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The Indian Period of European Furniture-I Author(s): Vilhelm Slomann Source: The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, Vol.

65, No. 378 (Sep., 1934), pp. 113-126 Published by: The Burlington Magazine Publications, Ltd. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/865947 Accessed: 19/04/2010 00:40
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to Giotto Ascribed A Polyptych


workshopor close entourage. Since Ghiberti asserts that Giotto painted four chapels and four altarpieces in the Church of S. Croce, then our Buonaccorsi polyptych and the altarpiece in the Baroncelli Chapel are surely among them. In after times, the latter, perhaps because it was signed, enjoyed all the fame, while the other in the Lower Church,
which was not often visited and seldom seen, sank

into undeserved obscurity. Nevertheless, presentday criticism will establish the fact that the more famous work is only loosely connected with the more
personal art of Giotto, while the altarpiece dealt with in this article, in spite of its present damaged

condition-in which we hope it will not remain much longer-irradiates the whole power and mind of its creator.

THE

INDIAN

PERIOD

OF

EUROPEAN

FURNITURE-I.

BY VILHELM SLOMANN
HEN, a few years ago, some essays were published on " The influences of Indian Art,"' time was not yet ripe for including a study of the enrichment of forms and motives in European applied art, due to the contact with Indian art in the sixteenth and more particularly in the seventeenth century. The economist, Thomas Mun, once Director of passing that India and its imports had become " the school of our arts."2 We shall try to show that
some of the lessons India then taught Europe still the East India Company, about 1630, wrote in take a peece of Lac of what colour they will, and as they turne it when it commeth to his fashion, they spread the Lac upon the whole peece ofwoode which presently with the heat of the turning, (melteth the Waxe, so that it entreth into the crestes and) cleaveth unto it, about the thickness of a mans naile; then they burnish it (over) with a broad

straw or dry Rushes so (cunningly) that all the


woode is covered withall, and it shineth like Glasse, most pleasant to beholde, and continueth as long as the wood, being well looked unto.

Linschoten knew that " the fayrest workemanshippe thereofcommeth from China," but he did not
know that the lacquer of China and Japan is of a different substance from that which he describes. In writing about the products of many towns along

form a vital part of Westerncivilization to-day.

I. Lacquer work, like turnery,is essentiallyan Indian art,3 and the travellers who visited India in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries bear witness to the extensive use of lacquer at that time. The first European to devote closer attention to it seems to have been Garcia da Orta, for thirty years a
physician in Goa and a learned botanist. He seems to have taken some trouble to ascertain that the best Indian lacquer actually came from Pegu (in Further India) and not from Sumatra (as its trade name then suggested) and only when he had

the Indian coasts, Linschoten repeatedly mentions lacquered furniture, but the term "lacquer" was unfamiliar in those days, and his English translator on the first two occasions he comes to the Dutch met lack van alle(-rhande) coleuren,"' writes simply : " covered with stuffes of all colours." The earliest dated Indo-European piece of lacquer we know of, is the Ballot Box belonging to the the inside of the lid is the date 1619, and on the front the Royal Arms of James I and the arms of the London East India Company, without supporters, but, as Sir William Foster remarks, with a very incorrect Tudor rose. Sir William quotes from the Minute Book of the general meeting of the East India Company on July 2, 1619, how Mr. John Holloway "presented a balleting box, a thing promis'd by him in the last yeare ... but the Lords and other present, houlding it a noueltie (and) a meanes to disturbe the whole buysines .. . did judge the aucthour thereof worthie of blame that did The reasonsfor this treatment of what is probably the oldest and perhapsthe firstballot box in England, belong to the interior history of the Company; but we may imagine that had John Holloway had
8 7

sentences:

"

becleet

(bedeckt ende overtoghen)

Saddlers' Company of London

[PLATE

I, A, B]. On

obtained a twig (which he reproducesin a woodcut) covered all round with a crust of raw lacquer made by certain winged ants " like bees make honey " did he believe what before had seemed to him to be merely a fable.4 Linschoten follows da Orta,5 but adds that :in thissortthey coveralle kindeof householde stuffe in India, as Bedsteddes, Chaires,stooles&c. and all their turnedwoodworke,which is wonderfulcomall India ... they mon and much used throughout
1 With an Introduction by F. H. Andrews. India Society[1925]. 2 England's Treasureby Foraign Trade [1664], p. 22o. 3 MuN: K. DE B. CODRINGTON : AncientIndia[1926], p. 21. The author suggests that coloured lacs may have been used in Mauryan times (about 250 B.C.). ' Colloquios was published in Goa in 1563, and was the third book to be printed in India (Engl. tr. by C. Markham [1913], coll. 29.) The Latin translation (Antwerp [1567] ch. 8) has the woodcut. 6 Itinerario[1596], Engl. translation, 1598, ch. 68, quoted from The Hakluyt Society Edition.

present it ...

and caused it to be taken away."'

