Peter Lindfield, 'The Countess of Pomfret's Gothic Revival Furniture'
Peter Lindfield, ‘The Countess of Pomfret’s Gothic Revival furniture’, The Georgian Group Journal, Vol. xxII, 2014, pp. 77–94
text © the authors 2014 THE COUNTESS OF POMFRET’S GOTHIC REVIVAL FURNITURE
PETER LINDFIELD
Henrietta Louisa Fermor ( – ), Countess of Pomfret, was particularly interested in medieval architecture and commissioned the only Gothic Revival town house in mid eighteenth-century London. The house, No. Arlington Street, otherwise styled Pomfret Castle, has recently been the subject of two articles in The Georgian Group Journal by Sarah Freeman ( ) and Will Hawkes ( ). While these studies present the known evidence regarding the architects involved at Arlington Street, the Countess’s Gothic Revival furniture has received less attention. This article examines the Countess’s furniture and suggests that most of it predates the construction and furnishing of Arlington Street. It concludes by questioning how far the Countess’s ‘Gothic passion’ fits within recent scholarship interpreting the mid eighteenth-century Gothic Revival as a male homosocial taste centred around Horace Walpole. ‘I am always glad to hear of any remains of the old English grandeur; and am both amazed and provoked Fig. : Thomas Bardwell (painter) and William Hallett when I hear of people destroying those magnificent (possibly frame maker), ‘Thomas Fermor, structures (made to last for ages) in order to erect 1st Earl of Pomfret and Henrietta Louisa, Countess some trifling edifice [...] whereas to repair an abbey of Pomfret’, c. . (© Ashmolean Museum, Oxford ). or castle in the same way as it was first built is a worthy monument both of the owner’s piety to his ancestors, and care of his posterity.’ Abbeys and Castles of England (‒ ), an early and important survey of Britain’s medieval enrietta Louisa Fermor ( née Jeffreys), Countess architecture. Her husband, Thomas Fermor, first Hof Pomfret, was a notable supporter of Earl of Pomfret ( ‒ ), also subscribed to the medieval architecture, as indicated in her letter from first eighteenth-century pattern book concerned with July quoted above. She personally Gothic Revival architecture: Batty and Thomas subscribed to Samuel and Nathaniel Bucks’ Langley’s Ancient Architecture: Restored and Perspective Views of the Ruins of the Most Noted Improved (London, ‒ ).
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Fig. : William Hallett Sr (attrib.), Fig. : Anon., One of a Suite of Windsor Chair The Pomfret Cabinet, c. ‒ (shown with original Commemorating the Marriage of John Percival, painted decoration and heraldry). 2nd Earl of Egmont, to Catherine Compton, . (Image courtesy of Lucy Wood ) (© Victoria and Albert Museum, London )
The most substantial and obvious expression of st Earl of Pomfret and Henrietta Louisa, Countess the Lady Pomfret’s ‘Gothic passion’ was the erection of Pomfret’, c. , now at the Ashmolean Museum, of Pomfret Castle, designed initially from by Sir Oxford (Fig. ). Roger Newdigate ( ‒ ) and Sanderson Miller Despite these long-standing associations, the (‒ ), and taken over by Richard Biggs (– ) Pomfret cabinet and portrait frame appear to predate in . Although the house’s architecture has been work on Pomfret Castle, and are here placed within subject to sustained scholarly attention since the the context of the Countess’s broader commissioning s, the Countess’s Gothic Revival furniture is less of Gothic Revival objects. As such, they help us celebrated. Just three pieces of such furniture are interpret her passion for Gothic Revival objects currently known, and each has traditionally been before the creation and completion of Pomfret Castle. linked with Pomfret Castle. They are the Pomfret They respond to broader developments in Gothic cabinet, offered at auction in , a library writing Revival furniture, and therefore help locate the table, now with Leeds Museums and Galleries at Countess’s patronage within eighteenth-century Temple Newsam House, Yorkshire, and the frame design. for Thomas Bardwell’s painting, ‘Thomas Fermor,
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MINIATURE ARCHITECTURE : of such decoration is demonstrated by a surviving set THE POMFRET CABINET of Windsor chairs, presumably from Enmore Castle, The Pomfret cabinet is one of the most spectacular Somerset (Fig. ), commemorating the marriage examples of s Gothic Revival furniture in terms of John Perceval, second Earl of Egmont ( ‒ ), to of form, heraldry and contrasting polychrome Catherine Compton ( ‒ ). Comparing the (Fig. ). Sotheby’s appropriately described it in the Pomfret cabinet with the Egmont chair illustrates the Easton Neston sale catalogue ( ) as an ‘eccentric former’s exceptional nature and decoration. But and fascinating cabinet designed in the extreme whereas armorial bearings applied to chairs were Gothick taste of the early s’. Decades earlier, typically modest, the Pomfret cabinet’s polychrome Simon Houfe determined that it was a ‘cupboard, or is not. Indeed, the paint emphasises the cabinet’s cabinet with two towers, castellations, niches, ogee Gothic form and detail through a limited palette of arches and the whole antiquarian repertoire typically alternating colours. This scheme ultimately transformed into Disneyland’. It is indeed a most places the cabinet at the forefront of the long remarkable cabinet, being a particularly early and tradition of painted Gothic Revival furniture in brazen example of painted eighteenth-century eighteenth-century Britain. Noteworthy examples, Gothic Revival furniture. which similarly emphasise the Pomfret cabinet’s Modern painted furniture was not unknown in bold decoration, include the blue and white Georgian Britain; hall chairs featuring painted ‘antiquarian Gothic’ triangular chairs purchased by heraldry emerged in the s, and the proliferation Horace Walpole in (Fig. ), the furniture at
Fig. : Two Welch Chairs in the Star Chamber. Folio Copy . (Courtesy of the Lewis Walpole Library, Farmington, Connecticut )
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Fig. : William Kent (possibly designer), Celebrant’s Fig. : James Wyatt (designer), Painted Library Bookcase Throne, Shobdon Church, Herefordshire, c. . from Lee Priory, Kent, . (© Victoria and Albert (Author’s photograph ) Museum, London )
