A Tale of Two Suites

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By Curator Blogger // Mon 24^th February 2025

Curator, Chairs, Furniture

With their rich gilding and ornate carvings, there are two suites of lavish early eighteenth century chairs (fig. 01) which stand out in Castle Howard’s furniture collection. This year, the chairs will be re-presented as part of the renovation of the Tapestry Drawing Room. In anticipation of their new display, we’re digging into the multi-layered history of these unique pieces. This project is a collaboration between Castle Howard and the British and Irish Furniture Makers Online (BIFMO), and two MA students: Beatrix Henry from Bard Graduate Center (BGC) in New York, and Laini Farrare from the Winterthur program at the University of Delaware. Thanks to internship funding from BGC, Beatrix was able to visit Castle Howard in 2024 and examine the chairs in person.

Two suites of early 18th century chairs

Much of the furniture in Castle Howard today was purchased by the 4th and 5th Earls, who resided in the home between 1738 and 1825. However, these two suites of chairs were likely created between 1710 and 1740, meaning that they were likely purchased by the 3rd Earl, who started to build Castle Howard in 1699 and resided there until his death in 1738. While these chairs may have been originally commissioned for the London house in Soho Square that the 3rd Earl also resided at, there are no receipts or bills to confirm this.

While previous appraisers have tentatively named James Moore the Elder, cabinet maker to George I, as a possible maker for these chairs, the complexity of furniture making networks during this period means that it’s impossible to assign a maker through style alone. Workshops shared makers and patterns, passing designs and stylistic inspiration around. However, one concrete connection between Moore and Castle Howard exists through John Vanbrugh, as both men worked on Blenheim Palace for the Duke of Marlborough.

Vanbrugh, Castle Howard’s original designer, was not a trained architect but a successful playwright. His dramatic taste meant that he was more concerned with the overall effect of the building than its details. Throughout his career, he combined inspiration from Classical architecture, Continental baroque, and medieval English architecture to create his own distinct style. Giles Worsley argues that Vanbrugh was self-consciously attempting to create a new, English style in response to the changing political conditions at the time. This style was fanciful and imaginative, evoking all of his different sources of inspiration to create something completely new. These two sets of chairs evoke Vanbrugh’s imaginative freedom in combining different sources of inspiration. While the two sets are distinct and must be considered separately, both sets are opulently gilded and use baroque and classical motifs in unusual ways.

The first set of chairs has several distinct features: pierced legs with a fishscale pattern, a carved seashell beneath the seat, and most unusually, two spiral scrolls emerging from the top of the seat (figs. 02, 03, 04). Seashells, scrolls, and fish scales are all important motifs with the Italian baroque, showing that whoever made these chairs was aware of continental furniture being made around the same time.

On these chairs, the scrolls are used very distinctively. French and Italian pieces dating from the same period (in other collections) feature more compact scrolls (figs. 05, 06). In contrast to how the scrolls serve as the culmination of curved lines on these tables, the scrolls on the chairs emerge from the top rail unconnected to the shape of the piece overall. The spirals are stretched out and exaggerated like a croissant, similar to this pair of British wall sconces from the same period (fig. 8). While both the chairs and the wall sconces use conventional forms, neither design uses them in a conventional way. Similar to Vanbrugh, the makers of these chairs and sconces were clearly familiar with typical ornamental features, but sought to use them in new and fanciful ways.

The second suite of chairs feature prominent masks on the knees, again borrowing an important decorative element from the Italian baroque. However, the faces on these chairs do not seem purely classical. The features are exaggerated: the nose and cleft chin jut prominently, the mouth is pulled into a smile, and the eyebrows are heavy over the eyes. Acanthus leaves swirl out of the face, giving the impression of a foliate hat. While the idea of a mask as a decorative motif comes out of baroque and classical designs, this face is unique.

The features on the chairs’ faces are very similar to those on the Bateman chest, a giltwood piece by James Moore at the V&A Museum. Moore’s masks on the chest have leaves coming out of the face, giving them a similar appearance to the foliate heads, or “green man”, that is frequently found in medieval British church architecture. Perhaps Moore, like Vanbrugh, was attempting to merge styles from the continent with medieval inspiration to create a new, local style. With similar foliage carved around the faces on these chairs, it’s possible that they were carved with the same intentions in mind.

While the frames have been dated to the early eighteenth century, the crimson velvet upholstery on them today is from a later period. Crimson fabrics, especially velvet and damask, were immensely popular for stately homes at the turn of the eighteenth century. Inspired by Italian tastes, Queen Anne redecorated Kensington palace with Genoese velvet and damask in the 1690s, fueling these fabrics’ popularity in England over the coming decades. On these chairs, years of aging have revealed patterns of wear on top of the fabric’s own pattern: large curlicues of rich crimson stand out from the faded background, hinting that these areas had previously been covered up. (visible in fig. 9) It is likely that this fabric originally came from the Castle Howard state bed, where sections of the hangings would have been decorated with sumptuous lace trim, protecting those areas from light. When it came time to redecorate the bedroom in the 19th century, reusing the fabric from the bed for new upholstery was an efficient way to make sure that these expensive textiles did not go to waste.

As part of Castle Howard’s 21st Century Renaissance project, these exciting chairs have been restored and reupholstered, balancing faithfulness to the original materials and designs with necessary structural and stylistic repairs. This work will unveiled when the house reopens in April 2025; until then, check out the Furniture History Society’s British and Irish Furniture Makers Online database for more information about James Moore and early eighteenth century furniture makers.

Thanks to Adrianna Turpin and Lucy Wood for their help and guidance, Eleanor Brooke-Peat and Matthew Wood at Castle Howard, and the Bard Graduate Center and the Furniture History Society for providing funding to support the project.

References

Giles Worsley, “Wren, Vanbrugh, Hawksmoor, and Archer: The Search for an English Baroque,” Studies in the History of Art 66 (2005): 108. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42622379.
Susan Weber, "Chapter 18. Kent and the Georgian Baroque Style in Furniture: Domestic Commissions," in William Kent: Designing Georgian Britain, edited by Susan Weber. New York: Bard Graduate Center and Yale University Press, 2013. Accessed July 18, 2024. https://aaeportal.com/?id=-20603.

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