[0:38]Before we look at some of the furniture of the reign of William and Mary, let's first put the period in historical perspective. In 1688, there was a revolution in England. It was brief, bloodless, and entirely successful. By the time it was over, James II had been deposed. Now, James had never really understood the English. He believed that he could force on them a Catholic supremacy. By the time he discovered his mistake, it was too late. 200 miles away from the seat of government, down at Torbay in Devon, William of Orange had landed, helped he said, by a Protestant wind. The West country rose to join him, and before long, his supporters had gained control of the key cities in the Midlands and the north. James then settled matters by running away. The next spring, William and his wife Mary, who was incidentally James's daughter, were crowned as joint sovereigns. Now, with a Dutch king on the throne, it wasn't long before Dutch and German craftsmen, some of them expert cabinet makers, began to arrive in England. And they added to the influx of workmen from the continent, which had begun in 1685. In that year, Louis XIV repealed the Edict of Nantes, which had guaranteed religious toleration to the French Protestants, the Huguenots. And so, as a result, over 400,000 of them, most skilled artisans, silversmiths, joiners, silk weavers, people like that, they left their homes and fled. Some to Holland, Switzerland, a few to America, and many here to England. And English craftsmanship gained immeasurably from the skills they brought with them. The Baroque, which had dominated European art and architecture since the Renaissance, began to make stronger headway now in England. Its rather elaborate decoration seemed well suited to the grand houses and formal furniture of the new reign. One of the king's protégés was a man called William Blathwayt, who had been James II's Secretary of State for War and had served as a diplomat in Holland. Under William III, he returned to England to his old job at the War Office and married an heiress with an estate at Dyrham Park in Gloucestershire. He rebuilt the house, which still stands much as he left it on his death in 1710, and Arthur has been to see it.
[3:44]Well, here's the balcony room, I suppose one of my favorites. I'll tell you why a bit later. Look at the walls. You remember the Elizabethan square paneling covering all the walls and the doors and everything, all changed now, 1690, 1695. Long panels, huge panels now, not the little square ones. Ionic columns, a Baroque influence here now with those heavy carved gilt capitals. A little cluster of columns around this fireplace and huge moldings up above there. And not only did the walls, or the paneling change, but so did legs once more. Legs of tables changed, and here is a typical William and Mary leg, an umbrella shaped leg. Or an inverted cup shaped leg, as some people prefer to call them. But here for the first time, you get this type of leg. The clock is contemporary. It has the usual little bullseye in the door and a square dial. You know, no arch styles before the 18th century. And this is why I like it, just this book, this book and what's in the room. Because here is an inventory, which the housekeeper had to sign and did in fact sign in 1710, taking over and being responsible for everything in this house. And here it says balcony room, a large black Japan tea table. Not Japan in the geographical sense, but Japan lacquered. Scalloped edge, a pierced Oriental freeze there, gilt and the shaped legs.
[6:27]And once more back to my inventory. Here it says now, the last item in this room, a Delft flowerpot in the chimney. Look at that, there it stands to this very day. Obviously, with this strong Dutch influence, tulips. And that vase, that two handled tulip vase would be known right by that name the world over. People collected blue and white Delft. The queen herself collected it, and it became very, very popular to decline a bit later on during the 18th century. You fancy that with all tulip falling out of it. And leaving the room, you can't help but notice the door furniture. Brass work, the lock plates, the the handle of the door, beautifully pierced and engraved, one might say, with the central motive of a tulip.
[8:29]Here's another room where the decoration on the walls has changed a bit. Because you see here, even at this late date about 1690, there they decorate the wall with a more late tapestry. And of course, needlework. Everyone knows, I think that such houses as this employed a professional embroiderer to teach the lady of the house and the female staff needle work. And so one is apt to find a number of needle work boxes or caskets, such as that. But this one's a little different, you see, because there are all the usual attributes of stump needle work. This business of putting the needle work over wadding and so raising all the figures in sort of low relief. But this is where this one differs. Not only is it dated, that's nice, 1693 up the top there in silver wire. It has a portrait of William III under this awning. But look, everything is loose on this. There are the entrance to the awning, you see. Look at those colors. You can just imagine what this box was like in these colors when it was first made. And everything else is loose, you see, it's companion here, all the arms are loose, every animal, the wings of every bird, the pears on the pear tree, all in 3D. So here's a 1693 example of needle work in 3D.
[10:39]Now what about these two chairs?
