine example of Queen Anne marquetry work. The works are by Sam Barrow, Hermitage Bridge, London. The steel dial is richly mounted with cupids, masks, and scrolls in chased brass.
Towards the middle of the eighteenth century and later, cabinets of Dutch importation, and Japanese or Chinese in origin, were extensively in use. In smaller numbers they had, without doubt, in the days of William and Mary, been introduced, but it was not until the commerce with the East had been well established that they became popular. In the cabinet illustrated (p. 150) the cabinet-work is English, the drawers are all dovetailed in the English manner, but the lacquered doors come from the East. It is an especially interesting example, as the pagoda-like superstructure is not often found complete.
Lacquered boxes had been sent home from the East by English, French, and Dutch merchants, for many years, and with characteristic ingenuity the French cabinetmakers had employed these as panels for their furniture, but the supply not being sufficient they had attempted a lacquer of their own, which is dealt with in a subsequent chapter on Louis XIV. furniture. Dutch lacquer-work was a similar attempt on the part of the craftsman of Holland to equal the Oriental originals.
In the early eighteenth century the English craftsman tried his skill at lacquered furniture, it is true not with very successful results, but it is interesting to see what he has left as attempts. The illustration (p. 143) of a chair in black and gold lac is of English manufacture. The splat back and the cabriole leg give the date, and the specimen is a noteworthy example. Another piece of the first half of the eighteenth century period is the lac cabinet illustrated (p. 151). The metal hinges and corners of this are of chased brass and of English or Dutch workmanship. The shape and design of the drawer handles are frequently found in nests of drawers of this period, and there was a singular fondness shown at this time for numbers of small drawers and pigeon-holes in furniture. The now familiar bureau with bookcase above, and drop-down, sloping front covering drawers and recesses, dates from this time. The escutcheon of the lac cabinet is illustrated in detail as a tailpiece to this chapter to show the particular style of work found on the locks and hinges and drawer-handles of pieces of this nature. As has been said before, it is especially useful to the collector to make himself thoroughly familiar with these details of the various periods.
It may be readily imagined that at a time when cards were the passion of everybody in society, the card-table became a necessary piece of furniture in eighteenth-century days, just before the dawn of the great age of mahogany, when Chippendale, and the school that followed him, eagerly worked in the wood which Raleigh discovered. They produced countless forms, both original and adapted from the French, which have enriched the répertoire of the cabinetmaker and which have brought fame to the man whose designs added lustre to the reputation of English furniture.