had adopted the general change. During this period
the bahut or chest has become a cabinet with all its
varieties; the simple prie dieu chair, as a
devotional piece of furniture, has been elaborated
into almost an oratory, and, as a domestic seat, into
a dignified throne; tables have, towards the end of
the period, become more ornate, and made as solid
pieces of furniture, instead of the planks and tressels
which we found when the Renaissance commenced.
Chimney pieces, which in the fourteenth century were
merely stone smoke shafts supported by corbels, have
been replaced by handsome carved oak erections, ornamenting
the hall or room from floor to ceiling, and the English
livery cupboard, with its foreign contemporary the
buffet, is the forerunner of the sideboard of the future.
[Illustration: Shakespeare’s Chair.]
[Illustration: The Great Bed of Ware. Formerly
at the Saracen’s Head, Ware, but now at Rye
House, Broxbourne, Herts. Period: XVI.
Century.]
Carved oak panelling has replaced the old arras and
ruder wood lining of an earlier time, and with the
departure of the old feudal customs and the indulgence
in greater luxuries of the more wealthy nobles and
merchants in Italy, Flanders, France, Germany, Spain,
and England, we have the elegancies and grace with
which Art, and increased means of gratifying taste,
enabled the sixteenth century virtuoso to adorn his
home.
[Illustration: The “Queen’s Room,”
Penshurst Place. (Reproduced from “Historic
Houses of the United Kingdom” by permission of
Messrs. Cassell & Co., Limited.)]
[Illustration: Carved Oak Chimney Piece in Speke
Hall, Near Liverpool. Period: Elizabethan.]
Jacobean furniture.
English Home Life in the Reign of James
I.—Sir Henry Wootton quoted—Inigo
Jones and his work—Ford Castle—Chimney
Pieces in South Kensington Museum—Table
in the Carpenters’ Hall—–Hall
of the Barbers’ Company—The Charterhouse—Time
of Charles I.—Furniture at Knole—Eagle
House, Wimbledon, Mr. Charles Eastlake—Monuments
at Canterbury and Westminster—Settles,
Couches, and Chairs of the Stuart period—Sir
Paul Pindar’s House—Cromwellian Furniture—The
Restoration—Indo-Portuguese Furniture—Hampton
Court Palace—Evelyn’s description—The
Great Fire of London—Hall of the Brewers’
Company—Oak Panelling of the time—Grinling
Gibbons and his work—The Edict of Nantes—Silver
Furniture at Knole—William III. and Dutch
influence—Queen Anne—Sideboards,
Bureaus, and Grandfather’s Clocks—Furniture
at Hampton Court.
[Illustration]
In the chapter on “Renaissance” the great
Art revival in England has been noticed; in the Elizabethan
oak work of chimney pieces, panelling, and furniture,
are to be found varying forms of the free classic style
which the Renaissance had brought about. These
fluctuating changes in fashion continued in England
from the time of Elizabeth until the middle of the
eighteenth century, when, as will be shewn presently,
a distinct alteration in the design of furniture took
place.
