The Indian Period of European Furniture

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The Indian Period of European Furniture-IAuthor(s): Vilhelm SlomannSource: The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, Vol. 65, No. 378 (Sep., 1934), pp. 113-126Published by: The Burlington Magazine Publications, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/865947

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T H I N D I N P E R I O D O EUROPE N

FURNITURE I.

BY VILHELM SLOMANNHEN, a few years ago, some essayswere published on " The influencesof Indian Art,"' time was not yetripe for including a study of theenrichment of forms and motives in

European applied art, due to the contact with

Indian art in the sixteenth and more particularlyin the seventeenthcentury.

The economist, Thomas Mun, once Director ofthe East India Company, about 1630, wrote in

passing that India and its imports had become " theschool of our arts."2 We shall try to show thatsome of the lessons India then taught Europe stillform a vital part of Westerncivilization to-day.

I.

Lacquerwork,like turnery, s essentiallyan Indian

art,3 and the travellers who visited India in thesixteenth and seventeenth centuries bear witnessto the extensive use of lacquer at that time. Thefirst European to devote closer attention to it seems

to have been Garcia da Orta, for thirty years aphysician in Goa and a learned botanist. Heseems to have taken some trouble to ascertain thatthe best Indian lacquer actually came from Pegu(in Further India) and not from Sumatra (as itstrade name then suggested) and only when he hadobtained a twig (which he reproduces n 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 tobe merely a fable.4

Linschoten follows da Orta,5but adds that :-in this sorttheycoveralle kindeofhouseholdetuffein India,as Bedsteddes,Chaires, tooles&c. andalltheir turnedwoodworke,which is wonderfulcom-

mon and muchusedthroughout ll India ... they

take a peece of Lac of what colour they will, andas they turne it when it commeth to his fashion, theyspreadthe Lac upon the whole peece ofwoode which

presently with the heat of the turning, (melteththe 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 broadstraw or dry Rushes so (cunningly)that all thewoode is covered withall, and it shineth like Glasse,most pleasant to beholde, and continueth as long asthe wood, being well looked unto.

Linschoten knew that " the fayrest workeman-

shippethereofcommethfromChina," but he did notknow that the lacquer of China and Japan is of adifferent substance from that which he describes.In writing about the products of many towns alongthe Indian coasts, Linschoten repeatedly mentions

lacquered furniture, but the term "lacquer" wasunfamiliar in those days, and his English translatoron the first two occasions he comes to the Dutchsentences: " becleet (bedeckt ende overtoghen)met lack van

alle(-rhande) coleuren,"' writessimply : " covered with stuffesof all colours."The earliestdated Indo-European piece of lacquer

we know of, is the Ballot Box belonging to theSaddlers' Company of London [PLATE I, A, B]. Onthe inside of the lid is the date 1619, and on the frontthe Royal Arms of James I and the arms of theLondon East India Company, without supporters,but, as Sir William Foster remarks, with a veryincorrect Tudor rose. Sir William quotes from theMinute Book of the general meeting of the EastIndia Company on July 2, 1619, how Mr. JohnHolloway "presented a balleting box, a thingpromis'dby him in the last yeare ... but the Lordsand other present, houlding it a noueltie (and) a

meanes to disturbethe whole buysines .. . didjudgethe aucthour thereof worthie of blame that did

present it ... and caused it to be taken away."'The reasonsfor this treatmentof what is probably

the oldestandperhapsthe firstballotbox in England,belong to the interior history of the Company;but we may imagine that had John Holloway had

1 With an Introduction by F. H. Andrews. India Society[1925].2MuN: England's Treasureby Foraign Trade [1664], p. 22o.

3 K. DE B. CODRINGTON : Ancient ndia 1926], p. 21. The authorsuggests that coloured lacs may have been used in Mauryan times

(about 250 B.C.).' Colloquioswas 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 fromThe Hakluyt Society Edition.

8 Op. cit.: Chap. 9 and Io.7

SIRWILLIAM FOSTER : John Company1926], p. 27.

II13

A Polyptych scribedo Giotto

workshopor close entourage. Since Ghibertiassertsthat Giotto painted four chapels and four altarpiecesin 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 allthe fame, while the other in the Lower Church,

which was not often visited and seldom seen, sank

into undeserved obscurity. Nevertheless, present-day criticism will establish the fact that the morefamous workis only loosely connected with the more

personal art of Giotto, while the altarpiece dealtwith in this article, in spite of its present damagedcondition-in which we hope it will not remainmuch longer-irradiates the whole power and mind

of its creator.