[10:48]Here they are. William and Mary, Charles II. Now you see, William and Mary chairs are known to have the tallest backs of any chair made. 2 and a half times this distance is from the height of the chair to the ground. 16 inches there, to 40 inches here, exactly right because I've measured it. But let's have a look at the two chairs because there's so little difference and yet there's such a lot of difference. You see, here we are, both in walnut, both with nice shaped arms. Scrolled here, a little bit more detail on the William and Mary one. Both have inverted S-shaped supports under the arms. Just a little more molding on here, down on the legs, exactly the same, inverted S-shaped legs, just the same. Little bit more molding, but the addition here of this capital, sometimes on the foot, sometimes on the top of the legs. Now you see, basically these two chair frames are exactly the same, practically the same. Where does the difference come? It comes by the removal of this front central stretcher off the tails chairs. They take away the rather stiff baluster turned stretchers underneath. They go, and you see what happens here on the William and Mary chair. No central stretcher, but look at those under stretchers. Not just crossed X-shaped, but X-shaped in such a way that they've sort of raised up there and come around in that scroll, sort of leading one just to see that little turn finial. So there's only about 15 years difference here between this Charles' chair and this William and Mary one. But you see what's gradually happening, we're gradually getting some shapes and designs and getting away from those rather stiff chairs that went on through the earlier part of the 17th century. Now what about these two?
[13:54]You know, it's a curious thing how religion seems to creep into even the designs of furniture. You'll recall how the Huguenots fled from France. As far as furniture is concerned, I suppose the best known one was one Daniel Marot who went to Holland and joined the service of the King. He was a great designer and you can see this Dutch influence here, strong French influence as well. Because he absolutely hated straight lines. Look at that back, there's almost no straight line anywhere in the whole of that back of that chair. Pierced and carved as it is. And now we're introduced, you see, to a pretty shaped apron along the front of that chair. All shaped and carved, and perhaps what we're beginning to get used to now. Lower down, the pretty under stretcher, again all molded, all shaped and carved. And you know it's, it's thought that Daniel Marot introduced the cabriole leg into England. This, as everyone I suppose knows well, was used tremendously in the next 20 or 30 or 40 years. But this is the original Dutch leg, and one hopes to be able to show in in another program, the difference. And it's so marked between a Dutch cabriole and an English cabriole leg. That, of course, is the cabriole leg. And not only did this chap design chairs, but my word, he designed state beds, and there's one such bed in the next room. Well, here it is. And if you imagine these beds as scarce, you'll be quite right because they are very scarce. Just imagine what this looked like when it was new. These this red and yellow or gold silk velvet curtains. Um, my word, this was the age when they use wonderful materials for about the first time. Brocades and needlework and silk velvets. 14 inches high is the frame of this bed. And yet, you see, what happens to the rest of it? It goes up and up and up until you come to that very heavy Baroque shaped cornice there with the vases on the top. All that up there is carved pine. The the materials are actually stuck on the raw wood.
[17:54]And so you see, with the bed head, just the same designs. All carved pine, all the rich material stuck on the bare wood, and you'll see the columns there, rising right up to the top. So reminiscent of those columns clustered around the fireplace in the balcony room. And so one looks up and up until you look underneath that tester and just look at that. What a picture.
[18:41]But the introduction of new shapes and designs wasn't the only thing happening to furniture at this time. Its decoration was changing too. At first, the technique of using veneers, particularly in the form of marquetry, produced far more sophisticated results in Holland than anything that had been achieved in England. But the English cabinet makers were quick to learn and soon began to produce pieces of superb quality. But the art of marquetry isn't lost even today, and Bob Dunn and his family produce some of the finest marquetry in the world.
[19:33]From a small workshop at the back of her house in North London.
[19:43]A panel of marquetry begins with an antique embroiderer's machine and a line drawing of the original design.
[19:57]Several identical copies are needed during the process, and it's been found by trial and error over the years that the most accurate way of reproducing the design is by making a master stencil of it. And this is done by pricking along the lines of the design with a needle.
[20:29]This sheet of paper was attached to the underneath of the line drawing, and so it now bears a perforated version of the original. The special powder that's rubbed through the small holes produces on the sheet below the first of the working copies of the design. The design then has to be cut up into smaller sections, and here two of the copies are necessary, as some of the cutting is bound to overlap. It's been decided to make four separate panels of the same basic design, but with four different color combinations in the flowers. And so four veneers of different colored woods are made up into a packet. Three other packets for the remaining parts of the panel will be made up in a similar way, although these won't have a selection of colors. The veneers on the outside won't be used. They'll stop the veneers inside from fraying when the packet is later sawn through, and greased paper will lubricate the blade.
[21:52]The glue isn't used to stick the veneers together. It's only applied to the outside veneer so that the cut out design can be stuck onto it. This will serve as a guide for the sawing. And so that there'll be no movement of the veneers in the packet while it's being sawn, it's then pinned together.
[22:23]It's on another old machine called a donkey that the sawing itself takes place. And this, of course, is the most critical and skillful part of the whole process.
