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Not currently on display at the V&A

Panelling

ca. 1600 (made)

Part of the panelling of a room. The panelling is composed of a series of panels surrounded on three sides by a moulding. The whole is surmounted by a dentil cornice below which is a frieze formed of oblong panels carved with strapwork and floral scrolls with figures and masks, the higher relief built up with additional layers before carving (now missing in some places). Along the bottom is a skirting border of strapwork. The panelling is divided at intervals by pilasters, the bases of which are carved with cartouche and strapwork, the shaft panels filled with formal scrolls of fruit and flowers, and with figures, terminals, birds and animals; above are Corinthian capitals surmounted by brackets carved with lions' masks. The panelling includes three doors with wrought iron hinges and latches. Also a piece of panelling 3 ft. 5 in. (104.1 cm) high and two smaller pieces (from below the windows) composed of a row of upright panels, with a row of oblong panels above carved with strapwork and foliage and having a shell in the centre.

Condition:
Generally good, apparently with a varnish on the front. On the reverse of the panelling are numerous small repairs such as pasted canvas reinforcing strips, latter screwed reinforcing battens, and early nailed reinforcing slips behind some joints. Modern mirror plates are attached to most of the individual sections. Parts of the panelling were recorded in gallery 52 in 1962, and from at least 1976 to 1996, about 12m of the panelling was displayed in gallery 54, behind the Bed of Ware bedstock.

Removed from a house near Exeter. End of 16th century.
From catalogue Total length about 41 ft., H. 8 ft. 2 in.
(Total length about 1249.7 cm, H. 249 cm)

This panelling corresponds closely with that at Bamfylde House, Exeter (see Museum Negatives, Nos. 32142 and 32143); also with that in the Dining Room at Bradfield Hall, near Exeter (see Negatives Nos. 32285 and 32289).


Object details

Category
Woodwork
Object type
Panelling
Parts
This object consists of 8 parts.

  • Section of Panelling
  • Panelling
  • Section of Panelling
  • Section of Panelling
  • Panelling
  • Section of Panelling
  • Panelling
  • Architectural Panel
Materials and techniques
Carving
Carving
Brief description
Oak carved
Physical description
Part of the panelling of a room. The panelling is composed of a series of panels surrounded on three sides by a moulding. The whole is surmounted by a dentil cornice below which is a frieze formed of oblong panels carved with strapwork and floral scrolls with figures and masks, the higher relief built up with additional layers before carving (now missing in some places). Along the bottom is a skirting border of strapwork. The panelling is divided at intervals by pilasters, the bases of which are carved with cartouche and strapwork, the shaft panels filled with formal scrolls of fruit and flowers, and with figures, terminals, birds and animals; above are Corinthian capitals surmounted by brackets carved with lions' masks. The panelling includes three doors with wrought iron hinges and latches. Also a piece of panelling 3 ft. 5 in. (104.1 cm) high and two smaller pieces (from below the windows) composed of a row of upright panels, with a row of oblong panels above carved with strapwork and foliage and having a shell in the centre.

Condition:
Generally good, apparently with a varnish on the front. On the reverse of the panelling are numerous small repairs such as pasted canvas reinforcing strips, latter screwed reinforcing battens, and early nailed reinforcing slips behind some joints. Modern mirror plates are attached to most of the individual sections. Parts of the panelling were recorded in gallery 52 in 1962, and from at least 1976 to 1996, about 12m of the panelling was displayed in gallery 54, behind the Bed of Ware bedstock.

Removed from a house near Exeter. End of 16th century.
From catalogue Total length about 41 ft., H. 8 ft. 2 in.
(Total length about 1249.7 cm, H. 249 cm)

This panelling corresponds closely with that at Bamfylde House, Exeter (see Museum Negatives, Nos. 32142 and 32143); also with that in the Dining Room at Bradfield Hall, near Exeter (see Negatives Nos. 32285 and 32289).
Gallery label
  • 4870 to 4881-1856 PANELLING ENGLISH; late 16th century Oak with conventional carved decoration in the frieze. This panelling comes from the same house in Exeter as the panelling in Room 52. This section, however, lacks the carved pilasters.(pre October 2000)
  • PANELLING English; about 1610 Oak, not in its original arrangement Part of 4870 to 4881-1856 This panelling comes from a house in Exeter, where a local school of joiners produced some remarkably sophisticated carved ornament. The friezes are in part derived from Hans Vredeman de Vries, Dorica and Ionica (Antwerp, 1565, reprinted 1578), a pattern book of ornamental variations on the theme of the classical orders of architecture.(unknown)
Object history
PANELLING of a ROOM. Carved oak; removed from an old house near Exeter, with doors and carved pilasters to match.
English.
About 1600.
Entire L. 52 ft. average H. 8 ft. 3 in.
Bought 50l.
4870 to 4881-1856

Parts divided between Woodwork and Circ. Inventories [undated file note]. In the separate Circulation inventory, only parts 4871, 4874B and 4877 are mentioned, with a note that they were transferred to Woodwork on 27/7/1921. The RP for this (1921/4892) don’t seem to have survived. [No further information was found from the accession papers, August 2023]

4881A, 4881B - 1856 These two carved oak caps are copies by A. Chisholm Junior, of originals belonging to the panelling of the Exeter room, and have been incorporated into the panelling. July 1900.