A-BALLOT BOX. INDIAN LACQUER. 1619. 46 BY46 CM. (THE SADDLERS'

COMPANY, LONDON.) B-BACK OF (A)

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



The Indian Periodof EuropeanFurniture-I

it made in London there would not have been amistakein the design of the Tudor rose, so carefullyis the whole thing done ; and it seems most likelythat he had already orderedthe box in India when,in 1618, he promisedto bring it to the next meeting.

The date, the two arms and the use for which thebox was designed,are European,but this is no objec-tion to the theory that it was made in India. Thecarpet of the Girdlers'Companyshowsthe arms andthe English device of the Company, the initials, and

big bales of the merchant, Robert Bell, associatedwith the East India Companyand with the Girdlers'

Company (in 1634 as master of the latter), and we

happen to know, from entries in the minute booksof 1634 of both companies, that this "TurkeyCarpet" had been ordered as "a Lahore Carpetcont. 7 yards long and 31 yards broad with his ownand Girdlers' arms thereon, for which carpet Mr.Bell (as he alleges) has given Mr. Rastall

satisfaction."'8That already, before 1619, carpets had been

ordered to be made fromspecial designs

and in

special sizes is seen from a letter to the Companysigned by two of its agents in India on December

25, I619 :-to my knowledge here hath bin a carpett n Agrahousethis twelvemonthamakinge,andyett is littlemore then half don; and they neithermake themsoe well nor good collorsas when they make hemwithout bespeakinge. And therefore yf those

carpettsand theirsizeslikeyou, that thisyeareare

sent, questionlesseyou maye have greate quan-tityesof them sentyearlye romone or bothplaces;but Lahore s thecheifeplaceforthatcommoditye.9

If carpets were made after designs sent out toIndia why not lacquer-work, and particularly an

object like the box designed as a gift to the Com-

pany ? All doubts as to its Indian origin must dis-appear when the decoration is carefully examined.The broad Indian child's face on the flaming leaves

[PLATE II, A], the leafy scrollsin the bordersand onthe blue, sealing-wax red and green drawer-panelsand tower-tops, and the very delicate floweringsprays with campanula [PLATE I, B] and husk

motives, designed with a strong, sensitive contourand a much more delicate shading of round and

curved forms than appears in the reproduction, thesecharacteristics 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 flyingbirds, lions, dragons (head downwards ) and other

figures;but an examination of their

designwill

prove that they are " Chinoiseries," fancy-figures

of foreign draughtsmanship. There was probablyno place in the world at that time other than Indiawhere Europe, India and the Far East could meetas they have done in this piece. We actually knowthat Indians at that time copied Chinesework 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 etutenciles si delicatement qu'il n'est pas possible, etqui estans transportez i*ij (to France), on dit quec'est de la Chine."12

Mr. H. Clifford Smith has grouped together aseriesof lacquer objects including also the Saddlers'box. I believe he is right in this, but I think theyare all Indian and not English.13 The Cabinet inthe Victoria and Albert Museum (No. 594), bearingthe intitials E.W. is, with its mother-of-pearl nlaysin the lacquer, an example of those " deskes,tables, cubbards, tables to play on, boxes," etc.,inlaid with mother-o'-pearl, of which Linschoten

saysthat

they

" arevery

faire to beholde, andveryworkmanlike 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 carriedabroad into Portingale and els where but they aremost used in India .. ."14

For all practical purposesI believe it will be safeto consider all lacquer work found in Europe and

dating from about I6oo and fairly far on in the cen-

tury 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 complaintof Sir Philip Howard and Watson, the inventors,as they pretend, of the business of varnishing and

lacquer work against the Company of Painters,whotake upon them to do the same thing," ProbablyEnglish 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 emphaticNo The importationincreasedafter the Revolutionand did not stop with the beginning of the new

century. Some time before 1700 (1698 (?)-1700)the Japanners of England handed in to Parliamenta complaint against the East India trade in manu-

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

8 Journal of Indian Art [i9o6], Vol. XI, p. I. Thomas Rastallwas 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

163I. Cp. FOSTER TheEnglishFactoriesn India, [1630-37], p. XL.9 William Buddulph and John Willoughby at the Moghul's Camp

to the Company, December 25th, 1619. FOSTER: The EnglishFactoriesin India, 1618-21 [19o6].