Op. cit.:

SIR WILLIAM

Chap. 9 and Io. FOSTER : John Company[1926], p. 27.

II13

A-BALLOT COMPANY,

BOX.

LONDON.)

1619. INDIAN LACQUER. B-BACK OF (A)

46

BY

46 CM. (THE SADDLERS'

PLATE I. THE INDIAN PERIOD OF EUROPEAN FURNITURE-I.

The Indian Period of EuropeanFurniture-I


it made in London there would not have been a mistake in the design of the Tudor rose, so carefully is the whole thing done ; and it seems most likely that he had already ordered the box in India when, in 1618, he promised to bring it to the next meeting. The date, the two arms and the use for which the box was designed, are European, but this is no objection to the theory that it was made in India. The carpet of the Girdlers'Company shows the arms and the English device of the Company, the initials, and big bales of the merchant, Robert Bell, associated with the East India Company and with the Girdlers' Company (in 1634 as master of the latter), and we happen to know, from entries in the minute books of 1634 of both companies, that this "Turkey Carpet " had been ordered as "a Lahore Carpet cont. 7 yards long and 31 yards broad with his own and Girdlers' arms thereon, for which carpet Mr. Bell (as he alleges) has given Mr. Rastall satisfaction."'8 ordered to be made from special designs and in special sizes is seen from a letter to the Company signed by two of its agents in India on December to my knowledgethere hath bin a carpettin Agra house this twelvemonthamakinge,and yett is little more then half don ; and they neithermake them soe well nor good collorsas when they makethem without bespeakinge. And therefore yf those carpettsand their sizes like you, that this yeare are sent, questionlesseyou maye have greate quantityesof them sent yearlyefromone or both places; but Lahoreis the cheifeplace for that commoditye.9 If carpets were made after designs sent out to India why not lacquer-work, and particularly an object like the box designed as a gift to the Company ? All doubts as to its Indian origin must disappear when the decoration is carefully examined. The broad Indian child's face on the flaming leaves [PLATE II, A], the leafy scrolls in the borders and on the blue, sealing-wax red and green drawer-panels and tower-tops, and the very delicate flowering sprays with campanula [PLATE I, B] and husk
motives, designed with a strong, sensitive contour and a much more delicate shading of round and curved forms than appears in the reproduction, these characteristics all belong to the art of India.1o It may at first seem bewildering that we find not only an Indian gazelle, but also Chinese flying birds, lions, dragons (head downwards !) and other figures; but an examination of their design will prove that they are " Chinoiseries," fancy-figures
8 Journal of Indian Art [i9o6], Vol. XI, p. I. Thomas Rastall was president of the Surate Board ; he left England in March, I630, arrived on September 26th, in the same year, and died on November 7th, 1631. The carpet was therefore ordered and paid for before : The English Factoriesin India, [1630-37], p. XL. Cp. FOSTER 163I. 9 William Buddulph and John Willoughby at the Moghul's Camp to the Company, December 25th, 1619. FOSTER: The English Factories in India, 1618-21 [19o6]. 10 I am indebted to the Worshipful Company of Saddlers for permission to reproduce their wonderful box.

That already,

before 1619, carpets had been

25, I619 :-

of foreign draughtsmanship. There was probably no place in the world at that time other than India where Europe, India and the Far East could meet as they have done in this piece. We actually know that Indians at that time copied Chinese work from Pyrard, who tells us that in Chaul they made: "grand nombre de cofres, boetes, estuis, cabinets fagon de la Chine, tres riches et bien elabourbs,"1' and in Bengal he had seen " qu'ils font meubles et utenciles si delicatement qu'il n'est pas possible, et qui estans transportez i*ij (to France), on dit que c'est de la Chine."12 Mr. H. Clifford Smith has grouped together a series of lacquer objects including also the Saddlers' box. I believe he is right in this, but I think they are all Indian and not English.13 The Cabinet in the Victoria and Albert Museum (No. 594), bearing the intitials E.W. is, with its mother-of-pearlinlays in the lacquer, an example of those " deskes, tables, cubbards, tables to play on, boxes," etc., inlaid with mother-o'-pearl, of which Linschoten says that they " are very faire to beholde, and very workmanlike made, and are in India so common, that there is almost no place in those countries, but they have of them. It is likewise much carried abroad into Portingale and els where but they are
most used in India ..
."14