Shobdon Church, Herefordshire, of c. (Fig. ), sources, however, indicate that these similarities are and the library bookcases from Thomas Barrett’s coincidental, that the house did not influence the house, Lee Priory, Kent, of c. (Fig. ). cabinet’s design, and that it was not made for The Pomfret cabinet was conceived, and Pomfret Castle. constructed as, a piece of miniature architecture. The cabinet’s date of production is particularly This is emphasised by the visual similarities important for this point. No extant bill is known, but connecting the cabinet and Pomfret Castle’s Sotheby’s suggest the cabinet was produced five courtyard façade, as recorded in an anonymous years after the Countess ‘went to Mr Wright the drawing from October (Fig. ). Both the Banker’s, then to Mr Hallet the Cabinet-Maker’s house and cabinet feature flanking octagonal towers, [ April ]’. Its original heraldic and lettered the impression of a central gable, and the bold decoration, seen in Fig. but later covered by layers insertion of quatrefoils. The latter especially of paint and revised heraldry (Fig. ), was discovered resonates with the pencilled-in additions to the right- after the cabinet’s sale in , and only makes sense hand tower on Biggs’ ‘Sketch of a Gothic Building before the death of the Countess’s husband in . February ’ (Fig. ). The parallels are so strong As observed in the report on Export of Objects of that commentators have generally assumed the Cultural Interest (‒ ), the lettered quatrefoils Countess commissioned the cabinet for Pomfret featuring H and P, presumably signifying Henrietta Castle. Further analysis of the cabinet and archival and Pomfret, correlate with the Earl’s arms, Fermor,
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXII THE COUNTESS OF POMFRET ’ S GOTHIC REVIVAL FURNITURE on the left shield, and the Countess’s arms, Jeffreys, on the right. These coats of arms, consequently, match her quarterings ( ) illustrated by Houfe in . Upon the death of the first Earl in , the Fermor arms passed to Henrietta’s son, George, (‒ ) who became the second Earl of Pomfret. As pointed out in the Export of Objects of Cultural Interest report, the widowed Countess is unlikely to have used the Fermor arms in this undifferentiated form after this point. The cabinet, therefore, should probably be dated between the Countess’s visiting William Hallett Sr ( c. ‒ ) in and the first Earl’s death . If this is correct, then the cabinet predates Pomfret Castle by eight or nine
Fig. : Richard Biggs, Elevation of Pomfret Castle’s Courtyard Façade, . Drawer Set : . (Image Courtesy of the Sir John Soane’s Museum, London )
years, and was most likely produced for Easton Neston, the Earl of Pomfret’s country seat, as part of a group of highly-decorated Gothic Revival objects commissioned by the Countess to reflect her interest in medieval design. Other survivors from this ‘Gothic collection’ include the ornate frame for Thomas Bardwell’s Fig. : Anon., Pomfret Castle, Arlington Street, Built by portrait of the Countess and her husband, the first Lady Pomfret, Ao. , . Gough Maps f. v. Earl, c. (Fig. ). Scholars have suggested that (Image Courtesy of the Bodleian Libraries, the frame, like the cabinet, was specifically designed University of Oxford ) for Pomfret Castle. But the portrait was painted
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Fig. : William Hallett Sr (attrib.), The Pomfret Cabinet, c. – (shown here with later overpainting). ( Image © Sotheby’s, London ) c. – the current hypothesis being it celebrated University along with the painting, rather than it the Earl’s and Countess’s thirtieth wedding being a later addition when it was displayed in the anniversary ( ) – and the illegible parchment in Bodleian Library. Biggs supplied designs for the Earl’s hand is the marriage settlement. Thus, Arlington Street in , and Sir Roger Newdigate the painting would surely have been commissioned observed in : ‘ March – Walk’d over Lady before Lord Pomfret’s death in . The Countess Pomfret’s house – half fitted up’. The cabinet and donated the portrait to the University of Oxford in frame, therefore, should be located within Lady , but unfortunately the donation records for Pomfret’s broader interest in the medieval period, this year do not survive, and the Bodleian Library’s the subscription to books on Gothic architecture, inventory of paintings does not mention the frame. and the commissioning of Gothic Revival objects. We can reasonably conclude for practical reasons, One of the most striking and securely dated however, that the frame was donated to the examples of those commissions, which can be used
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXII THE COUNTESS OF POMFRET ’ S GOTHIC REVIVAL FURNITURE to place this furniture in its context, is her genealogy Edward I sitting on a medieval-style throne loosely of . The bound manuscript lavishly depicts her based upon ancient examples, and under a mock- descent from King Edward I over twenty-one Gothic canopy. Dating the cabinet and picture folios. Horace Walpole learned of this manuscript, frame to between and therefore establishes and on September wrote to Sir Horace Mann a group of exceptional and extravagant Gothic (‒ ) praising it: Revival objects commissioned by the Countess before the erection of her house in Arlington Street. ‘I suppose you have heard all the exorbitant demands of the heralds for your pedigree! I have seen one (a Such a date also locates the Pomfret cabinet and pedigree) infinitely richer and better done, it is for my picture frame at the centre of a ‘craze’ for Gothic Lady Pomfret — She and My Lord both descend from furniture, as satirised by an article in The World King Edward I by his two queens. The Pedigree is from : painted in a book: instead of a vulgar genealogical tree, she has devised a pineapple plant, sprouting out of a ‘FROM a thousand instances of our imitative basket, on which is King Edward’s head; on the leaves inclinations I shall select one or two, which have been, are all the intermediate arms.’ and still are notorious and general. A few years ago everything was Gothic; our houses, our beds, our The genealogy is on vellum and indeed very rich, gilt book-cases, and our couches, were all copied from some parts or other of our old cathedrals. The Grecian and illuminated. Its frontispiece (Fig. ) illustrates architecture [...] which was taught by nature and polished by the graces, was totally neglected.’