10 I am indebted to the Worshipful Company of Saddlers for

permission to reproduce their wonderful box.

11 PYRARD E LAVAL: Voyage,Vol. II, Ch. I9. Quotations fromParis edition, I6I9.

12 loc. cit. I, Ch. 24.13

Catalogue f English woodworkn The Victoriaand AlbertMuseum,Vol. II, No. 594 note. I am greatly indebted to Mr. Clifford Smithfor kind interest and assistance.

14 LINSCHOTEN : op. cit.: Chap. 84. K. DE B. CODRINGTON:

MughalMarquetryTHEBURLINGTONMAGAZINE,Vol. LVIII [1931],p. 79 if.). Herein references to work with mother-of-pearl inlays.

15 Compare also THE BURLINGTONMAGAZINE,Vol. XXIX [I916],p. I53.

II4



A-DETAIL OF TOP OF PLATE I B-CHAIR, WITH MOGHUL IVORY

INLAYS. ABOUT 1580. HEIGHT,

128 CM. (UNIVERSITY MUSEUM,

UPSALA, SWEDEN)

C--ORNAMENTAL DETAIL FROM

THE "ENGLISH" LACQUER CABINET

No. 1091. (VICTORIA AND ALBERT

MUSEUM)

D-CHEST, WITH MOGHUL IVORY INLAYS. ABOUT 1580. 65 BY 101.5 BY63 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)

C-ARM-CHAIR OF TURNED STRUTS AND

RAILS. INDIAN. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

(MESSRS. FRANK PARTRIDGE & SONS)

D-TABLE CHAIR OF OAK. INDIAN.

SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. (PRIVATE

COLLECTION, ENGLAND)

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



The IndianPeriodof European urniture-i

late years . . . it has afforded an honest Livelihoodto several Hundreds of Families of Handy-Craftsmen: as Cabinet-makers, Turners, Gold-beatersand Coppersmiths; . . . many of the Artificers inthe said Art and Mystery have brought it to so

great a Perfection as to Exceed all Manner ofIndian Lacquer and Equal the right Japan itself

by enduring the Fire in the Boyling of Liquors ...

Also it will, if Encourag'd, vastly Improve boththe Wood and Iron Trade for Cisterns,Mounteths,Punch-Bowls, Tea-Tables and several sorts of Iron-ware ... But the Merchants [are] sending over our

English pattern and Models to India and bringingin such vast Quantities of Indian Lacquer'd Wares,especially within the last two years . . . The largequantities of Japan'd Goods expected shortly tobe brought from the Indies will . . . also obstructthe 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

appearsthat the real

dangerto the trade did not

come from Japan or China, but from India.Hitherto historians of European, and particularly

English furniture, have distinguished only betweenthe 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 assumethe work to be English or Dutch.

Future experts will have to face a more compli-cated problem. The Europeans learned to make

and use Indian lacquer, and I presume there ispractically no difference between the two materials.The lacquer work hitherto considered English orDutch is partly of Indian, partly of English or Dutch

origin, and it will most probably be found out thatthe greater part is Indian. It will be well to submit

both the ornaments and Chinoiseries to a close

scrutiny. A cupboard in the Kunstindustri-

museum, Copenhagen, which has always been con-sidered English, must have been brought over in a

ship of the Danish Asiatic Company (founded in

1617) from India; the ornament in the mouldingof the pediment, as well as the design of flowers and

birds, prove it.18 But also the red-lacquer writing-cabinet in the Victoria and Albert Museumx9 has

on the corners of the glass frames of its doors a lotusrosette ornament from which emerges some spiralscrolls ; no one can really believe that a Europeanhas designed this ; it shows all the light-handedness,

the swiftness and cleanness of an Oriental designer

taught to draw significant curves as the very founda-tion 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 objectto some Indian details in a Chinese setting. Did

not the French orndmaniste, I. A. Fraisse, publish aLivre de dessinsChinois,tiris d'apr&ses originauxde

Perse,desIndes,de la Chine t duJapon 20

II.

We shall now widen the scope of our investigationto include some different kinds of furniture importedfrom India.

The chest [PLATE II, D] is inlaid with a symmet-rical 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 topthere 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 in1614).