4870F-1856, and two pilasters 4878:c-1856, 4878:d-1856 lent to RAM, Exeter 2013-2014
Bibliographic references
  • 4870 to 4881-1856 Part of the panelling of a room. The panelling is composed of a series of panels surrounded on three sides by a moulding. The whole is surmounted by a dentil cornice below which is a frieze formed of oblong panels carved with strapwork and floral scrolls with figures and masks. Along the bottom is a skirting border of strapwork. The panelling is divided at intervals by pilasters, the bases of which are carved with cartouche and strapwork, the shaft panels filled with formal scrolls of fruit and flowers, and with figures, terminals, birds and animals; above are Corinthian capitals surmounted by brackets carved with lions' masks. The panelling includes three doors with wrought iron hinges and latches. Also a piece of panelling 3 ft. 5 in. (104.1 cm) high and two smaller pieces (from below the windows) composed of a row of upright panels, with a row of oblong panels above carved with strapwork and foliage and having a shell in the centre. Removed from a house near Exeter. End of 16th century. From catalogue Total length about 41 ft., H. 8 ft. 2 in. (Total length about 1249.7 cm, H. 249 cm) This panelling corresponds closely with that at Bamfylde House, Exeter (see Museum Negatives, Nos. 32142 and 32143); also with that in the Dining Room at Bradfield Hall, near Exeter (see Negatives Nos. 32285 and 32289).
  • Anthony Wells-Cole, An Oak bed at Montacute: a study in mannerist decoration (Furniture History, 1981 pp.1-19), pls. 14, 16B, 28B, 29B Relates carved panels to sources by Vredeman de Vries, Das Erst Buch, 1578, pls. K and Q
  • Eleanor Rowe, Practical Wood-Carving; part 1 Elementary (London, 1907), p. 81-83 'Three illustrations are given from a panelled room removed from an old house near Exeter, and for broad simple Renascence carving no better examples could be found. The panelling was probably imported from Flanders, as there are several similar rooms in and about Exeter, all of which give evidence of having been adapted to the rooms in which they have been fitted. The carving of the panelling does not exceed 1/8 in. in relief, and where greater relief was wanted, as in the boss of the pedestal, the wood has been planted on. This is an expedient which is rarely to be commended. The panel on p. 81 and the pilaster would be very good for the student to copy, as the modelling is simple, and the treatment can easily be seen in the illustrations. In the panel, if the pendant centre were omitted, the student would have the typical Tudor rose of the period. The treatment of the vine in the pilaster is excellent, and the tendrils are but slightly undercut. The stalk and branches might be a little less round. Notice that the upper margin is wide, as it is well above the eye and under a projecting moulding, and that the margin of the base which rests upon the pedestal is a little narrower, but slightly wider than the sides. When seen in situ these differences are not apparent. The boss in the centre of the pedestal has been applied. The treatment of the shell-like ornaments is very simple and most effective. They appear again in the four corners of a square panel, with a cherub's head in the centre of the panel, the wood for which has also been planted on. The capital is a very typical example of the style, and comparatively eady to carve. The width at the base of the capital should always be the same as the width of the pilaster.'
  • Anthony Wells-Cole, Art and Decoration in Elizabethan and Jacobean England (New Haven, London, 1997), p.172 note 16 'Exeter boasted another [significant joiners' workshop], a shop where the joiners were probably members of the Garrett or Hermon family and must surely, from their surnames (which were interchangeable), have been immigrants from the Netherlands. They probably worked with the mason John Deymond, whose output of funerary monuments and possible relationship with the mason-architect William Arnold have been referred to earlier. Many Flemish-style interiors were fitted by this workshop in houses of the landed gentry and urban merchants during the last decade of the sixteenth century and the first two of the seventeenth. The panelling of an unprovenanced hosue near Exeter [note 16, Now in the V&A 4870-4881-1856] - the finest survival since the destruction of Bampfylde House in Exeter during the Second World War - shows that the joiners shared with Deymond a knowledge of Vredeman's [Architectura] Das Erst Büch of 1565, which supplied the pattern for two panels in the frieze; another panel derives from a print after Cornelis Floris, while a fourth was adapted from a design by Abraham de Bruyn; some of the panels centre on Classical gods and goddesses whose sources remain to be found. So have those for woodwork of the Job Room at Bradninch, the parlour at Bradfield, and The Grange at Broadhembury, all within a few miles of each other (and of Exeter) in Devon, for which the same joiners were probably responsible.'
