Daybed
Thomas Willement (London c.1786 - Faversham 1871)
Category
Furniture
Date
circa 1690 - 1720
Materials
Ebony, carved and inlaid with ivory, engraved, cane and needlework upholstery
Measurements
1135 x 675 mm; 1900 mm (Length)
Place of origin
Visakhapatnam
Order this imageCollection
Charlecote Park, Warwickshire
NT 532995.10
Summary
A Southern Indian daybed, circa 1690-1710, made in Vizagapatam, en suite with eight chairs and an armchair, in ebony inlaid with ivory, with a double-scroll open crest rail, above a square back with baluster-turned posts, the upholstered couch on baluster-turned legs joined by turned stretchers. The cane back panel and seats with needlework upholstery executed by Mary Elizabeth Lucy (1803-1890), circa 1837, the back with the initials "ER" the bed section ‘This couch and chairs and two cabinets were the gift of ye Queene Elizabeth to ye Earle of Leicestre. 1575. 1838. This couch and 9 chairs were worked by Mary Elizabeth Lucy of Charlecote Park’. Features a harp after a design by Thomas Willement as he worked on the interior decorating and furniture of the Library at Charlecote.
Full description
The city of Visakhapatnam (Vizagapatam) in the state of Andhra Pradesh, a natural harbour with a thriving textile industry, was also a centre for cabinet-making renowned for its use of ivory inlay and veneers. A centre for European trading activity from the 17th century, Visakhapatnam was ruled successively by the Mughal Qutb Shahis (between 1689 and 1724), Nizam (1724–1757) and France (from 1757), before being captured by the British East India Company armies in 1765. European colonial encroachment in India, and its intensification in the first half of the 18th century, involved the looting and seizure of India's material culture – art, precious objects and resources – but it is also stirred a transfer of materials, techniques, knowledge and fashions which, rather like in Guangzhou (see Chinese Export furniture at Osterley, NT 771891, 773356 and 773362) and other trading ports, stimulated an export market in furniture specifically for European buyers. This daybed, and its companion chairs, are European in style, but entirely Indian in their decoration. Two other sets of similar seat furniture are known: one, brought to England by Edward Harrison, Governor of Fort St George from 1711 to 1717, is at Raynham Hall, Norfolk, the other is in the collections of the V & A (1023a,b,c-1882 & 1024-1882). They are the earliest surviving pieces of furniture made in India in an English style. It has been said that no other group of ‘Indo-European’ furniture has been as misunderstood as this one. Horace Walpole, who popularised this style of furniture at the end of the 18th century, believed that they were English. Thus, when George Hammond Lucy (1789-1845) purchased this set, together with a pair of cabinets also still at Charlecote [NT 532996.1-.2,] in 1837 from the Regent Street dealer Samuel Isaacs (with the help of the picture dealer William Buchanan), a letter from the latter described them as being 'a present of by Queen Elizabeth to the Earl of Leicester, and were formerly at Kenilworth...price demanded for the whole set 800£ but he told me he would taken 500 gs'. Thought to be Elizabethan, and thus perfect for Charlecote, which was being extended by the Lucys in the Elizabethan style, the suite was quickly purchased for £488, 5s, 6d. Even in the 20th century, chairs of this type were being described as ‘Jacobean’ or ‘Indo-Portuguese’. The recent revival in scholarly interest in Indian furniture, however, has shown (using inventories of the Dutch East India Company) without doubt that the Coromandel Coast in south-east India was the centre for production. Later examples were made in Sri Lanka and Jakarta, Indonesia.
Provenance
Presented to the National Trust by Sir Montgomerie Fairfax-Lucy (1896 – 1965), two years after the death of his father, Sir Henry Ramsay-Fairfax, 3rd Bt (1870 – 1944), with Charlecote Park and its chief contents, in 1946.
Marks and inscriptions
'This couch, nine chairs and two cabinets were a gift of ye Queene to ye Earle of Leicester, 1575. 1858 This couch and the chairs were worked by Mary Elizabeth Lucy of Charlecote Park.'
Makers and roles
Thomas Willement (London c.1786 - Faversham 1871), textile designer Mary Elizabeth Lucy (1803 - 1890) , needleworker
References
Jaffer 2001 : Amin Jaffer, Furniture from British India and Ceylon, a catalogue of the collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Peabody Essex Museum, London, V&A publications, 2001., pp.176-180 Wainwright, 1989: Clive Wainwright, The romantic interior: the British collector at home, 1750-1850. Studies in British Art. New Haven; London: Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art by Yale University Press, 1989. [Charlecote pp.208-240]