The chair [PLATEII, B] corresponds so closelywith some Moghul thrones seen on miniatures of

the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that there

can hardly be any doubt as to its origin ; the inlaysare 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 Chippen-dale chair seat is about

45centimetres). The chair

has had a movable footstep attached; two little

knobs, three centimeters above the front foot

stretcher, and the wedge-contrivance between the

16 Brit. Mus. 816. M. 13 (I). Mr. R. W. Symonds has referredme to this broadside-print.

17 Lacquerwork has probably been largely done by painters.18 Det danske Kunstindustrimuseum : Aarsskrift[I912].19

Catalogue f English Woodworkn The Victoria nd AlbertMuseum,Vol. III [1927], No. 1o9g. The flower is a chrysanthemum.

20 Paris, 1734.21 LA ROCHE: IndischeBaukunst, ol. 5, pl. 22o. Hammam,

Room B of the Delhi Fort. Cf. also: Delhi Museumof Archeology,LoanExhibitionof 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.

H IIX9



The Indian Period of EuropeanFurniture-I

front and the back stretchers,kept it in position."2In Hindu-India only kings and gods had chairs withbacks ; it is significant therefore that the earliestIndian chair we meet is Moghul, and has the nameof a queen : " Cathar(ina) Stenbock Reg(ina) "

engraved on the small cartouche at the back. Some

people have doubted the authenticity of the inscrip-

tion ; but on the suppositionthat it was engravedinIndia, I find no objectionto it. Catharina Stenbockwas the last consort of the old King Gustavus IVasa (who died I560) ; her sister was Ebba Sten-

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

I624. The two objects seem to have come to

Sweden together and probably at the beginning ofthe last quarter of the sixteenth century, at a timewhen Portuguese carracks made Lisbon the greatEuropean emporium of Indian goods to be spreadover Europe by Portuguese merchants, or fetchedon Dutch and English boats to our northernshores.

The " Burgomasterchair" [PLATE III, A] is of

ebony inlaid with ivory. As a type it derivesfrom thecircular throne of Indian Buddhistic monuments.23The circular seat, the semicircular back, the six

legs and four uprights, the radial wheel-spoke andcircularring-stretchers,are all characteristic eaturesof this too sturdy chair. This particular examplehas preserved its oriental castors,whereas the chair

reproduced on PLATE III, B, has the well-known" Spanish feet." Interesting, are the well-carvedfaces with large eyes, wide open nostrils,full cheeks,small chins and mode of dressingthe hair which willbe recognized as South Indian. Many exampleshave perforatedpanels of finely carved twigs in thethree ovals of the backs, somewhat similar to thoseinlaid on the back of PLATE III, A.24

In legs and uprights we see here square and

circular (turned) members alternating; it is one ofthe most valuable structural features of Indian

furniture, and will be found also on the ebony andthe walnut chairs. Formally it is related to certainIndian column types.25

As already mentioned, turnery is one of the

essentially Indian arts and seemed to Europeanvisitors to India in the sixteenth century to be one

of the outstanding merits of the craftsmanship ofthe Indians which was so much admired. We have

quoted Linschoten ; we might also refer to Barbosaor to Pyrard--who, among other things, tells us thatall the beds in the world's most wonderful hospitalof the Jesuit Brethren in Goa were of lacqueredturnery work.2"

A heavy turned chair built up of struts and rails[PLATE III, c] shows,on the front, upright mouldingthat remind us of the heavy legs of the thrones onsome of the Amaravati reliefs.27 In the Victoriaand Albert Museum example, the turnery is evenricher and more complicated with no end of loose

ringsand little knobs ; both these chairshave tracesof an original black lacquer which was probablyput on in the Indian way describedby Linschoten

(cf. quotation above). The president's chair ofHarvardUniversitybelongsto this group, and othersmentioned by Mr. Clifford Smith28; it is a typethat might easily be simplifiedand imitated and it is

possible that some truly English- or Scandinavian-made examples may one day be proved to exist,but this will not alter the main fact that the type isof 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 Thelotus-rosettes used " not as an essential part of a

design but to fill awkward spaces and so preservethe flatness and evenness of the whole design" isfound already in Bharhut reliefs3o and it is stillfoundin Moghul art as well as in late Sinhaleseart.31

The double eagle, on the other hand, is adescendant of the non-Aryan and non-Semiticculture which Mr. Codrington thinks may safely

be called Dravidian,"

the original culture of almostall India." This civilization has left traces over awide area and has been bound up everywherewiththe worshipof the Great Motherwho, on the shoresof the Black Sea, overcomes double-headed eaglemonsters,whereasin Phrygiathe cult of the double-headed eagle is part of her rites. To discuss its

relationshipto imperial Austrianor Russian double-headed eagles, or to any other European heraldicform is probably unnecessary; a reference to thecoxcomb on the necks of the eagle, which is alsofound on different Indian birds, makes this pointquite clear.32

The symmetrically inverted S-scroll supporting

2* A. COOMARASWAMY:es miniaturesorientales de la collectionGoloubew u Museumof Fine Arts, Boston[1929], pl. 68, No.