Fig. : William Hallett Sr (maker), One of a Suite of Eight Gothic Chairs, . (Courtesy of the Lewis Walpole Library, Farmington, Connecticut )
Fig. : Anon., Pedigree Showing Descent of Lord and Lady Pomfret from King Edward I, c. . Quarto P Ms f. . ( Courtesy of the Lewis Walpole Library, Farmington, Connecticut )
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Fig. : Batty Langley, Fifth Frontispiece, pl. XXI from Fig. : Batty Langley, Chimney Piece, pl. XLIII from Ancient Architecture: Restored and Improved (London: Ancient Architecture: Restored and Improved (London: ‒ ). ( Image courtesy of the Bodleian Libraries, ‒ ). ( Image courtesy of the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford ) University of Oxford )
The cabinet and frame also predate Hallett’s one of a range of London cabinet-makers known for renowned set of quasi-antiquarian Gothic Revival producing quality bespoke furniture, for example at furniture supplied for Horace Walpole’s Gothic villa, Holkham Hall, Norfolk, and Chevening, Kent, and the Strawberry Hill, Twickenham. In Walpole paid Pomfret cabinet is sufficiently sophisticated and well- Hallett for a suite of eight Great Parlour chairs made for him not to be discounted. (Fig. ), a lantern and a pair of pier glasses. Hallett If Walpole’s furniture could not have influenced did not design these pieces; they were made according the design of the Countess’s cabinet or picture to ideas developed by Walpole and Richard Bentley frame, what are their sources? The frame is (‒ ), one of the group of men Walpole consulted conceived of as an ornamented Gothic window, for the design and development of Strawberry Hill. whose head accords with the early Gothic Revival’s So if Hallett was chosen by the Countess to make the penchant for ogee arches. Batty Langley’s Ancient cabinet, of which there is no firm evidence beyond the Architecture ( ‒) provided numerous examples Countess’s diary entry, it was not because of his of this type in the form of frontispieces and Gothick involvement at Strawberry Hill. Instead, Hallett was windows (Fig. ); although intended for
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXII THE COUNTESS OF POMFRET ’ S GOTHIC REVIVAL FURNITURE architectural enrichment, they could easily serve as models for pieces of architectural furniture, such as the picture frame. The distinctive floriated quatrefoils decorating its surface mimic a subtle characteristic of Langley’s Gothic, and can be seen in the following plates from Ancient Architecture : Gothick entablatures (plates III, VI, IX, XII, and XVI), as well as Chimney Piece (plate XLIII) (Fig. ). It is plausible that this correlation of ornament resulted from a close examination of Langley’s designs, and almost certainly reflected the Earl of Pomfret’s subscription to Ancient Architecture .
Fig. : Batty Langley, Third Gothic Order, pl. VII from Ancient Architecture: Restored and Improved (London: ‒ ). ( Image courtesy of the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford )
Although Langley’s Ancient Architecture seems to have influenced aspects of the Pomfret cabinet as well, the designer or maker apparently took greater inspiration from the work of William Kent. Whole elements found in Kent’s Gothic Revival furniture appear to have been directly cribbed and recomposed to create the cabinet’s surface decoration. Kent’s designs were circulated in John Vardy’s Some Designs of Mr. Inigo Jones and Mr. Wm. Kent ( ), and therefore would have been accessible to the cabinet-maker – probably Hallett Fig. : William Kent, A Pulpit in the Cathedral at York, Sr, given the Countess’s diary entry from . In from John Vardy, Some Designs of Mr. Inigo Jones and Mr. particular, the cabinet’s ogee arch cresting, as well as William Kent , (London: ), pl. . flanking pinnacles, are strongly reminiscent of the
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXII THE COUNTESS OF POMFRET ’ S GOTHIC REVIVAL FURNITURE crowning of Kent’s pulpit for York Minster (Fig. ). window, described by Freeman as ‘outlandish Moreover, the blue-painted niches on the octagonal tadpole-shaped squiggles’, are examples of this. buttresses directly respond to Kent’s idiosyncratic Their source, almost certainly, is the York Minster and very distinctive blind panelling on the pulpit, pulpit: they can be found on the backboard and in where the head features a quatrefoil set between two the spandrels directly above the blind panelling. ogee arches and the foot is finished with a cusp Whilst appearing outlandish, Kent sourced their crowned by a comparatively heavy finial. form from medieval cusped reticulations, as The Pomfret cabinet also features a particularly suggested in his proposals for stalls at York distinctive combination of medieval tracery in the Minster. Finally, clustered columns running along centre window, which is typical of Kent’s Gothic. the cabinet’s centre line were probably derived from It combines curvilinear and ogee-dominated bar the four-shaft clustered columns popularised by tracery (Decorated) from the late thirteenth century, Batty Langley in Ancient Architecture (‒ ), such with earlier and less sophisticated thirteenth-century as his third Gothick Order (pl. VII) (Fig. ). plate tracery in the arch head. Kent used this The almost direct quotation and repurposing of combination of styles at Hampton Court Palace, decorative elements found on Kent’s York Minster Surrey ( ), and Esher Place, Twickenham pulpit, and the use of Langley-esque Gothic orders, (c. ). Even the apparently incongruous motifs suggests that the cabinet’s designer was relatively decorating the cabinet are part of Kent’s Gothic inexperienced in developing Gothic Revival repertoire. The particularly unusual blue ‘cloud-like’ furniture. The cabinet’s decoration deviates in places cusped shapes in the spandrels above the central from Kent’s pulpit, as in the six red ogee quatrefoils
Fig. : William Hallett (possibly maker), The Pomfret Castle Library Writing Table, c.‒ . (Image courtesy of Christopher Gilbert )
