English furniture at Colonial Williamsburg

Magazine Antiques, June, 2005 by Geoffrey Beard

The English furniture in the collection of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in Williamsburg, Virginia, was acquired by four successive curators. James L. Cogar (1906-1987) presided during the 1930s and 1940s, John Meredith Graham (1904-1983) in the 1950s and 1960s, Graham Hood between 1971 and 1997, and now Ronald L. Hurst.

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There are several labeled English objects--a bureau table of about 1710 to 1715 labeled by John Coxed (w. 1713-1749) and his partner, Thomas Woster (w. 1710-1736); a clothespress, a chest of drawers, and an apothecary's cabinet, all labeled by Philip Bell (w. 1758-1774) and all dating to 1765 to 1775; and a clothespress of about 1775 labeled by Henry Kettle (w. c. 1773-1797), who took over Bell's business in 1774.

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Some objects were purchased because they were good examples of their kind, such as the tall-case clock with works by Thomas Tompion shown in Plates I and Ia, which was acquired in 1956 by John Graham with the advice of the English furniture and clock historian Robert Wemyss Symonds (1889-1958), who had written about it. It is called the Record Clock because of its perpetual calendar, and was made for William III's Great Bedchamber at Hampton Court Palace in Surrey. It is among the finest pieces of English furniture in North America. (1) The unknown case maker used burl walnut veneers with consummate skill, and the case is finished with crisp moldings and cast ornaments of gilt-metal, including the figure of Minerva above the cipher of the king.

In 1954 Graham added to the collection the pair of candlestands of about 1690 shown in Plate IV that were formerly at Ham House in Surrey. They have ten-sided tops on which are relief scenes of Japanese houses, plants, and flying birds. It has not proved possible to identify the candlestands in the 1677, 1679, and 1683 inventories for Ham House. (2) However, the house contains important furniture and other possessions garnered in particular by John Maitland (1616-1682), second earl and first duke of Lauderdale, and his second wife, Elizabeth (1626-1698), the heiress of William Murray (c. 1600-1651), first earl of Dysart. Ham House is now part of the National Trust, and its furniture is owned by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Graham continued to acquire significant pieces of English furniture, including a desk-and-bookcase of about 1710 (Pl. XI), which, like the case of the Tompion clock, is made from burl walnut veneer and walnut on oak. It has a cross-banded panel that falls down and a section behind it pulls out to reveal a fitted interior of pigeonholes above drawers flanking a central section of nine drawers arranged in three rows. Acquired in 1956, the desk-and-bookcase was formerly in the collection of the earls of Ashburnham at their house in Sussex. It is roughly contemporary with the bureau table by Coxed and Woster noted above.

In 1957 Graham managed to acquire an outstanding pair of side chairs of about 1725 (see Pls. II, IIa), again made of walnut and walnut veneer, but with elaborate gilding. These chairs joined four matching chairs and a settee acquired for the collection in 1936 by Cogar. English chairmaking has rarely attained the high degree of quality achieved by the unknown maker of these pieces. The set of at least eight chairs, two settees, and four stools was originally in Worsborough Hall in Barnsley, West Riding, Yorkshire. (3)

Also in 1936 Cogar had acquired a walnut armchair of about 1730. It is attributed to Giles Grendey (1693-1780) because of the assurance of the shaped splat above the slip seat and the inverted shell at the top of the rail. Later the same year, Cogar bought a walnut side chair of about 1735 (Pl. VI) that is virtually identical to a set of chairs sold in London in 1965. (4) The construction of the underseat of this side chair follows almost exactly that of an armchair in the collection purchased in 1955, the only difference being in the execution of the masks.

In 1956 Graham acquired an upholstered easy chair of 1710 to 1730 that retains its original needlework cover, albeit restored. In 1963 he bought the walnut armchair of about 1730 shown in Plate VIII. This elaborate chair was widely illustrated before it joined the Williamsburg collection. (5)

Graham also purchased four armchairs of about 1750 (see Pl. VII), which are upholstered in wool and silk gros-point needlework with exotic birds on the seat backs in the style of the Fulham carpet and tapestry factory. The factory was set up in London in 1750 by the French-born Pierre-Curel Parisot (1697-1769), who moved it to Fulham by 1752 and closed it in 1755. The four chairs were originally part of a set of twelve made for Francis North (1704-1790), who succeeded his cousin in 1734 at Glemham, Suffolk, as first earl of Guilford. The design of the chairs is similar to that illustrated as Plate 18 in the 1754 edition of Thomas Chippendale's Gentleman and Cabinetmaker's Director, and as Plate 20 in the 1762 edition.