For all practical purposes I believe it will be safe to consider all lacquer work found in Europe and dating from about I6oo and fairly far on in the century as having come from India, or from China and Japan.15 If this be the general rule, no doubt some day someone shall find an exception to prove it. Pepys mentions (April 23, 1669) " the complaint of Sir Philip Howard and Watson, the inventors, as they pretend, of the business of varnishing and lacquer work against the Company of Painters, who take upon them to do the same thing," Probably English lacquer work dates not earlier than the I66o's. Did the importation of lacquer furniture stop with the beginning of a national production? Our answer to this question must be an emphatic No ! The importation increased after the Revolution and did not stop with the beginning of the new
century.

factured goods, similar to complaints of the weavers, the joyners and others. It is too wordy to quote in full, but it is important for several reasons :The curious and ingenious Art and Mystery of Japanning has been much improved in England of

the Japanners of England handed in to Parliament a complaint against the East India trade in manu-

Some time before 1700 (1698 (?)-1700)

11 PYRARD Vol. II, Ch. I9. Quotations from DE LAVAL: Voyage, Paris edition, I6I9. 12 loc. cit. I, Ch. 24. 13 in The Victoriaand Albert Museum, of English woodwork Catalogue Vol. II, No. 594 note. I am greatly indebted to Mr. Clifford Smith for kind interest and assistance. 14 LINSCHOTEN : op. cit.: Chap. 84. K. DE B. CODRINGTON: MAGAZINE, Vol. LVIII [1931], (THE BURLINGTON Mughal Marquetry p. 79 if.). Herein references to work with mother-of-pearl inlays. 15 Compare also THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE,Vol. XXIX [I916], p. I53.

II4

A-DETAIL

OF TOP OF PLATE I

WITH MOGHUL IVORY ABOUT 1580. HEIGHT, MUSEUM, (UNIVERSITY UPSALA, SWEDEN) B-CHAIR, INLAYS. 128 CM.

DETAIL FROM C--ORNAMENTAL THE "ENGLISH" LACQUER CABINET No. 1091. (VICTORIA AND ALBERT MUSEUM)

D-CHEST,

WITH MOGHUL IVORY INLAYS.

ABOUT 1580. 65 BY 101.5 BY 63 cM.

(NATIONAL MUSEUM, STOCKHOLM)

PLATE II.

THE INDIAN PERIOD OF EUROPEAN FURNITURE.-I

A-" BURGOMASTER " CHAIR. EBONY INLAID WITH IVORY. INDIAN. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. HEIGHT, 85 cM. (FREDERIKSBORG MUSEUM, DENMARK)

B-" BURGOMASTER " CHAIR. PAINTED BLACK. INDIAN. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. HEIGHT, 84.8 CM. (NATIONAL MUSEUM, COPENHAGEN)

AND OF TURNED STRUTS C-ARM-CHAIR INDIAN. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. RAILS. (MESSRS. FRANK PARTRIDGE & SONS)

INDIAN. CHAIR OF OAK. D-TABLE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. (PRIVATE COLLECTION, ENGLAND)

PLATE III.

THE INDIAN PERIOD OF EUROPEAN FURNITURE.-I.