  • Todd Gray 'Exeter’s Lost Buildings. Destruction from 1800-1899' (Exeter Local History Society, 2023), pp.209-212 'South Street (South Gate Street) Nos 21 & 22, 1855 This double building was demolished because of its dilapidated state. When on 31 January 1725 the Baptists opened their new chapel in South Street access was only through a side passageway in this building which was also owned by the congregation. In 1806 Jenkins noticed that the chapel was ‘behind the houses which intercepts any exterior view’. The chapel was replaced in 1823 but it remained hidden by the buildings which were on a site which measured thirty-three feet by fifty. On 28 April 1855 the Western Times told its readers ‘We are happy to see that the two antique buildings in front of the Baptist chapel, South Street, are in the course of demolition’. It would, stressed the newspaper, be ‘a very great improvement’ because they had become dilapidated and dangerous. Earlier that year the city surveyor determined that they were unfit (‘I beg to call your attention to the dilapidation and, I may say, dangerous state… altogether in a state scarcely fit for the habitation of families’) and the congregation concluded the rebuilding costs were prohibitive. The two were occupied by Allen & Mayo, butchers, and Dare, grocers, and demolished that month. The hope was expressed that the chapel’s emergence into public view would increase the size of the congregation. [n.625] The materials were auctioned on the 25th and they included ‘ancient oak carved work’ which were otherwise noted as ‘wainscot of the napkin or drapery and the mask and lion’s head patterns’. Some ‘fine old carved work’, part of the ‘many beautiful and elaborate specimens of the carved and wainscot panels diversified with acanthus, lion’s heads and arabesques’, was purchased by John Gendall for £12 12s, the equivalent of more than £1,000 in today’s terms. He acquired linen-fold panelling and also, it appears, more highly carved Renaissance wainscot. The building also had ornate plasterwork. The discovery of a Royal Coat of Arms, which was retained for the chapel’s vestry, led to a misguided notion that the building was associated with a visit to Exeter by James I. It was also reported that the Coat of Arms had the inscription ‘J. K. 1621’. Its current location is unknown. Also, a fireplace had a tablet bearing the initials T. T. and S. T., which were suggested to have been those of Thomas and Sarah Tooker, along with the date 1627. Early coins were found as were some Exeter tokens. The alleged Royal association helped build public interest in the auction: antiquarians visited who ‘took hasty sketches’ including George Townsend. [n.626] These presumably included a drawing of ornamental woodwork which Townsend subsequently noted was acquired by the Victoria & Albert Museum in 1855. This was highlighted two years later as being particularly noteworthy: in one gallery at the museum ‘the walls are covered by some curious and beautiful oak panelling from an old house in Exeter’. This woodwork, 52 feet in length with an average height of 8 feet 3 inches, remains in the museum’s collection.[n.627] Gendall does not appear to have inserted his panelling into Mol’s Coffee House, his place of work, but he may have placed it at his home, 10 Cathedral Close (now the Deanery), which retains two late-seventeenth-century panels. One is dated 1665 and has the initials NI as well as a salvaged door surround of a number of what are probably early-seventeenth-century pieces of carved timber. It is possible that one or both of them were installed by Gendall. Equally, it is possible that given he had five fifteenth-century roof bosses from the Bishop’s Palace to the museum, he also sold to it some or all of the panelling.[n.628] Notes 625. Jenkins, Exeter, p371; WT, 28 April 1855; DHC, 75/9/1/1; Allan Brockett, Nonconformity in Exeter, 1650-1875 (Exeter, 1962), pp109, 218; WT, 14 April 1855. 626. WT, 28 April 1855; EFP, 10 May & 7 June 1855; EPG, 12 May 1855; H. E. Bickers, A Brief History of the Baptist Church Now Meeting in South Street Chapel (Exeter, 1906), p27. 627. Arthur Gabb, A history of Baptist beginnings (Exeter, 1954, p22; Victoria & Albert Museum, 4870-1856; St James’s Chronicle, 30 June 1857 & The Union, 3 July 1857. Of an exhibition in 1896 at Bethnal Green it was noted ‘the finest piece of oak carving is the oak panelling taken from an old house in Exeter are lent by the South Kensington Museum. It is carved in the style of the classic Renaissance’: Westminster Gazette, 29 June 1896. 628. V&A, 119-21/1865 & 123-4/1865.
  • Frederick Litchfield, Illustrated History of Furniture from the Earliest to the Present Time. 4th ed., London and New York: Truslove, Hanson and Comba Ltd., 1899, illustrated opp. p. 80
Collection
Furniture and Woodwork Collection
Accession number
4870-1856

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Record createdApril 27, 2001
Record URL
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O58587/panelling/
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