to secure the job. Indeed, it is difficult to see how they could possibly be the design of Robert Adam, for, though in perfect harmony with the rest of the carved woodwork, they are entirely out of keeping with anything in the staircase, which, with the hall below and the dome above, is perhaps the purest piece of Adam's design in the whole house. It is a well-known fact that in his later years Robert Adam relied greatly on assistance for detail, and there is no reason for supposing that he did not do so from the first. Italian workmen were employed on much of the decoration at Claydon, but the wood-carving evidently came from an English workshop, and is absolutely without the classical influence so strongly apparent in everything else. When Adam's plans were made in his own office no record is obtainable of the names of those who did those parts of the work which he entrusted to others, but in one of the drawings in the Soane Museum collection, which is left quite unfinished as regards ornament, there is a note in what appears to be Robert Adam's own handwriting: All the ornament of this dome and entablature, with the swags of oak leaves, to be done by Mr. Coney, and to run any of the mouldings he thinks necessary for doing his own part of the work to the best advantage. A copy of this is given to Mr. Coney and of this date. Edin., 4 Sept., 1790.' This drawing, as will be remarked, was made in Edinburgh, which was then separated from London and Adam's office by such a tedious coach journey that he could not employ any of his own staff of designers, and he therefore gave a practically free hand to the local man who was doing the work. If he did this at the close of his career it is very much more probable that he would have done so before he had a sufficient staff schooled by himself to produce it under his direction. From the fact that this was his habit, as Claydon House, Bucks well as from the internal evidence of the designs themselves, I think it is nearly certain that Adam had almost as little to do with the Chinese room and carved woodwork of Claydon House as with the marble mantelpieces, which are purely Italian in workmanship and design, and which, it is very evident, were expressly constructed to Earl Verney's order. Even if the general lines of the wood-work were designed by Adam, the details must have been left to the carver, who was probably, as regards the greater part of the house, Thomas Chippendale. The Ralph Verney of the Restoration went to Rome for the carved monument which he erected in Middle Claydon Church to his father and himself, and Lord Verney did the same for marble mantelpieces. Some of them bear the family crest, while the most elaborate, that in the saloon, is a very intricate piece of workmanship. A central medallion, which is said to be a portrait of Lady Verney, is being crowned by a band of cupids, while the relation of husband and wife is typified by figures at the corners; man, the builder, is represented with part of a column and a pair of compasses, while woman, the housewife, holds a basket. Nothing could well be more out of keeping with the delicate and almost severe restraint of the rest of the room, and it is impossible to conceive Adam suggesting it or indeed. any of the others. The Verneys seem always to have had ideas of their own, and it is more than probable that Adam found the earl a difficult client to manage. Although in planning the interior decoration of Claydon House Adam was compelled to use such things as the marble mantelpieces, which were not and could not be harmonious with the rest of his style, and though colour to any great extent seems to have been prohibited almost as much as gilding, there were evidently no other re 4 See illustration on page 27. strictions of any kind, certainly not from the point of view of expense. So much of the decoration is more florid than we would expect from Robert Adam that it would almost seem as if he were attempting to supply the deficiency of colour by form. This is particularly noticeable in the north hall, in which is one of the two entrances already mentioned. The doorways are evidently by Adam, and are very fine, though lacking something of his customary restraint,5 and the same remark applies almost equally to the ceiling. The cornice is considerably simpler in line, but cannot have cost the earl any the less on that account, for round it runs a row of carved heads. A reference to the illustrations of one of the alcoves will show that the north hall is one of the rooms in which the white paint has been partially removed from the carving. For my illustration of the room I have therefore chosen a photograph taken before this alteration was made, as being more in accordance with Adam's intention as regards the decoration. This choice, however, entails loss as well as gain. There is so much furniture of different dates and styles at Claydon House that, as it cannot all be used at once, rearrangements are frequently made, and, at the time of my visit, the modern furniture shown in the older photograph had happily been replaced by what, both as regards design and period, was more correct and more artistic. Among other changes there are now an exceedingly fine and interesting set of about two dozen ladder-backed chairs, such as those reproduced." 'Ladder-backed,' by the way, is a modern name for this class of chair. When they were first introduced, somewhere about 1780, they were called 'fiddle-back,' from the resemblance between the openings in the transverse bars and the sound-holes of a violin. See illustration on page 19. 6 Page 15. 7 Page 21. This set is very typical of the usual and Claydon House, though designed, as has The illustration shows specimens of the in some instances there is even a reserved use of marquetry. One of the doors at the end of the north hall opens directly on the great central staircase, while those on the right lead to the saloon. These latter are double doors, probably both for 'deafening' purposes, and also in order that when opened inwards the design of the door of each room should be repeated on the reverse side. There is no warping or shrinkage about these pieces of old-time work. Every panel, hinge, or piece of carving is just as true as when it left the workshop a century and a half since. They show no sign, either as regards use or appearance, of their actual age. This is one of the many lessons a collector may learn from such houses as this. The look of age is not given by use, but abuse. Where eighteenth-century furniture has consistently been taken ordinary care of there is no necessity for a dilapidated appearance. I know a set of painted Hepplewhite chairs which have been in continual use by the