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXII THE COUNTESS OF POMFRET ’ S GOTHIC REVIVAL FURNITURE running at the base of the cresting. They, however, frequent visits in her diary, as on April : ‘The could easily have been based upon the wider Bishop of Gloucester & Mr Kent came here I went interpretation of Gothic architecture in mid after Dinner to see my Ly Granville’. The cabinet’s eighteenth-century Britain, or Kent’s other printed relationship to Kent’s Gothic Revival furniture designs included in Vardy’s Some Designs : Pl. – reflects, at least in part, their association and the the Court of King’s Bench, Westminster Hall – and Countess’s admiration of his work. Pl. – the screen at Gloucester Cathedral. It is perhaps more than a coincidence that Kent’s Gothic should have directly influenced the Pomfret Cabinet’s design. Not only was Vardy’s Some Designs THE POMFRET LIBRARY WRITING the only suitable pattern book for solid pieces of TABLE Gothic Revival furniture in early s Britain, but The library writing table (Fig. ), unlike the the Countess was also personally acquainted with cabinet and the picture frame, can still be reasonably Kent and his work. As Houfe explained, she was a connected with Pomfret Castle. A plaque on the supporter of Kent and praised his architecture. table top records that is was it in the possession of Indeed, he supplied a chimneypiece to Easton William Gerard ‘Single Speech’ Hamilton ( ‒ ), Neston’s great hall in the s, and on January and he is known to have lived at Arlington Street the Countess recorded: ‘A Great Glass after a in . Writing of Pomfret Castle to Anne design by Mr Kent’s for my Drawing Room Came Fitzpatrick ( /‒ ), Countess of Ossory, Home’. Between and she noted Kent’s Walpole recorded that ‘one of the stone Gothic
Fig. : Thomas Chippendale, Design for a Library Table, MMA .. , f. . Plate LVIII in The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker’s Director ( ). (© www.metmuseum.org )
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXII THE COUNTESS OF POMFRET ’ S GOTHIC REVIVAL FURNITURE towers at Lady Pomfret’s house (now Single-Speech and Ince and Mayhew’s The Universal System of Hamilton’s) in my street fell through the roof’. Household Furniture ( ). Particularly useful After Hamilton, the writing table is known to have comparisons can be made between the writing table passed to John Wordsworth ( ‒ ), Dean and and Chippendale’s Gothick Chairs , plate XXI ( ), later Bishop of Salisbury, as recorded by the and Gothick Cloths Chest , plate CXXVII ( ). Like Bishop’s biographer: the library writing table, neither the chairs nor the clothes chest have Gothic structures; the Gothic ‘the large central writing-table, an heirloom from tincture, instead, is expressed though blind and Bishop Wordsworth’s days, having been a present to pierced surface decoration. This approach was not him from his uncle, ‘Single Speech Hamilton’ was covered with methodically arranged papers [...] other specific to the Gothic Revival, but shared with other interesting souvenirs [in the Bishop’s study] were old- contemporary fashionable styles, including Rococo fashioned chairs which had belonged to Dr. Pusey and and Chinoiserie, as can be seen in Chippendale’s Bishop Moberly’. China Case , plate CXXXII ( ). Here, the typically plain structure is enlivened with the contemporary The table was clearly treated as an heirloom and repertoire of Chinese ornament, instead of Gothic. appropriate for the romantically-furnished study, as The stylistic shift between the Pomfret cabinet suggested by the ‘old-fashioned chairs’ acting as and the library writing table therefore reflects ‘interesting souvenirs’. broader changes in Gothic Revival furniture, from That Hamilton presumably acquired the library William Kent’s early, robust and architectural Gothic writing table when he bought Lady Pomfret’s town of the s to the lighter surface decoration typical house does not prove it was commissioned by the of the s and s. The adoption of mainstream Countess for that building. We do, however, know Gothic may have resulted from the Countess using that the house was complete and fitted up in another cabinet-maker, though there is no November . It is probable, therefore, that the documentary evidence to support this. Alternatively, table was part of its furnishing programme, and more probably, the library writing table was particularly because it would have been an commissioned specifically in the up-to-date Gothic appropriate centrepiece to the sizeable garden-facing mode to reflect developments in the revival. The library. It is not too speculative, then, to suggest that Countess’s Gothic Revival furniture consequently it was already at Pomfret Castle when Hamilton evolved, much like the interior of Pomfret Castle, moved in. which responded to the revival’s increasingly sober This substantial table is essentially executed in a and architecturally-informed pretensions. This mainstream form of cabinet-makers’ Gothic, in change in style does not exclude William Hallett as contrast with the idiosyncratic architect-derived the writing table’s maker, as he was capable of furniture discussed above. Whilst the structure, working in the modern taste, as with the lantern outline and surface decoration of the cabinet and stand ( ) for Chevening, Kent. frame are Gothic, the writing table’s Gothic The Pomfret library writing table loosely relates character is solely achieved through surface to Chippendale’s ‘Library Table’, plate LVIII from decoration. This approach reflected mainstream The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker’s Director ( ) fashionable taste in mid eighteenth-century Britain, (Fig. ). This is not surprising, given the relatively and is well represented by Gothic Revival patterns limited structural variations offered by this furniture included in Thomas Chippendale’s The Gentleman type. Their main similarity is the use of Langley-like and Cabinet Maker’s Director ( , and ) clustered columns with shaft rings on the pedestals’
