Joint stool
Category
Furniture
Date
circa 1600
Materials
Oak, joined and pegged, later Turkey-work cover
Measurements
58 x 46 cm
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire
NT 1127748
Summary
An oak joint stool, English, circa 1600 and later, the seat later upholstered in late 16th century polychrome floral Turkey-work, the seat rails moulded and raised on double baluster-turned legs united by peripheral stretchers. One leg later. The Turkey-work cover has been cut from a late 16th century knotted pile carpet made in England to imitate carpets from Turkey and of a type which we know to have been at Hardwick Hall and Chatsworth in Bess' time. The Hardwick Hall inventory refers to several stools covered with 'Turkey'-work - there were five in Lady Shrewsbury's Withdrawing Chamber alone.
Provenance
Possibly one of the stools mentioned in the Hardwick Hall inventory of 1601, i.e. 'too Joyned stooles' in the Stair Chamber, another two in the Turret Chamber. By descent until, following the death of Edward William Spencer Cavendish, 10th Duke of Devonshire (1895 - 1950), Hardwick Hall and its contents were accepted by HM Treasury in part payment of death duties and transferred to the National Trust, in 1959.
References
Boynton and Thornton 1971 Lindsay Boynton and Peter Thornton, ‘The Hardwick Inventories of 1601’, Journal of the Furniture History Society, Vol.VII, 1971 , see Plate 14 for an illustration of this stool