Furniture-i The IndianPeriodof European


late years . . . it has afforded an honest Livelihood to several Hundreds of Families of Handy-Crafts men: as Cabinet-makers, Turners, Gold-beaters and Coppersmiths; . . . many of the Artificers in the said Art and Mystery have brought it to so great a Perfection as to Exceed all Manner of Indian Lacquer and Equal the right Japan itself by enduring the Fire in the Boyling of Liquors ... Also it will, if Encourag'd, vastly Improve both the Wood and Iron Trade for Cisterns, Mounteths, Punch-Bowls, Tea-Tables and several sorts of Ironware ... But the Merchants [are] sending over our English pattern and Models to India and bringing in such vast Quantities of Indian Lacquer'd Wares, especially within the last two years . . . The large quantities of Japan'd Goods expected shortly to be brought from the Indies will . . . also obstruct the Transportation of our English Lacquer to all Europe ... ." In their own, probably very liberal, estimation the Japanners of England numbered not more than several hundred, and we do not know how many of these were japanning cabinetworkx' ; it further appears that the real danger to the trade did not come from Japan or China, but from India. Hitherto historians of European, and particularly English furniture, have distinguished only between the Far Eastern and the English-Dutch lacquer. The Far Eastern is made from the sap of the Rhus vernificera, and is harder and glossier than the European ; this is made from gum-lac (or shellac), obtained in the manner related by da Orta and Linschoten. When the design is not truly Far Eastern but shows the unfamiliarity of an imitator, European writers have only been too ready to assume the work to be English or Dutch. Future experts will have to face a more complicated problem. The Europeans learned to make and use Indian lacquer, and I presume there is practically no difference between the two materials. The lacquer work hitherto considered English or Dutch is partly of Indian, partly of English or Dutch origin, and it will most probably be found out that the greater part is Indian. It will be well to submit both the ornaments and Chinoiseries to a close A cupboard in the Kunstindustriscrutiny. museum, Copenhagen, which has always been considered English, must have been brought over in a ship of the Danish Asiatic Company (founded in 1617) from India; the ornament in the moulding of the pediment, as well as the design of flowers and birds, prove it.18 But also the red-lacquer writingcabinet in the Victoria and Albert Museumx9 has on the corners of the glass frames of its doors a lotus rosette ornament from which emerges some spiral scrolls ; no one can really believe that a European has designed this ; it shows all the light-handedness,
Brit. Mus. 816. M. 13 (I). Mr. R. W. Symonds has referred me to this broadside-print. 17 Lacquerwork has probably been largely done by painters. 18 Det danske Kunstindustrimuseum : Aarsskrift [I912]. 19 in The Victoriaand AlbertMuseum, Catalogue of English Woodwork Vol. III [1927], No. 1o9g. The flower is a chrysanthemum.
16

the swiftness and cleanness of an Oriental designer taught to draw significant curves as the very foundation of all his schooling [PLATEII, C]. But examples will occur where opinions may differ; after all, Europeans became more and more skilful in the art ofjapanning, and probably did not object to some Indian details in a Chinese setting. Did not the French orndmaniste, I. A. Fraisse, publish a

les originauxde Livre de dessinsChinois,tiris d'apr&s Perse,des Indes,de la Chineet du Japon!20


II. We shall now widen the scope of our investigation to include some different kinds of furniture imported from India. The chest [PLATE II, D] is inlaid with a symmetrical scroll work in ivory whose thread-thin stems are known from the Indo-Persian art of the Moghul Emperors ; wherever a little twig branches off there is a leaf and each scroll ends in a flower or a bud.21

FIG.

I.

Pietra dura from Delhi Fort, Hammam.

The top of the chest opens with a lid and it has a drawer in the lower part ; the feet are new and the chest may not have had any at first. On the top there are two engravings, undoubtedly Oriental, which represent the arms and initials of Clas Fleming (married 1573 and died 1597), and of his wife Ebba Stenbock (who died in 1614). The chair [PLATE II, B] corresponds so closely with some Moghul thrones seen on miniatures of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that there can hardly be any doubt as to its origin ; the inlays are of the same character as those on the chest; they are found on all sides and on the wooden seat panel. The struts are also inlaid, both on the flat front and rounded sides ; between the struts and in a corresponding position beneath the seat-rail, mortices show that there were once fifty-five small turned knobs, of which only a few are left. The inlaid seat is deeply set in its frame so as to allow for a flat cushion; it is unusually high from the floor (62.5 centimetres, whereas a normal Chippendale chair seat is about 45 centimetres). The chair has had a movable footstep attached; two little knobs, three centimeters above the front foot stretcher, and the wedge-contrivance between the
20 21

LA ROCHE: Indische Baukunst, Vol. 5, pl. 22o. Hammam, Room B of the Delhi Fort. Cf. also: Delhi Museumof Archeology, Loan Exhibition of Durbar [i9Ii], pl. 46d (the pietra dura floor). Chests were bought in India for taking back silks and other textiles. I may suggest that the " Nonesuch " chests came from the Levant and India.

Paris, 1734.