[22:47]After a minute or so, one small piece is completed and can be removed from the packet. This is just the first of a large number that will be carefully placed in the tray in their appropriate positions. As in so many aspects of furniture making, there are certain features that unless you're specifically looking for them, you can easily take for granted. And they can make all the difference between a rather uninspired piece and a desirable one. Such a feature is a result of this part of the process, shading. Parts of the design are placed in a tray of hot sand, and within a few seconds, they start turning brown where they're scorched. The skill, of course, is not only to time it right, a little too long and the wood could burn, but also to graduate the scorching so that it produces an effect of modeling.
[24:18]Without shading, this is how the veneer would look.
[24:29]And this is what it will now look like. The difference in the overall effect is quite striking.
[24:50]Having been shaded where necessary, all the pieces of veneer, each of them only one tenth of an inch thick, are laid out ready for assembly.
[25:12]But first, the backgrounds for the panels have to be sawn out. That is, all the decorative parts have to be removed, leaving behind what in this case will be a plain black background of stained pearwood.
[25:42]Each of the four panels is made up in exactly the same way and filled with the colorful pieces of veneer. It's rather like putting a delicate jigsaw puzzle together.
[26:15]But just look, for example, at the different color combinations in the top left hand flower of each panel.
[26:44]They're now sent to another workshop where they're glued onto the piece of furniture for which they were designed. Here, for demonstration purposes, a panel has been glued onto a block of plywood, and a piece of walnut veneer added.
[27:17]And after it's been sanded down to a smooth finish, it's then sent to the polishing shop for the final stage of a process that's remained very much the same for 300 years.
[27:38]Well, quite a remarkable film showing great skill in the hands of those workmen. And now we'll show you one or two pieces of furniture of this William and Mary period, in which are inlaid panels of marquetry. For example, here, this little tiny shape panel here, you'll remember that most of the panels are always within a geometrical outline. But you see there's one of the panels like the fellow was making on that bench. There's another nice panel there, I like birds to be mixed up with all these flowers. Look at the carnations and the tulips and the little bird. And of course, you realize this is now a clock case. There is the article. And as you would expect on a thing which I suppose was made about 1695, the name across the dial, Daniel Quare. One of the finest clock makers in England. And there's a pretty chest on stand, the top, the ends, the front all in laid with panels of floral marquetry. Just another good example. But here's a little thing I've liked to get to. I like small bits of furniture. I feel one could live with this easily. You notice now the stand to start with this little cabinet on a stand. Tapering spirals, very nice, little bit more difficult to have tapering spirals. Little turned almost ball feet, you'll you'll, they soon disappear. When we get around the corner into the early part of the 18th century, no more ball feet, they're all gone.
[30:13]And again, a little cabinet with fitted drawers behind, but lovely marquetry oval panels here. Three different types of veneer or things wanted here. The ebony background, the walnut and the green stained ivory. And look what that man's made of those. Inside there's the little fitted interior. There is a panel of parquetry, which seems to me to be so different from marquetry. In that it's heavy thick pieces of jigsaw that are put together as against the rather finer lovely marquetry. And the top, beautifully inlaid, there's your geometrical designs. And here is what we call oyster. This is veneered in oysters. And don't forget, no matter how big, how wide, how tall, any cabinet on any loose stand is. If the top is unfinished, something has happened down below because if the top is unfinished, it was always made to be above eye level. Don't forget that. So this obviously is just as it was made because we can see it. I can see these lovely oysters. There's one look. There's the branch of the tree which was sawn through. There it is polished all the sap around it. The sap's removed, and so you get these oysters, as they're called, with about five or six different straight edges all fitted in and jointed together to make what I think is a lovely top.
[32:44]And here's a nice table on S-shaped legs. Again, all the same period, but we've got this one because of the variety of woods used in this top. Now just look there. Now there must be four or five different woods. I can pick out the coromandel or ebony, the background, that black wood. And here again, you've got green stained ivory once more, and then you have walnut, and you have oak, oak in the birds. You have burl elm there. And you see, as a man now, instead of putting two lots of woods together, he's sort of making this marquetry picture of this vase of flowers with the birds in about five different veneers. And coming to the last little table, this shows a panel of marquetry, which we call seaweed marquetry. And this, believe me, was was the absolute finish of marquetry cutting. A man could cut this, he could almost cut anything because look how thin, how fine these little bits of veneer are. No more than a 32nd of an inch wide. Can you imagine a fella poking this out and pushing that in. Just as though you've got a handful of knitting, you might say, and then making these lovely central panel and these beautiful shaped corners everywhere.
[34:57]After this beautiful Dutch inspired marquetry is particularly associated with William and Mary, after their reign, Queen Anne, the Georgian period and so on, does marquetry disappear? Yes, it, uh, it really vanishes. I don't know why, but it absolutely vanishes. Um, uh, similar things recur in the 18th century. But one likes to call those perhaps more inlay than marquetry. Thank you very much. And next week in our program, we'll be looking at the sort of developments that were going on in English furniture in the first half of the 18th century. Until then from Arthur and me, goodbye.
