Joint stool
Category
Furniture
Date
circa 1600
Materials
Oak, later pine rail beneath seat, woolen 'Turkey'-work upholstery
Measurements
60 x 50 cm
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire
NT 1127749
Summary
An oak joint stool, English, circa 1600 and later. The top later upholstered in polychrome late 16th century Turkey-work of green scrolling foliage and red berries, the seat rails moulded, raised on four block and baluster-turned fluted supports united by square-section stretchers and terminating in turned slightly pear-shaped feet. 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.