I13-.2s Cf. A. REA: South IndianBuddhistAntiquities,Madras [1894],

pl. 28. A circular chair with animal-cabriole legs and lion pawson a marble slab, now Mus6e Guimet : GROUSSET Lescivilisationsde l'Orient,II, 193o, Fig. 28. See also the semi-circular backs ofthrones : Amaravati slabs in British Museum, No. 14 and 74-

"s H. COUSENs TheChalukyanrchitecture1926], pl. 128, 131, 142.25 Cf. CESCINSKY& GRIBBLE, Vol. II, Fig. 257 ; the cabriole legs

stand on a footring with castors; the carved date, 1640, may becorrect; for a discussion of the cabriole legs, see a later article.ASSELINEAU (Meubleset objetsdivers [1854?], pl. Ioo) reproduces a

Burgomaster chair, "sixteenth century, from the palace ofCromwell "; it looks more like eighteenth century. PERCY

MACQUOID: Age of Mahogany, Fig. 49-50. BINSTEAD: EnglishChairs 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: " OldSouth African Furniture," in Old Furniture,Vol. 7, p. I94. TheFitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge has another example. K. DE B.CODRINGTON Mughal Marquetry l.c.) for ivory inlays.

26 PYRARD : Vol. II, ch. I. Cf. also I. STCHOUKINE :" Portraits

Moghols," III, in Revuedesartsasiatiques,Vol. VII [1931-32], p. 233ff. Plate 71, Durbar of Shah Jahdngir in the Guzl Khdnah 1619.The Shah is enthroned under a dais supported by slender baluster-turned columns.

27 Brit. Mus. Slab 8 or 22.28 Victoria ndAlbertMuseumCatalogue f English Woodwork, ol. II,

No. 5II Note.29 Cf. M. JOURDAIN English Decorationand Furniture15oo-165o

[1924], Fig. 366.80 COOMARASWAMYMedieval SinhaleseArt [1908], p. 250o.81 COOMARASWAMY:1.C.and E. W. SrrTH: The Moghul Colour

Decoration f 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. SEVENTEENTH

CENTURY. HEIGHT, 77.8 cM. (H.M. THE KING OF DENMARK, ROSENBORG CASTLE)

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



The IndianPeriodof EuropeanFurniture-I

the double eagle is another symbol of the oldestIndian tradition; together with the swastika, the

tricula, the two fishes and the vase of good augury,this crivatsa is found on dedicatorytablets of Jain art.33

The small cupboard [PLATEIV] is,as to its form, a descendantof the South

German double-chest,34 but the latter

FIG. .Crfvatsa

opens with doors and contains onlyon dedicatoryshelves, whereas this type has twoTablet fromdrawers in the upper chest-one in the

Mathura.frieze, and a very deep one occupying

the remainder of the top chest-and three drawersbehind 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, theearliest I have noted being from I647 ;36 thedates stop in the 166o's. The inlays are of a richly-coloured mother-of-pearl and of ivory in veneersof hard woods like ebony. The piece reproducedhere has its

originalold lotus

feet,and has

preservedits black Indian lacquer with the designs in gold offemale terminal figures of Indianized European (?)descent ; it has also a peculiargently curvedoverlapon the door. The scroll-inlays, the niches and the

chequer ornament are all Indian. On other cup-boards belonging to this group may be seen the sunand the moon37,also familiaras Indian symbols,and

Faith, Hope and Charity,reproduced-rather poorly-from European engravings, showing no under-

standing of the draperies, but the human forms,with exaggerated breasts, contoured through themas though they were diaphanous.38 An extensiveuse of relief decoration in the form of turned " splitbalusters" is also rather characteristic of many of

these pieces.

A piece of excellent Indian workmanshipis the

table of light yellowish wood inlaid with ebony andother woods and ivory, coloured in green and en-

graved [PLATE V, B]. The lambrequin " apron "

beneath 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 thosemonsters who live a hundred lives in Indian art.