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXII THE COUNTESS OF POMFRET ’ S GOTHIC REVIVAL FURNITURE orthogonals. Unlike those on Chippendale’s design, whilst unusual in the history of the Gothic Revival, was however, they extend the full height of the pedestals, appropriate to her gender. Whereas an interest in and thereby unify each face. Because clustered Gothic could be disruptive for a man’s identity, such as columns were a particularly common motif in mid Bateman’s, this was not the case for the Countess. eighteenth-century Gothic Revival furniture, the Gothic’s association with femininity came from the fact Countess’s table may not have been based upon that it, like the Rococo and Chinoiserie, lacked the Chippendale’s design at all. Indeed, in contrast with uniformity, rules and proportion of classical (or Chippendale’s design, the Gothic motifs are Palladian) design, which was the accepted architectural executed in a wrought and clearly defined style in eighteenth-century Britain. As Amanda architectural manner. This applies particularly to the Vickery stated, such ‘diversions from uniformity and rose window motif on each pedestal face, loosely proportion [were perceived of as] as feminine and corresponding with the great parlour bosses at undisciplined or effeminate and corrupt’. Pomfret Castle. Thus, whilst the writing table lacks The Countess’s Gothic Revival architecture, the rigid Perpendicular detailing found on the inside furniture and associated objects certainly contrast of Pomfret Castle, it generally corresponds with the with the revival’s Walpole- and male-centric reading. Castle’s blind tracery. But her interest in medieval art and architecture was not unprecedented: Lady Anne Clifford ( ‒ ) embraced medieval architectural forms to allude to her medieval ancestors, and Henrietta, dowager THE COUNTESS OF POMFRET , THE Countess of Oxford and Mortimer ( ‒ ), GOTHIC REVIVAL , AND GENDER modified Welbeck Abbey, Nottinghamshire, in the The Countess’s interest in medieval design and, as Gothic and Jacobean styles between and . has been shown here, sustained commissioning of Rather than gender being the overriding influence, Gothic Revival objects and architecture, raises a Gothic in these cases, as with the Countess of broader question. There has been a tendency in Pomfret, was chosen because it reflected the recent scholarship on the eighteenth-century Gothic interests, intentions and social status of each lady. Revival to locate it within male homosocial groups – Even so, the commissioning of eighteenth-century identified as a third sex of effeminised man, Gothic Revival architecture, objects, furniture and especially centred around Horace Walpole. interiors by women is in need of further The Countess of Pomfret’s interest in and examination, especially in relation to the more harnessing of medieval architecture and design appears recognised male context. to challenge this interpretation. However, as Matthew Walpole’s almost total silence concerning the Reeve has recently shown, the Gothic Revival in mid Countess’s Gothic passion, apart from mentioning eighteenth-century Britain was perceived of as a her ‘pedigree’ to Mann in , is rather puzzling. feminine taste. Richard (Dickie) Bateman ( ‒ ) This is especially the case given that they were and the Gothicisation of his house at Old Windsor, for neighbours in Arlington Street, that Walpole was a example, were considered ‘fribbish’. As Reeve prolific letter-writer, that he visited numerous observes, ‘Fribbles and men of the third sex houses, and that he was very interested in the [homosexual] were characterized as intersexual Gothic: surely the Gothic house in Arlington Street hybrids, and were frequently called ‘hermaphrodites’, would have caught his eye and attention. But, articulating the third sex as composite of ‘male’ and except for recording damage to the house, Walpole’s ‘female’’. Thus the Countess’s interest in Gothic, only substantial comment upon Pomfret Castle is
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXII THE COUNTESS OF POMFRET ’ S GOTHIC REVIVAL FURNITURE limited to the statement: ‘the Gothic house of the design was physically manifested before the erection Countess of Pomfret in Arlington Street, was of her London town house. Indeed, dating the designed by Mr Miller of Radway’. This almost portrait frame and the Pomfret cabinet – one of the complete silence suggests that he was dismissive of earliest and most spectacular examples of the Countess’s Gothic passion, particularly as he eighteenth-century Gothic Revival furniture – to the would have very much been aware of her early s demonstrates a confident and particularly architectural efforts in the mode. Perhaps he felt that early adoption of the style. A transition to the more Strawberry Hill was threatened by her Gothic town fashionable ‘cabinet-maker’s Gothic’ for the library house? On the other hand, Walpole’s silence reflects writing table indicates a certain flexibility in her his dismissive attitude towards the Countess, which patronage to reflect the fundamental shift in Gothic Richard Quaintance deemed to be ‘constant scorn Revival furniture. The Countess therefore emerges (even after her burial) for Pomfret’s humourless as an innovative and important patroness of Gothic intellectual pretensions’. Indeed, commenting Revival furniture. Additional pieces of Gothic upon her benefaction of marbles to the University of Revival furniture from Pomfret Castle surely exist, Oxford, Walpole clearly considered the Countess and perhaps also from Easton Neston. Their persona non grata : discovery would add further to our understanding of the Countess, and her ‘Gothic passion’. ‘Our old diversion the Countess [of Pomfret] has exhibited herself lately to the public exactly in a style you would guess. Having purchased and given her Lord’s collection of statues to the University of Oxford, she has been there at the public act to receive ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS adoration. A box was built for her near the Vice- I am particularly grateful to Lucy Wood for her Chancellor, where she sat three days together for four suggestions and insightful comments, and perpetual hours at a time to hear verses and speeches, to hear her encouragement