IIX9

The Indian Period of EuropeanFurniture-I


front and the back stretchers, kept it in position."2 In Hindu-India only kings and gods had chairs with backs ; it is significant therefore that the earliest Indian chair we meet is Moghul, and has the name of a queen : " Cathar(ina) Stenbock Reg(ina) " engraved on the small cartouche at the back. Some people have doubted the authenticity of the inscription ; but on the supposition that it was engraved in India, I find no objection to it. Catharina Stenbock was the last consort of the old King Gustavus I
Vasa (who died I560) ; her sister was Ebba StenI624.

bock, whose arms are on the chest; she died in


The two objects seem to have come to

Sweden together and probably at the beginning of the last quarter of the sixteenth century, at a time when Portuguese carracks made Lisbon the great European emporium of Indian goods to be spread over Europe by Portuguese merchants, or fetched on Dutch and English boats to our northern shores. The " Burgomaster chair" [PLATE III, A] is of ebony inlaid with ivory. As a type it derivesfrom the circular throne of Indian Buddhistic monuments.23 The circular seat, the semicircular back, the six legs and four uprights, the radial wheel-spoke and circular ring-stretchers,are all characteristicfeatures of this too sturdy chair. This particular example has preserved its oriental castors, whereas the chair reproduced on PLATE III, B, has the well-known " Spanish feet." Interesting, are the well-carved faces with large eyes, wide open nostrils, full cheeks, small chins and mode of dressingthe hair which will be recognized as South Indian. Many examples have perforated panels of finely carved twigs in the three ovals of the backs, somewhat similar to those inlaid on the back of PLATE III, A.24 In legs and uprights we see here square and circular (turned) members alternating; it is one of the most valuable structural features of Indian furniture, and will be found also on the ebony and the walnut chairs. Formally it is related to certain Indian column types.25 As already mentioned, turnery is one of the essentially Indian arts and seemed to European visitors to India in the sixteenth century to be one
Les miniaturesorientales de la collection 2* A. COOMARASWAMY: au Museumof Fine Arts, Boston [1929], pl. 68, No. I13-. Goloubew 2s Cf. A. REA: South Indian BuddhistAntiquities,Madras [1894], pl. 28. A circular chair with animal-cabriole legs and lion paws on a marble slab, now Mus6e Guimet : GROUSSET: Les civilisations de l'Orient, II, 193o, Fig. 28. See also the semi-circular backs of thrones : Amaravati slabs in British Museum, No. 14 and 74architecture : The Chalukyan [1926], pl. 128, 131, 142. "s H. COUSENs & GRIBBLE, Vol. II, Fig. 257 ; the cabriole legs 25 Cf. CESCINSKY stand on a footring with castors; the carved date, 1640, may be correct; for a discussion of the cabriole legs, see a later article. ASSELINEAU (Meubles et objets divers [1854?], pl. Ioo) reproduces a Burgomaster chair, "sixteenth century, from the palace of Cromwell "; it looks more like eighteenth century. PERCY MACQUOID: Age of Mahogany, Fig. 49-50. BINSTEAD: English Chairs[1923], pl. io. For some chairs of this type, made perhaps in Java, see DE HAAN: Oud Batavia [ig92 ?] Illustrations, B 24-25. The chair is also found in S. Africa ; see D. FAIRBRIDGE: " Old South African Furniture," in Old Furniture,Vol. 7, p. I94. The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge has another example. K. DE B. : Mughal Marquetry(l.c.) for ivory inlays. CODRINGTON

of the outstanding merits of the craftsmanship of the Indians which was so much admired. We have quoted Linschoten ; we might also refer to Barbosa or to Pyrard--who, among other things, tells us that all the beds in the world's most wonderful hospital of the Jesuit Brethren in Goa were of lacquered turnery work.2" A heavy turned chair built up of struts and rails [PLATE III, c] shows, on the front, upright moulding that remind us of the heavy legs of the thrones on some of the Amaravati reliefs.27 In the Victoria and Albert Museum example, the turnery is even richer and more complicated with no end of loose rings and little knobs ; both these chairs have traces of an original black lacquer which was probably put on in the Indian way described by Linschoten (cf. quotation above). The president's chair of Harvard University belongs to this group, and others mentioned by Mr. Clifford Smith28; it is a type that might easily be simplified and imitated and it is possible that some truly English- or Scandinavianmade examples may one day be proved to exist, but this will not alter the main fact that the type is of Indian origin. The table chair [PLATE III, D] has some full whorl-rosettes, and some plain half-rosettes, and a finely-carved double-headed eagle, resting on a symmetrical S-ornament at the bottom.2 The lotus-rosettes used " not as an essential part of a design but to fill awkward spaces and so preserve the flatness and evenness of the whole design" is found already in Bharhut reliefs3o ; and it is still found in Moghul art as well as in late Sinhalese art.31 The double eagle, on the other hand, is a descendant of the non-Aryan and non-Semitic culture which Mr. Codrington thinks may safely be called Dravidian, " the original culture of almost all India." This civilization has left traces over a wide area and has been bound up everywhere with the worship of the Great Mother who, on the shores of the Black Sea, overcomes double-headed eagle monsters,whereas in Phrygia the cult of the doubleheaded eagle is part of her rites. To discuss its relationship to imperial Austrian or Russian doubleheaded eagles, or to any other European heraldic form is probably unnecessary; a reference to the coxcomb on the necks of the eagle, which is also
found on different Indian birds, makes this point quite clear.32 The symmetrically inverted S-scroll supporting
" 26 Portraits PYRARD : Vol. II, ch. I. Cf. also I. STCHOUKINE : Moghols," III, in Revuedes arts asiatiques,Vol. VII [1931-32], p. 233 ff. Plate 71, Durbar of Shah Jahdngir in the Guzl Khdnah 1619. The Shah is enthroned under a dais supported by slender balusterturned columns. 27 Brit. Mus. Slab 8 or 22. 28 Victoria Vol. II, andAlbertMuseumCatalogue of English Woodwork, No. 5II Note. 29 : English Decorationand Furniture 15oo-165o Cf. M. JOURDAIN [1924], Fig. 366. : MedievalSinhaleseArt [1908], p. 80 COOMARASWAMY 250o. 81 COOMARASWAMY: 1.C.and E. W. SrrTH: The Moghul Colour Decoration of Agra [1901], pl. 99, 92, 87.

