DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1398#0020
PLATE 105.
A CARVED WOOD SIDEBOAKD,
BY MESSES. TAYLOR & SON, EDINBURGH.
O COT LAND took a very good position in Class 30, through, the contributions of Messrs.
J. Taylor & Son, Messrs. Scott, and Messrs. R. Whytock & Co., in furniture, and Messrs.
Purdie, Bonnar, & Carfrae, in house-decoration. All of these exhibitors did credit to the good
taste and excellent workmanship of Edinburgh.
The handsome sideboard carved in fine walnut-wood which we have selected for illustration,
was designed and executed by the firm of Messrs. J. Taylor & Son, in the Renaissance style:
the wine-cooler which accompanied it was especially good. A cabinet exhibited by this firm,
very elaborately carved in the Elizabethan style, from a design by C. J. Richardson, Esq., was
open to the charge of a redundancy of ornament, though the carving itself was very cleverly
executed. The Jury awarded honourable mention to this firm for good design and workmanship.
That particular development of the revived Italian style which we call Elizabethan is
essentially peculiar to this country, and being capable of great variety of design and picturesqueness
of effect, we are surprised that it does not meet with more general favour.
It is true that Italy, Holland, and Germany contributed the details of its formation; but
in none of these countries, nor in France, nor Spain, where distinct Renaissance styles
prevailed, is there anything that exactly corresponds to our own Elizabethan.
Torrigiano and Benedetto da Rovezzano, sculptors; John of Padua and Girolamo Trevigi,
architects; and the great Holbein, introduced the Italian manner among us during the reigns
of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth. It is from Holland, however, that the greater number of
architects and artists came who moulded the Elizabethan taste in painting and architecture.
Lucas de Heere, of Ghent; Cornelius Ketel, of Gouda; Marc Garrard, of Bruges; and H. 0.
Vroom, of Haarlem, painters. Richard Stevens, a Hollander, executed the Sussex monument
in Boreham Church, Suffolk, and Theodore Haveus, of Cleves, designed the gates of Caius
College, and the monument to Dr. Caius, at Cambridge, about the year 1573. Bernard Jansen
and Gerard Christmas, natives of Holland, were much in vogue during the reigns of James I.
and Charles I. : the facade of Northumberland House, London, is an example of their style.
But there was by this time no lack of native artists; and the names of Bernard Adams, the
Smithsons, Bradshaw, Harrison, Holt, Thorpe, and Shute, are connected with the great country
mansions; such as Audley End, Holland House, Wollaton, Knowle, Burleigh, &c. Nicholas Stone
and his son continued this style in their sepulchral monuments even when Inigo Jones had
introduced the purer system of Palladio.
A judicious application of the Elizabethan style to furniture would lead to the production of
very effective subjects, as it admits of the combination of carving, painting, and gilding;' nor is
it by any means necessary to cover the design with overcrowded ornament, many of the best
pieces of furniture of that period being comparatively plain. Mr. Joseph Nash, in his beautiful
work on the country mansions of England, has illustrated all the finest examples of this style,
in which carved wooden chimney-pieces and staircases of a most massive and ornamental character
form prominent features; and Mr. Richardson and Mr. H. Shaw have also done good service in
delineating the architecture and ornament of the same period.
\i m
■^B
A CARVED WOOD SIDEBOAKD,
BY MESSES. TAYLOR & SON, EDINBURGH.
O COT LAND took a very good position in Class 30, through, the contributions of Messrs.
J. Taylor & Son, Messrs. Scott, and Messrs. R. Whytock & Co., in furniture, and Messrs.
Purdie, Bonnar, & Carfrae, in house-decoration. All of these exhibitors did credit to the good
taste and excellent workmanship of Edinburgh.
The handsome sideboard carved in fine walnut-wood which we have selected for illustration,
was designed and executed by the firm of Messrs. J. Taylor & Son, in the Renaissance style:
the wine-cooler which accompanied it was especially good. A cabinet exhibited by this firm,
very elaborately carved in the Elizabethan style, from a design by C. J. Richardson, Esq., was
open to the charge of a redundancy of ornament, though the carving itself was very cleverly
executed. The Jury awarded honourable mention to this firm for good design and workmanship.
That particular development of the revived Italian style which we call Elizabethan is
essentially peculiar to this country, and being capable of great variety of design and picturesqueness
of effect, we are surprised that it does not meet with more general favour.
It is true that Italy, Holland, and Germany contributed the details of its formation; but
in none of these countries, nor in France, nor Spain, where distinct Renaissance styles
prevailed, is there anything that exactly corresponds to our own Elizabethan.
Torrigiano and Benedetto da Rovezzano, sculptors; John of Padua and Girolamo Trevigi,
architects; and the great Holbein, introduced the Italian manner among us during the reigns
of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth. It is from Holland, however, that the greater number of
architects and artists came who moulded the Elizabethan taste in painting and architecture.
Lucas de Heere, of Ghent; Cornelius Ketel, of Gouda; Marc Garrard, of Bruges; and H. 0.
Vroom, of Haarlem, painters. Richard Stevens, a Hollander, executed the Sussex monument
in Boreham Church, Suffolk, and Theodore Haveus, of Cleves, designed the gates of Caius
College, and the monument to Dr. Caius, at Cambridge, about the year 1573. Bernard Jansen
and Gerard Christmas, natives of Holland, were much in vogue during the reigns of James I.
and Charles I. : the facade of Northumberland House, London, is an example of their style.
But there was by this time no lack of native artists; and the names of Bernard Adams, the
Smithsons, Bradshaw, Harrison, Holt, Thorpe, and Shute, are connected with the great country
mansions; such as Audley End, Holland House, Wollaton, Knowle, Burleigh, &c. Nicholas Stone
and his son continued this style in their sepulchral monuments even when Inigo Jones had
introduced the purer system of Palladio.
A judicious application of the Elizabethan style to furniture would lead to the production of
very effective subjects, as it admits of the combination of carving, painting, and gilding;' nor is
it by any means necessary to cover the design with overcrowded ornament, many of the best
pieces of furniture of that period being comparatively plain. Mr. Joseph Nash, in his beautiful
work on the country mansions of England, has illustrated all the finest examples of this style,
in which carved wooden chimney-pieces and staircases of a most massive and ornamental character
form prominent features; and Mr. Richardson and Mr. H. Shaw have also done good service in
delineating the architecture and ornament of the same period.
\i m
■^B