whilst this article was under called Minerva, nay the public orator had prepared an encomium on her beauty, but being struck with her preparation. Dr Geoffrey Tyack and the anonymous appearance, had enough presence of mind to whisk his reviewer have been tremendously helpful, and I complements to the beauties of her mind. Do but thank them for their comments. The curators at the figure her; her dress had all the tawdry poverty and Ashmolean’s Prints and Drawings Study Room who frippery, with which you remember her, and I dare provided repeated access to the Bardwell portrait swear her tympany, scarce covered with ticking, produced itself through the slit of her scoured damask deserve thanks, as do the curatorial staff at Temple robe. ’Tis amazing that she did not mash a few words Newsam House for permitting me access to examine of Latin, as she used to fricassee French and Italian! or the Pomfret library writing table. Finally, this article that she did not torture some learned smile, like her is indebted to the opportunities made available to me comparing the tour of Sicily, the surrounding the as the inaugural (2013) Dunscombe Colt research triangle, to squaring the circle; or as when she said it fellow of eighteenth-century architecture at the was as difficult to get into an Italian coach as for Cæsar to take Attica, which she meant for Utica.’ Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford: a fellowship generously supported by the Georgian The three pieces of Gothic Revival furniture Group and the British Society for Eighteenth- considered here provide further evidence of the Century Studies. Countess of Pomfret’s Gothic passion, especially outside the context of Pomfret Castle. They strongly suggest that her interest in medieval architecture and
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NOTES Press, ), pp. – , and R. White, ‘The S. Freeman, ‘An Englishwoman’s Home is Her Influence of Batty Langley’ in J. Mordaunt Crooke Castle: Lady Pomfret’s House at Arlington (ed.), A Gothick Symposium at the Victoria and Street’, The Georgian Group Journal , ( ), Albert Museum . (London: The Victoria and Albert pp. – , and W. Hawkes, ‘Walpole Right or Museum and the Georgian Group, ), n.p. Wrong? More on No. Arlington Street’, The See Hawkes, ‘Walpole Right or Wrong?’, pp. Georgian Group Journal, ( ), pp. – . –. Biggs’s drawings are in Sir John Soane’s Additional material is presented in J. Cornforth, Museum, London, Drawer Set : , –. ‘A Countess’s London Castle’, Country Life Annual Examples of this are Houfe, ‘Gothick II’, pp. –, ( ), pp. –, S. Houfe, ‘A Taste for the and Freeman, ‘An Englishwoman’s Home’, pp. Gothick: Diaries of the Countess of Pomfret I’, –. Country Life , March , pp. – , S. Houfe, Sotheby’s, Easton Neston, Northamptonshire: – ‘Antiquarian Inclinations: Diaries of the Countess May (London, ), pp. – ; C. Gilbert, of Pomfret II’, Country Life , March , pp. Furniture at Temple Newsam House and Lotherton – , M. McCarthy, The Origins of the Gothic Hall , II. (London, ), pp. – ; H. Colvin, Revival. (London, ), pp. – , and J. Harris, ‘The Pomfret Portrait’, in The Ashmolean, ‘Lady Pomfret’s House: The Case for Richard ( ), pp. –. Biggs’, The Georgian Group Journal , ( ), Sotheby’s, Easton Neston , p. , lot . pp. –. Houfe, ‘Gothick II’, p. –. T. Gillet (ed.), Correspondence between Frances, Victoria and Albert Museum, W. – . For Countess of Hartford, (Afterwards Duchess of details on the Enmore chair see D. Taylor, ‘The Somerset,) and Henrietta Louisa, Countess of Perceval Compton Windsor Chair’, Regional Pomfret Between the Years and , I. Furniture , ( ), pp. – . Perceval’s interest (London, ), pp. – (Countess of Pomfret in medieval architecture is assessed in T. Mowl, to Countess of Hartford, July ). ‘Against the Time in Which the Fabric and Use of The Bucks concentrated on ruinous abbeys and Gunpowder Shall Be Forgotten’: Enmore Castle, its monasteries. The role Perspective Views had in Origins and its Architect’, Architectural History, shaping the knowledge of medieval architecture in ( ), pp. – . early eighteenth-century Britain was recognised by Walpole purchased the blue and white chairs (of an Robert Sayer, when he republished the plates as ancient triangular form, referred to by Walpole as S. Buck and N. Buck, Buck’s Antiquities; or Welch) from the sale at Dicky Bateman’s house, the Venerable Remains of above Four Hundred Castles, Priory, Old Windsor: H. Walpole, Description of the Monasteries, Palaces, &c. &c. in England and Villa of Mr. Horace Walpole. (Strawberry Hill, Wales. With Near One Hundred Views of Cities and ), p. . They are unusual, however, for this Chief Towns. (London, ). In the introduction, chair type is typically unpainted, such as those he praised the original publication: ‘The depicted by John Carter in his watercolour of the Undertaking was itself noble, and in the Execution Great Cloister at Strawberry Hill c. : Lewis meritorious; as it preserves to our view what Walpole Library, Farmington, CT, copy otherwise would have been buried in oblivion’. Folio, f. . The right-hand chair in Fig. is even Ibid , p. v. more unusual for it bears the arms of Dicky B. Langley and T. Langley, Ancient Architecture: Bateman, and consequently reflects the tradition of Restored, and Improved, by a Great Variety of painted hall chairs. Walpole placed these chairs in Grand and Useful Designs, Entirely New in the the Star Chamber at Strawberry Hill, en route from Gothick Mode for the Ornamenting of Buildings and the staircase to the gallery: Walpole, Description , Gardens Exceeding every Thing thats Extant. p. . For Bateman’s position in the Gothic Revival, (London, – ), Encouragers. For the influence and his connection with Horace Walpole, see M. of Ancient Architecture see A. Rowan, ‘Batty Reeve, ‘Dickie Bateman and the Gothicization of Langley’s Gothic’, in G. Robertson and G. Old Windsor: Gothic Architecture and Sexuality in Henderson (eds), Studies in Memory of David the Circle of Horace Walpole’, Architectural Talbot Rice. (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University History, ( ), pp. – .