family for whom they were made a hundred and twenty years ago, which do not show, even in the paint, any falling-off from their pristine fresh ness. It is when furniture is despised and relegated to lumber rooms and sculleries that the unmistakable evidences of antiquity become obtrusive. Perhaps the most beautifully designed room in Claydon House is the saloon just mentioned. It is purer in design than the north hall, and is distinctly more impressive. It is there that the finer specimens of the family portraits are hung, including the Standard Bearer' and his royal master. The one jarring note in the construction of this room is the marble chimney-piece already mentioned, which is shown in the illustration. Goldsmith makes one of his characters say that he has often known a marble chimney-piece' inflame the bill con See illustration on page 27. Claydon House, Bucks foundedly'; and it is some slight consolation to be comparatively certain that the earl found this out to his cost. This chimneypiece, unlike that intended for the library, but never fixed there is presumably of earlier date than the design of the room in which it is placed, for the central head, supposed to be a likeness of the countess, is repeated in the cornice directly above. This cornice, which is very broad, arches to meet the roof, and is covered with five rows of carved bosses with a smaller leaf decoration between. From the curvature of the space in which they are fixed these differ not only in size but in actual shape, no two rows being alike. The immense amount of work entailed by this alone impresses one both with the earl's regal ideas and Adam's as regal translation of them. Round the lower part of the cornice runs a narrower border of applied gesso-work in the more ordinary style of the architect, the ground on which it is affixed being slightly tinted with green. The delicacy and simplicity of this are in contrast to the heavier feeling of the rest, and, indeed, to the roof itself, on looking at which one has an uneasy feeling that it ought to appear too heavy for the plainness of the walls underneath. Yet there is no such suggestion of bad structure or topheaviness, though it is by no means so easy to account for its absence. It is here, more than in any other room in Claydon House, that the loss occasioned by the clean sweep made of the Adam furniture by the earl's creditors is most felt. Fine furniture there is, and some even of the period. There is an almost priceless commode of French manufacture, and many other pieces of considerable interest, including a table, a fine specimen of Italian mosaic work imported by the late baronet from Italy. Nearly everything in Claydon House has a story of some kind connected with it, and there is one pertaining to this table. Sir Harry Verney, as a young man, bought it in conjunction with Lord Wes tern. When it arrived in this country,having been somewhat roughly treated in transit, it had reverted to its original state of many hundred pieces. There was no workman in England capable of putting them together again, and Sir Harry's friend was so disgusted with the wreck that he gave up his share of it. But Sir Harry, having carefully preserved the pieces, sent them out to Italy again and had the table thoroughly restored. Even the carpet has a reason, though not an artistic one, for its presence in this room. An artistic reason, indeed, it could not well have, seeing that it had the misfortune to be one of the glories of the 1851 exhibition, where it was priced at a thousand pounds, and proportionately admired. Some time after that date, as it still remained unsold, it was offered to Mr. Nightingale, Sir Harry's father-in-law, who bought it for a tenth of its original price, and presented it to Sir Harry. If the artistic ideas of our manufacturers in the middle of last century were not all that could be desired, it must at least be admitted that their workmanship was good, for the carpet seems as new as ever. Indeed, the chief objection to it is the same as Mr. Whistler's to the modern oil colours-that it won't fade. From the decadence of art in the early and middle periods of the nineteenth century, Claydon House is by no means the only sufferer; but, from its unfortunate history, which compelled the refurnishing to begin just at the close of what was really fine in English design and to be practically completed when the worst phase it has ever known had just attained its nadir, the trail of the serpent is peculiarly accentuated. It is perfectly easy to talk glibly of purity and periods, but it is by no means so simple a matter to say what should actually be done in such a case. The carpet in this room is a case in point. Short of having one specially manufactured from one of Adam's designs, it is difficult to see how, in the fifties, a better choice could have been made, as it is greatly better than most of the contemporaneous designs. Even an Adam carpet might not have greatly improved matters, for it was Adam's custom not to design carpets to be reproduced by the hundred, nor even to suit one particular house, but for one particular room. Even where money is of no consequence, it by no means follows that the end desired can be attained. A fine set of two dozen ribbonbacked chairs, for instance, such as suggested themselves to me for the north hall, would be practically impossible to find. My own choice would be, where specimens of the correct period and design are not easily procurable, to have careful copies made of the most suitable pattern. This might be objected to on the score of their being imitations. They would, however, be no more so than a very large percentage of the actual work of the period. In this, furniture differs from such an art as painting, where a copy is necessarily not only of less value in the market, but of less value artistically. Many of our present-day firms turn out most admirable copies of eighteenthcentury furniture, which are in every way equal in workmanship to the originals, the only difference being actual age and money value, neither of which objections can be classed as purely artistic. A house is not a museum, where date and authenticity are matters of primary importance. Another factor which must be realized before criticizing too dogmatically the mixture of styles in the home of a family is sentiment. It is perfectly possible that the 'old arm-chair' of which all the world has read, and over which much of it has wept, was, from either the artistic or utilitarian standpoint, only fit for firewood. The man who would exchange, except from hard necessity, an object around which generation after generation had woven associations, should be a dealer, and his home should be a shop. |