120

SMALL OAK CHEST WITH DRAWERS, INLAID WITH MOTHER-OF-PEARL AND IVORY IN VENEER OF EBONY AND PARTLY LACQUERED. INDIAN. 1640-60. HEIGHT, 142 CM. (FROM A HISTORY OF ENGLISH FURNITURE, BY PERCY MACQUOID. VOL. I. THE AGE OF OAK)

PLATE IV.

THE INDIAN PERIOD OF EUROPEAN FURNITURE.-I.

A, B-TABLE, INLAID WITH GREEN-COLOURED IVORY, EBONY AND DIFFERENT WOODS. CENTURY. HEIGHT, 77.8 cM. (H.M. THE KING OF DENMARK, ROSENBORG CASTLE)

SEVENTEENTH

PLATE V.

THE INDIAN PERIOD OF EUROPEAN FURNITURE.-I.

Furniture-I The Indian Period of European


the double eagle is another symbol of the oldest Indian tradition; together with the swastika, the tricula, the two fishes and the vase of good augury, this crivatsa is found on dedicatory tablets of Jain art.33 as to its form, a descendantof the South German double-chest,34 but the latter
on FIG.2. Crfvatsashelves, dedicatory

A piece of excellent Indian workmanship is the table of light yellowish wood inlaid with ebony and other woods and ivory, coloured in green and enbeneath the frieze and the S-scrolled legs both, I would suggest, came to Europe from India, but this will be discussed later; on the three sides of the upper curves of each leg, we find one of those monsters who live a hundred lives in Indian art. This " animal" has an elephant's head with short snout-like trunk and strong tusks on a long feathery or leafy neck, but is without any body. It is one of those mythical creatures"for the most part terrestrial as to the head and shoulders, riverine or marine in body and tail," often represented as a Makara (see next article), as a water-horse, or as the waterelephant here.39 The party representedon the table top [PLATE V, A] consists of Indians feasting in a garden with palm trees and flowers, while a dog playing and two monkeys keep them company. The guests are seated on stools ; the table is decorated with pyramidsconnected with garlandsand moulded figures of hens or turkeys; both pyramids and hens remind us of the Delft wares of Europe ; but who was the borrower? This scene illustrates the refined secular civilization of the great commercial towns along the coast, which largely accounted for the Indian influence on Europe. The Venetian merchant, Nicol6 Conti, who had returned in I444 from twenty-five years of travel in southern Asia, told Poggio Bracciolini,secretaryto Pope Eugene IV, about these people. This thirdpart (that is, India south of the Indus, and Ganges countries)excels the others in riches, and is equalto ourown and magnificence, politeness of the in style life and in civilization. country(Italy) have most sumptuous For the inhabitants buildings, ; they elegant habitationsand handsomefurniture lead a morerefinedlife, removedfromall barbarity and coarseness. The men are extremelyhumane, and the merchants very rich, so much so that some will carry on their businessin forty of their own gold ships,each of whichis valuedat fifty thousand pieces. These alone use tablesat theirmealsin the with silver vesselsupon mannerof the Europeans, them; whilst the inhabitantsof the rest of India Similar glimpses of life in India in the seventeenth century may be gathered from Mandeslo's and Tavernier'stravels. The richesof this class may have
diminished, as the Europeans took over the carrying trade " between the Indies," but in civilization and eat upon carpets spread upon the ground.39a graved [PLATE V, B]. The lambrequin " apron "