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Bodleian Library, Oxford, Gough Maps , f. v. Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, WA . . Sir John Soane’s Museum, Drawer Set : . A. Coleridge, Chippendale Furniture: the Work of Sotheby’s observed that it was ‘undoubtedly Thomas Chippendale and his Contemporaries in the commissioned by Henrietta Louisa, st Countess of Rococo Taste: Vile, Cobb, Langlois, Channon, Pomfret for her new house which she had built at Hallett, Ince and Mayhew, Lock, Johnson and Arlington Street, Green Park between and Others, circa – . (London, ), p. . ’: Sotheby’s, Easton Neston , p. . Freeman Christopher Gilbert, Keeper at Temple Newsam reiterated this theory by stating the cabinet was House, Leeds, tentatively adopted Coleridge’s ‘commissioned by Lady Pomfret for Pomfret Castle, theory in his correspondence with the Ashmolean c. ’: Freeman, ‘An Englishwoman’s Home’, in : ‘So far as I am aware, the only other piece of p. . furniture known to have been made for Pomfret These similarities, instead, suggest that a singular Castle is the magnificent Gothic picture frame building, or ‘type’, was the genesis of each. Notable surrounding a double portrait of the Earl and examples of gabled Gothic façades flanked by Countess of Pomfret in your collection [...] and I towers crested by onion domes are James Gibbs’s should be interested to know whether you have Gothic Temple at Stowe, Buckinghamshire ( ), discovered any evidence that the architect, and medieval buildings such as St George’s Chapel, Sanderson Miller, also designed some of the Windsor Castle, and King’s College Chapel, movables. Could you please let me have a note of Cambridge. the later ancestry of this piece and also of the Sotheby’s, Easton Neston , p. , and Leicestershire existence of any documentation — such as the County Record Office, Leicester, Finch MSS DG evidence that it was designed for the drawing room’: D (IV), f. . Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, Object File ‘George II Gothic Painted Cabinet’, in Export of WA . , Gilbert, April . Howard Colvin Objects of Cultural Interest – , Report to the also cautiously reiterated Coleridge’s point in : Secretary of State, (London, ), p. . The ‘it was, presumably, in this or a similar room [of Jeffreys arms were overpainted, presumably after the Arlington Street] that the portrait of Lord and Lady Countess’s death in , with those of Draycott to Pomfret was designed to hang in its elaborate represent the second Earl of Pomfret’s wife, Anna Gothic frame’. Colvin, ‘Portrait’, p. . Maria Draycott ( – ). In addition, Henrietta’s Thomas Bardwell ( ‒ ): Thomas Fermor, 1st H was replaced with an A, for Anna. For more Earl of Pomfret and Henrietta Louisa, Countess of information and analysis, see Ibid . Pomfret’, Ashmolean (University of Oxford, ), Houfe, ‘Gothick I’, pl. . http://www.ashmolean.org/ash/objects/paintings/W George, second Earl of Pomfret, inherited the estate A . .php, accessed / / . and house of Easton Neston, Northamptonshire, Bodleian Library Archives, University of Oxford, and almost certainly the cabinet. This explains why d. , f. r. The painting first appears in A the Draycott arms, representing the second Earl’s Catalogue of the Several Pictures, Statues, and wife, replaced the first Countess’s. Upon inheriting Busto’s, in the Picture Gallery, Adjoining to the the title, George put paintings and sculptures Bodleian Library. (Oxford, ), p. . up for sale by auction in , though no furniture In the portrait is known to have been displayed was listed, and the cabinet was perhaps retained with the Pomfret Marbles, which the Countess specifically: J. Prestage, A Catalogue of the Noble and donated to the university in : Bodleian Library Curious Collection of Pictures, of the Right Archives, d. , letter , December . Honourable Thomas Earl of Pomfret, Deceased, It is unlikely that the picture was donated without a Brought from His Lordship’s Manor at Easton frame. Neston in Northamptonshire. (London, ), and Warwickshire County Record Office, Warwick, ‘George II Gothic Painted Cabinet’, p. . WRO CR /A , March . Ibid . Lewis Walpole Library, Farmington, CT, Quarto Indeed, the cabinet was photographed there by P Ms. Country Life and reproduced in an article from H. Walpole, in W.S. Lewis, W. Hunting Smith and : Houfe, ‘Gothick II’, p. . G.L. Lam (eds), The Yale Edition of Horace
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Walpole’s Correspondence , XX. (London, ), upon-Tyne, ), pp. –. Further interpretation pp. – , September . of Kent’s influence and potential involvement at Examples of this chair type are illustrated in Shobdon are in preparation as a co-authored article manuscripts. See, for example, Bodleian Library, with Matthew Reeve. University of Oxford, MS Douce , f. . See also Freeman, ‘An Englishwoman’s Home’, p. . P. Eames, Furniture in England, France and the York Minster Library, York, YM/F , YM/F , Netherlands from the Twelfth to the Fifteenth YM/F /–. These drawings are addressed in Century. (London: ), pp. –. T. Friedman, ‘The Transformation of York Minster, H.S., ‘It is a Great Abuse of Language’, in The – ’, Architectural History, ( ), pp. –. World , XII ( ), p. . The first pattern book for s Rococo-Gothic M. Snodin, ‘Going to Strawberry Hill’, in M. furniture in s Britain was M. Darly, A New Book Snodin (ed.), Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill , of Chinese, Gothic and Modern Chairs, with the (London, ), pp. – , and K. Rogers, Manner of Putting Them in Perspective According to ‘Walpole’s Gothic: Creating a Fictive History’, in Brook Taylor. (London, ). The designs were of M. Snodin (ed.), Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill , an entirely different character from the Pomfret (London, ), pp. – . cabinet’s Gothic, and would have provided little P.J. Toynbee (ed.), Strawberry Hill Accounts: A Record guidance for Gothicising its structure. Kent also of Expenditure in Building, Furnishing, &c., Kept by appears to have influenced Hallett’s chairs of c. Mr Horace Walpole, from to , Now First for Holkham Hall, Norfolk. This is explored in Printed from the Original Ms . (Oxford, ), p. . Wood: Upholstered Furniture , II, pp. – . The Parlour chairs were jointly designed by Houfe, ‘Gothick I’, p. . Horace Walpole and Richard Bentley, Horace ‘The entrance hall, bow converted into a dining Walpole’s Correspondence, XXXV. (London, ), room, is a noble room; the centre rises the height of pp. – , the lantern by Bentley ( ibid ., pp. two stories, and the sides of only one, forming – ), and the pier glasses by Walpole: Walpole, vestibules or recesses, one of which is still used as a Description , p. . hall. [...] The chimney piece of Egyptian marble L. Wood, The Upholstered Furniture in the Lady designed by Kent is massive and elegant’: G. Baker, Lever Art Gallery , II. (London, ), pp. – , The History and Antiquities of the County of and L. Wood, ‘William Hallett’s Lantern Stand for Northamptonshire, II. (London: – ), p. . Chevening’, in Furniture History , ( ), pp. Houfe, ‘Gothick I’, p. . –. For a broader analysis of Hallett’s status as a Leicestershire Record Office, Leicester, Finch MSS London cabinet maker, see G. Beard, ‘William Vile DG /D (I), April . For details on Kent’s again’, Furniture History , ( ), p. , and G. work at Easton Neston, see D. Watkin, ‘Town Beard, ‘The Quest for William Hallett’, Furniture Houses’, in S. Weber (ed.), William Kent: History , ( ), pp. –. Designing Georgian Britain (London, ), Kent’s Gothic has recently been examined in R. pp. – . White, ‘Kent and the Gothic Revival’, in S. Weber A full catalogue description of the library writing (ed.), William Kent: Designing Georgian Britain. table can be found in Gilbert, Furniture at Temple (London, ), pp. – . Newsam , II, pp. – . J. Vardy, Some Designs of Mr. Inigo Jones and Mr. Ibid ., p. . Following the Countess’s death in Wm. Kent. (London, ), pl. . , successive people occupied Pomfret Castle. P.N. Lindfield, ‘Furnishing Britain: Gothic as a Lady Sophia Carteret ( – ), the Countess’s National Aesthetic, – ’, I (PhD Dissertation, granddaughter, was first, though she certainly University of St Andrews, ), p. ); White, moved out upon getting married in . ‘Kent’, p. . Horace Walpole’s Correspondence , XXXIII, P.N. Lindfield, ‘Georgian Gothic Fabrications in the (London, ), p. . Walpole to Lady Ossory, Antiquarian Style: William Kent, Batty Langley and January . Horace Walpole’, in A. Lepine and L. Cleaver (eds), E.W. Watson, Life of Bishop John Wordsworth Gothic Legacies: Four Centuries of Tradition and (London, ), p. . Christopher Gilbert records Innovation in Art and Architecture . (Newcastle- that on the underside of one of the table’s pedestals
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is a Victorian label stating ‘The D[ean of] A. Vickery, Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Sa[lisbu]ry’: Gilbert, Furniture at Temple Newsam , Georgian England (London, ), p. . See II, p. . Reeve, ‘Gothic Architecture’ , p. . Gothic could, For an assessment of the romantic interior, see however, possess masculine associations, and is C. Wainwright, The Romantic Interior: the British addressed by the author in a forthcoming chapter Collector at Home, – (London, ). on Gothic Revival design and chivalry. Warwickshire County Record Office, CR /A , E.V. Chew, ‘A Mockery of the Surveyor’s Style?: November ; Hawkes, ‘Walpole Right or Alternatives to Inigo Jones in Seventeenth-Century Wrong’, p. . Elite British Architecture’ in B. Arciszewska and E. The table’s mainstream cabinet-maker’s design was McKellar (eds.), Articulating British Cassicism: probably one of the reasons why it was copied in New Approaches to Eighteenth-Century Architecture the early nineteenth century. See Gilbert, Furniture (Aldershot, ), pp. – ; P. Smith, ‘Lady at Temple Newsam , III, pp. . Oxford’s Alterations at Welbeck Abbey, – ’, Hawkes, ‘Walpole Right or Wrong?’, pp. – . Georgian Group Journal ( ), pp. – ; Wood, ‘Chevening’, pp. – . Attribution of the L. Worsley, ‘Female Architectural Patronage in the library writing table to Hallett Sr, however, remains Eighteenth Century and the Case of Henrietta conjectural. Cavendish Holles Harley’, Architectural History This design was reissued as plate LXXXV in the ( ), pp. – . edition of the Director. Reissuing it in the third An edited collection of Walpole’s comments on edition demonstrates the design’s longevity, visits to country Seats can be found in P. Toynbee especially given plates ( per cent) in the (ed.), The Walpole Society XVI ( ). Director were new. Lewis Walpole Library, Farmington, , Vol. , M. Reeve, ‘Gothic Architecture, Sexuality and f. . License at Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill’, Art R. Quaintance, ‘Fermor, Henrietta Louisa, Countess Bulletin (Sept ), pp. – , and M. Reeve, of Pomfret ( – )’, Oxford Dictionary of ‘Dickie Bateman and the Gothicization of Old National Biography , Oxford University Press, , Windsor: Architecture and Sexuality in the Circle http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/ , of Horace Walpole’, Architectural History ( ), accessed / / . pp. – . Horace Walpole’s Correspondence XX, (London, Reeve, ‘Dickie Bateman’, p. . ), p. . Ibid ., pp. – .
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