This " animal" has an elephant's head with short

snout-like trunk and strong tuskson a long featheryor leafy neck, but is without any body. It is one of

thosemythical creatures"for the mostpartterrestrialas 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 water-

elephant 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

withpyramids

connectedwith garlandsand moulded

figuresof hens or turkeys; both pyramidsand hensremind us of the Delft wares of Europe ; but who

was the borrower? This scene illustratesthe refined

secular civilization of the great commercial towns

along the coast, which largely accounted for the

Indian influence on Europe. The Venetian mer-

chant, Nicol6 Conti, who had returned in I444from twenty-five years of travel in southern Asia,told Poggio Bracciolini,secretary o Pope EugeneIV,about these people.

This thirdpart (thatis, Indiasouthof the Indus,and Gangescountries)excels the othersin riches,politeness ndmagnificence, nd isequalto our own

country Italy)in thestyleof life andin civilization.Fortheinhabitantshavemostsumptuous uildings,eleganthabitationsand handsome urniture theyleada morerefined ife,removed romall barbarityand coarseness. The men are extremelyhumane,and the merchants eryrich, so much so that somewill carryon their business n forty of their own

ships,eachof which s valuedat fiftythousand oldpieces. Thesealoneuse tablesat theirmeals n themannerof the Europeans,with silver vesselsuponthem; whilst the inhabitantsof the rest of Indiaeat upon carpets spread upon the ground.39a

Similar glimpses of life in India in the seventeenth

century may be gathered from Mandeslo's and

Tavernier's ravels. The richesof this classmay have

diminished, as the Europeans took over the carryingtrade " between the Indies," but in civilization and

prestige it seems to have lost nothing.Cabinets and boxes covered with tortoise-shell

veneer from the Maledives or the Philippines are

among the many "objets de luxe" broughtfrom India to Europe and now found in old

collections. Pyrard writes in his chapter on

32Cf. CODRINGTON: Op. Cit. [1926], p. 8. LA ROCHE: Indische

Baukunst,Vol. 2, double plate XI for a bird's head with a similarcoxcomb ; Ahmedabad, sixteenth-seventeenth century. PERERASinhaleseBannersand Standards 1916], pl. 2 has a double eagle withcoxcomb (see also Fig. 32, 33, 90). COOMARASWAMY: 1.c. p. 85and Index : Bherunda Pakshaya. VOGELSANG: Le meublehollandais

[I91o], Fig. 20o4. Cataloguef theFurnituref theRijksmuseum,o. 285.

WATTr: Indian Art at Delhi [1903], pl. 30 top (the double eagle inmodern Dravidian-Chalukyan woodcarving).

88 VOGEL Sculpture e Mathura(1930), pl. 54, P. 123, 66. V. A.SmrrH : Jain Stupa [Igo9], pl. 7, 8, 9, I I, 29.3 and 69.2. G. BOHLER(in Epigraphia ndica,Vol. 2, p. 312) calls it : a mark not uncommonin Buddhist sculpture and also used for ornaments.

84 A. FEULNER: KunstgeschichteesMiibels[927], Fig. 36-39 and

152-154.86 PYRARDuVol. II, ch. 19) writes about Cambay : " Ils ont encore

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

probablyto little

cabinets : " Kunstkammerschrinke," cf. Victoriaand AlbertMuseum,Catalogueof English Woodwork,Vol. II, p. 594. This is also the

opinion of HAVARD ad verb. Cabinet, p. 483.36 M. JOURDAIN: English Decorationand Furniture, Fig. 31o.

Cf. for desks of the same work, MACQUOID EDWARDS:Dictionaryof EnglishFurniture," Desks," Fig. 13, dated 1651. DE HAAN, Oud

Batavia,Vol. II, ?I171 mentions furniture decorated with mother-of-

pearl and ivory, especially from the Coromandel Coast and Ceylon,found in death estates of Batavia from the seventeenth century.

87 Victoria and Albert Museum, Catalogueof English WoodworkVol. II, Nr. 6o2. Cf. COOMARASWAMY1.C.Fig. 69.

38Example belonging to Messrs. Frank Partridge and Sons.

