English, solid and veneered mahogany, ca. 1760 78/431

A mahogany hall seat consisting of scrolling X-frames at front and back, joined to each other by a waisted H-stretcher, and supporting a dished seat, veneered in mahogany, and painted in the centre with a crest -- a cat passant argent -- in an oval medallion. The X-frames end in scrolls at the top and have plinthed pad feet.
The seat is made of thin oak boards grained front to back (probably two boards, the join concealed as described below), which are framed by four thicker lengths of mahogany (c. 3/4 inch thick) mitred together at the four corners. The front and back lengths of mahogany are dished, the side lengths flat. This framed panel is strenghtened by further lengths of wood, c. 1/2 inch thick: four pieces of beech(?) glued to the underside of the oak boards, around the inside of the frame -- the side pieces butted up to the long front and back pieces -- and a central cross-piece of oak(?), likewise butted up to the front and back pieces. The mahogany outer frame has a simple quadrant moulding carved at the outside top edge, and a further step is formed by the sheet of veneer (grained side-to-side) laid over the whole. (The veneer on top and the cross-piece underneath conceal the likely join in the oak seat panel.)
Each of the front and back X-frames is formed of two diagonal (and diagonally grained) S-shaped elements, half-lapped to each other at the crossing. The joint is partly covered by the applied leaf-carving at the centre. Each leg tapers slightly towards the bottom, but is stepped out to full section at the foot (which is integral with the leg, not planted on).
The H-stretcher comprises a short central bar (laterally grained) tenoned to the long waisted rails, which in turn are tenoned to the legs of each X-frame. The X-frames are then screwed up to the seat at each corner, just inboard of each end-scroll. At the sides of each seat, underneath, two near-cylinders of mahogany, of the same diameter as the end-scrolls, are fitted in between the front and back frames and secured by screws driven in from front and back. The screws are slightly recessed and now stopped with a wax(?) filler. They were probably concealed originally by a turned roundel applied on top; evidence for these includes a slightly paler colour here than in the surrounding area, and toothing-plane marks on the surface, to act as a key for the glue.
There are three screw(?)-holes in the underside of the seat -- two in the front reinforcement, c. 6-3/4 inches apart, but curiously only one in the back reinforcement (in the right half) (whereas the other two stools have two holes in each rail). A likely explanation is that these were to secure carriage-battens, but it is unclear how this was achieved with one screw lacking.
The half-lap joint of both X-frames is now screwed together (presumably) from inside, with wax-filled(?) screws: two screws in the front frame and a single central screw in the back frame. Since the two sides are not consistent, and a wax(?) filler rather than wood plugs is used to conceal them, these screws are presumably later additions.
Some of the applied carving is missing on both X-frames: on the front (so designated by reference to the painted crest), almost all of the lower half, the two upper outer scrolling leaf-tips, and the right inner leaf-tip; on the back all four outer leaf-tips and the left inner leaf-tip (right as viewed).
The whole is coated in a shellac polish, especially thick on the seat. The underside of the seat has a brown (umber?) stain, which largely obscures the grain of the reinforcing elements (though these appear to be beech).
The back beech(?) reinforcement under the seat is heavily woodwormed; the two side pieces less so, while the front piece is unscathed.

Presented by Lucy Violet Bouverie-Pusey

This stool and the other two en suite, which bear the crest of the Pusey family, were given to the Museum by (Mrs) Lucy Violet Bouverie-Pusey, who stated that they 'came from Pusey House Berks -- the house of the Puseys having been there always'. They were presumably commissioned for the hall at Pusey House, built for John Allen Pusey to the designs of John Sanderson, ca. 1746--48. J. A. Pusey died childless in 1753, and the estate passed to his two sisters, Elizabeth Brotherton and Jane Pusey. On the death of Elizabeth, also childless, in 1757, the unmarried Jane Pusey chose as the eventual heir the Hon. Philip Bouverie, the nephew of her sister-in-law and a younger son of the 1st Lord Folkestone. Philip Bouverie-Pusey (as he became) came to live at Pusey House only in 1767, so it is unlikely that any furniture was commissioned for the house in the previous fourteen years. So these stools presumably either ante-date 1753 or post-date 1767.

1748-1753 or ca. 1767. The stools were probably made after the completion of Pusey House, in 1748, and before the death of John Allen Pusey in 1753. Stylistically they look slightly later -- perhaps ca. 1760 -- but the house was seemingly not much occupied after Pusey's death until the coming-of-age of his eventual heir, Philip Bouverie-Pusey, in 1767.

This stool, one of a set of three, was originally at Pusey House, Berkshire, which was designed by the architect John Sanderson and built for John Allen Pusey in 1746--48. The stools may have been made for J. A. Pusey soon afterwards (he died in 1753). The original set was probably larger, and would have been used in the hall of the house, arranged around the walls. The seat of each stool is painted with the Pusey family crest, a cat passant argent -- a signal to visitors of the family's long connection with Pusey, where they had lived since at least 1100.

The V&A also holds the famous Pusey Horn (Museum no. M.220-1938), which came from the same house, and is romantically supposed to have been given to William Pewse (or Pusey), by King Canute in 1015.

W.22A-1935