The small cupboard [PLATE IV] is,

opens with doors and contains only

Tablet from drawers in the upper chest-one in the Mathura. frieze, and a very deep one occupying

whereas this type has two

the remainder of the top chest-and three drawers behind the two doors of the lower chest.35 This type is not an uncommon one in England, and all writers on the English furniture of this century give examples of it ; some are dated, the earliest I have noted being from I647 ;36 the dates stop in the 166o's. The inlays are of a richlycoloured mother-of-pearl and of ivory in veneers of hard woods like ebony. The piece reproduced here has its original old lotus feet, and has preserved its black Indian lacquer with the designs in gold of female terminal figures of Indianized European (?) descent ; it has also a peculiar gently curved overlap on the door. The scroll-inlays, the niches and the chequer ornament are all Indian. On other cupboards belonging to this group may be seen the sun and the moon37,also familiar as Indian symbols,and Faith, Hope and Charity, reproduced-rather poorly -from European engravings, showing no understanding of the draperies, but the human forms, with exaggerated breasts, contoured through them as though they were diaphanous.38 An extensive use of relief decoration in the form of turned " split balusters" is also rather characteristic of many of these pieces.
32 Cf. CODRINGTON: Op. Cit. [1926], p. 8. LA ROCHE: Indische Baukunst,Vol. 2, double plate XI for a bird's head with a similar coxcomb ; Ahmedabad, sixteenth-seventeenth century. PERERA : SinhaleseBannersand Standards[1916], pl. 2 has a double eagle with coxcomb (see also Fig. 32, 33, 90). COOMARASWAMY: 1.c. p. 85 and Index : Bherunda Pakshaya. VOGELSANG: Le meuble hollandais No. 285. of theFurniture of theRijksmuseum, [I91o], Fig. 20o4. Catalogue WATTr: Indian Art at Delhi [1903], pl. 30 top (the double eagle in modern Dravidian-Chalukyan woodcarving). : Sculpture de Mathura (1930), pl. 54, P. 123, 66. V. A. 88 VOGEL SmrrH : Jain Stupa [Igo9], pl. 7, 8, 9, I I, 29.3 and 69.2. G. BOHLER Indica,Vol. 2, p. 312) calls it : a mark not uncommon (in Epigraphia in Buddhist sculpture and also used for ornaments. des Miibels [927], Fig. 36-39 and 84 A. FEULNER: Kunstgeschichte 152-154. (Vol. II, ch. 19) writes about Cambay : " Ils ont encore 86 PYRARDu des cabinets P la fa~on d'Allemagne ' pieces rapport6es de nacre. de perles, yvoire, or, argent, pierreries, le tout fait fort proprement." This may refer to these cupboards, but more probably to little cabinets : " Kunstkammerschrinke," cf. Victoriaand AlbertMuseum, Vol. II, p. 594. This is also the Catalogueof English Woodwork, : ad verb. Cabinet, p. 483. opinion of HAVARD 36 M. JOURDAIN: English Decoration and Furniture, Fig. 31o. & EDWARDS:Dictionary Cf. for desks of the same work, MACQUOID " of English Furniture, Desks," Fig. 13, dated 1651. DE HAAN, Oud Batavia, Vol. II, ?I 171 mentions furniture decorated with mother-ofpearl and ivory, especially from the Coromandel Coast and Ceylon, found in death estates of Batavia from the seventeenth century. 87 Victoria and Albert Museum, Catalogue of English Woodwork Vol. II, Nr. 6o2. Cf. COOMARASWAMY : 1.C.Fig. 69. 38 Example belonging to Messrs. Frank Partridge and Sons.

prestige it seems to have lost nothing.

Cabinets and boxes covered with tortoise-shell veneer from the Maledives or the Philippines are brought among the many "objets de luxe" from India to Europe and now found in old

collections.

Pyrard writes in his chapter on

: raksas [1931], II, p. 50o, pl. 43, 4. The 39 COOMARASWAY light woods are shaded in sand burning. 89a R. H. MAJOR: India in thefifteenthcentury. Hakluyt Society, v. 22 [1857]; Nicol6 Conti, p. 21 f.

