English Furniture before 1603
- Comments
-
Glasgow Museums has an outstanding and internationally important collection of early English furniture and interior fixtures. The majority of the collection was donated to Glasgow by Sir William and Lady Burrell in 1944. Wood was a ubiquitous material in medieval and Renaissance interiors, but few homes would have contained the beautifully constructed oak chairs, beds, stools, chests, cupboards, wall-panelling, wooden ceilings, mantelpieces and overmantels that make up the collection. This collection is mostly representative of the furnishings of the church and the comfortable middling and upper classes, and there are a number of important items that can be directly associated with notable families, individuals and residences. A star item in the collection is a unique ceremonial bedhead, decorated for the ill-fated marriage of Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves (1539/40). Other notable pieces of the period include the elaborately carved mantlepiece and overmantel said to come from the Tudor hunting lodge at Oatlands Park, Surrey, and the long dining table, elaborately inlaid with the heraldic arms of the Brome and Crossley families, dated to 1569. Wall panelling, formerly from an Ipswich merchants’ house (later The Neptune Inn pub), offers a very fine example of the fashionable linenfold panelling that would have lined the walls of important rooms of fine houses. The beautifully carved fifteenth century ceiling that once adorned a coffee-house in Bridgwater, Somerset, is a striking addition to the collection. The ceiling shows evidence of being refitted and it is possible it may have originally adorned a church. Further church furniture is represented in the form of a Gothic screen from East Anglia and a collection of carved misericords. Most of the collection dates to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, however an important early piece is the fourteenth century ‘Bury Chest’ painted with the heraldic arms of Richard de Bury, Lord Chancellor and Bishop of Durham. The chest is a rare and important survival of medieval painted furniture.
- Broader term
- Staff Contact