39 COOMARASWAY raksas [1931], II, p. 50o,pl. 43, 4. The

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 Periodof EuropeanFurniture-I

" Crocodilles et tortues " that a certain kind oftortoiseshell came from the Maledives :

l'caille est tannie, tirant partie sur le noir, partiesur le rouge fort lice, esclatante et faconnde si

admirablement, que c'est une infiniment bellechose que de l'avoir, quand elle est polie. C'est

pourquoyelle est tant recherchee de tous les Indiens :

Roys, grands Seigneurs et riches personnes princi-palement de ceux de Cambaye et Surrate, qu'ilsen font des coffres et cassettes garnies d'or et

d'argent, des brasselets et autres ornements demeubles: il n'en croist qu'au Maldives (wherePyrardhad sufferedshipwreckand stayed for almostfive years, 1602-07) et aux isles Philippines ou

Meniles, et c'est une des bonne marchandises

qu'on enlkve.40More 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 thesame family as those inlaid on the Burgomasterchair [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 waresare largely Indian imports.41

The theory arrived at as a result of these observa-tions is that, in England and in other countries alongthe Atlantic coast, the furniture from about 1675to 1725 does not constitute in the general terms ofProfessor A. J. Toynbee, an " intelligible field ofhistorical study " in itself; or in other words, thatwithout knowledge of what was done in " the Indies "

no sensible explanation of what happened can begiven.

But how was all this possible ? One of the explana-tions has been given by Sir Dudley North :-

The cheapest things are bought in India; asmuch labour or manufacture may be had therefor two Pence as in England for a Shilling. The

Carriage thence is dear, the Customs are high, themerchant has great gains, and so has the Retailer ;yet still with all this charge, the Indian are a greatdeal cheaper than equal English manufacture.42

In another article I shall proceed to show how

thoroughly the furniture was transformed throughthis Indian influence.

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

41E.g. MACQUOID AND EDWARDS, Op. cit. ad verb. "

Boxes,"

Fig. I9.42 D. NORTH : ConsiderationponheEast Indiatrade,London (1701 ),

p. 2. (Writtenbefore the author's death in 1691.) A. J. TOYNBEE :A Studyof History [1934], Vol. I.

L O S T LT RPIECE Y T H M S T E R O

K PPENBERG

BY ELSE MACKOWSKYN the year 1854, the National Gallery in

London, probably at the instigation ofthe Prince Consort, acquired the wholecollection of Regierungsrat Kruiger in

Minden, in Westphalia, consisting chieflyof works of the Westphalian School. It was J. D.Passavant' who first called attention to their beautyand importance. The collection was composed of

panels of altarpieces from convent or monasterychurches, such as Liesborn, Marienfeld, Lippstadt,Werden, and others which, on account of troubloustimes or through misguided enthusiasm for rebuild-

ing, had been destroyed or altered. The altar-

pieces had been taken apart, sold and scattered.A specially hard fate befell the centre picture ofthe Liesborn altarpiece, a Crucifixion, which wassawn up into small pieces and parts of them finallyreached 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, inthe year 1857, the remainder were sold by auctionat Christies.2 And so it came about that the panels,which fetched prices of between C2 and ?20o,

were scattered once more, and to-day some have

completely disappeared.

Krtiger, in his Catalogue of I848,3 gives accurateinformation as to theme, kind of material, and

exact dimensions; the pictures by anonymousartists are distinguished by their places of origin.He differentiates also, in accordance with his ownor traditional stylistic criticism, between the workof the Master of Liesborn himself and that of hisbest or second-best pupils.

We are interested here in eight pictures ascribed

by Kruiger in his Catalogue to a " Meister aus derMitte des sechzehnten Jahrhunderts." He statesthat they came from the " Klosterkirche zu Liesbornoder Marienfeld." Two are still in the National

Gallery (PLATE I, A and B), but for some yearsthey were lent to the Dublin Museum, labelled" B. Strigel " (Catalogue, 1898 No. 358 and 458).

Then, after Dr. Max J. Friedlander had identifiedthem as by the Master of Kappenberg, they werereturned to the National Gallery, but were placedat first in the store-room.

By means of the Kruger Catalogue (Part I,No. 38-42, and 44-46) and the dimensions, we haveascertained that a large altarpiece by this Master,

1 KunstreisedurchEngland und Belgien (1833).2

Cf. THEBURLINGTONMAGAZINE: " A Westphalian Altarpiece,"by HANs KORNFIELD. Vol. LXII, p. 161.

a Verzeichnis er Gernmlde-Sammlungdes GeheimenRegierungsRathes

Kriigerzu Minden. Used during the survey at Minden in 1848.Printed by J. C. C. Bruns.

126

Documents

The Indian Period of European Furniture