125

The Indian Period of European Furniture-I


" Crocodilles et tortues " that a certain kind of tortoiseshell came from the Maledives : l'caille est tannie, tirant partie sur le noir, partie sur le rouge fort lice, esclatante et faconnde si admirablement, que c'est une infiniment belle chose que de l'avoir, quand elle est polie. C'est pourquoy elle est tant recherchee de tous les Indiens : Roys, grands Seigneurs et riches personnes principalement de ceux de Cambaye et Surrate, qu'ils en font des coffres et cassettes garnies d'or et d'argent, des brasselets et autres ornements de meubles: il n'en croist qu'au Maldives (where Pyrard had suffered shipwreck and stayed for almost five years, 1602-07) et aux isles Philippines ou Meniles, et c'est une des bonne marchandises qu'on enlkve.40 More often than not, the corners and keyplates of such boxes are of silver with rather crudely chased pomegranates and little twigs with a flower of the same family as those inlaid on the Burgomaster chair [PLATE III, A] on the square parts of its legs. I am not prepared to say that every tortoiseshell box, etc., came from India, but that veneering with tortoiseshell originated there, and that such wares are largely Indian imports.41
40 PYRARD

The theory arrived at as a result of these observations is that, in England and in other countries along the Atlantic coast, the furniture from about 1675 to 1725 does not constitute in the general terms of Professor A. J. Toynbee, an " intelligible field of historical study " in itself; or in other words, that without knowledge of what was done in " the Indies " no sensible explanation of what happened can be given. But how was all this possible ? One of the explanations has been given by Sir Dudley North :The cheapest things are bought in India; as much labour or manufacture may be had there for two Pence as in England for a Shilling. The Carriage thence is dear, the Customs are high, the merchant has great gains, and so has the Retailer ; yet still with all this charge, the Indian are a great deal cheaper than equal English manufacture.42 In another article I shall proceed to show how thoroughly the furniture was transformed through this Indian influence.
41 E.g. MACQUOID AND EDWARDS, Op. cit. ad verb. " Boxes," Fig. I9. 42 D. NORTH : Consideration theEast India trade,London (1701), upon p. 2. (Written before the author's death in 1691.) A. J. TOYNBEE : A Study of History [1934], Vol. I.

(ed. 16x9, pp. 368-69).

LOST

ALTARPIECE

BY

THE

MASTER

OF

KAPPENBERG

BY ELSE MACKOWSKY
N the year 1854, the National Gallery in London, probably at the instigation of the Prince Consort, acquired the whole collection of Regierungsrat Kruiger in Minden, in Westphalia, consisting chiefly of works of the Westphalian School. It was J. D. Passavant' who first called attention to their beauty and importance. The collection was composed of panels of altarpieces from convent or monastery churches, such as Liesborn, Marienfeld, Lippstadt, Werden, and others which, on account of troublous times or through misguided enthusiasm for rebuilding, had been destroyed or altered. The altarpieces had been taken apart, sold and scattered. A specially hard fate befell the centre picture of the Liesborn altarpiece, a Crucifixion, which was sawn up into small pieces and parts of them finally reached the collections of Herr Kruiger in Minden and Professor Heindorf in Munster. Of the sixty-four pictures acquired, the National Gallery in London kept only twenty-seven and, in the year 1857, the remainder were sold by auction at Christies.2 And so it came about that the panels, which fetched prices of between C2 and ?20o,
KunstreisedurchEngland und Belgien (1833). 2 MAGAZINE: " A Westphalian Altarpiece," Cf. THE BURLINGTON by HANs KORNFIELD. Vol. LXII, p. 161.
1

were scattered once more, and to-day some have completely disappeared. Krtiger, in his Catalogue of I848,3 gives accurate information as to theme, kind of material, and the pictures by anonymous exact dimensions; artists are distinguished by their places of origin. He differentiates also, in accordance with his own or traditional stylistic criticism, between the work of the Master of Liesborn himself and that of his best or second-best pupils. We are interested here in eight pictures ascribed " by Kruiger in his Catalogue to a Meister aus der Mitte des sechzehnten Jahrhunderts." He states that they came from the " Klosterkirche zu Liesborn oder Marienfeld." Two are still in the National Gallery (PLATE I, A and B), but for some years they were lent to the Dublin Museum, labelled " B. Strigel " (Catalogue, 1898 No. 358 and 458). Then, after Dr. Max J. Friedlander had identified them as by the Master of Kappenberg, they were returned to the National Gallery, but were placed at first in the store-room. By means of the Kruger Catalogue (Part I, No. 38-42, and 44-46) and the dimensions, we have ascertained that a large altarpiece by this Master,
a Verzeichnis der Gernmlde-Sammlungdes GeheimenRegierungsRathes Kriiger zu Minden. Used during the survey at Minden in 1848. Printed by J. C. C. Bruns.

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