Joint stool
Category
Furniture
Date
circa 1640 (the stool; the Turkey-work cover late 16th century)
Materials
Joined and pegged oak, upholstered in woolen Turkey-work
Measurements
51 x 49 cm
Place of origin
England
Order this imageCollection
Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire
NT 1127750
Summary
An oak joint stool, English, mid-17th century, covered in late 16th century polychrome Turkey-work in a pattern of green foliage and red berries, with plain seat rails and simple columnar legs with ring turnings, peripheral stretchers. 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 - but this stool dates from the 17th century, and so it is probable that the cover has been re-used from an earlier stool, or cut from a larger carpet specifically to cover this stool.
Provenance
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
Levey, 1998: Santina M. Levey, An Elizabethan inheritance: the Hardwick Hall textiles. London: National Trust, 1998., See p. 28, Figure 22 for an illustration of one of this type of stool at Hardwick