Stool of carved and gilt wood, upholstered with a valance of red silk velvet and a loose cushion of crimson silk velvet paned with two figured silk velvets, trimmed with coloured braids. The cushion conserved (2011-12) to show more of the original multi-coloured velvet; the water-gilding original.

Design
A stool of carved and gilt wood upholstered with a valance and cushion, covered in red velvet and remnants of earlier figured velvets, and trimmed with knotted and tufted braids. The carved beech frame has pierced, tapered legs carved with foliage and lambrequins, joined by scrolling X-form stretchers which meet at a central vase finial. The valance is fitted to an upholstered lip on all four sides, within which the box-shaped cushion sits. The gilding of the frame has been stripped to reveal the original water-gilded surface. The figured velvets and the trimmings are original to the stool, but the worn red silk velvet is later. The trimmings on the cushion differ from those on the companion stool (W.15-2009), and neither precisely reflects the original arrangement. The underside of the cushion is covered in red silk over a red worsted.

The legs and stretchers are carved with foliage and flower-heads in relief against a cross-hatched ground – the main motifs carved in the wood, the cross-hatching and other surface detail carved in the gesso for the gilding. The quarter-round top of each leg is carved with a husk-filled lambrequin on the front and back faces and with acanthus drops on the sides and corners. Beneath the lambreqins the top part of the shaft is pierced, front to back, the piercing echoing the concave tapered form of the shaft, above a carved drop with a central flower-head. The side faces of the shaft are carved with a volute and laurel drop, parallel to the piercing, and are plain (cross-hatched) below. The bottom of the shaft is carved on all four sides with erect acanthus in high relief, above a shallow blocking – which intersects the stretcher – and the gadrooned quarter-round foot, which ends in a tapered plinth.
Each quarter of the stretchers is of broken S-shaped plan, flat in the outer half and rising in a scroll at the centre where it ends in a volute. The top of each volute is carved with acanthus, and each upright face is carved with a flower-and-bud motif in the middle. The four quarters meet at a central crossing, which is surmounted by a small gadrooned urn finial.


Construction
As far as can be seen the frame is made wholly of beech. From losses of wood and joints just visible in the gilding, it is clear that the legs were pieced out from a core of approximately the same thickness as the blocking at the end of each stretcher. The cross-stretchers, two full-length diagonal members, may be pieced out on the top, though this cannot be seen. They are half-lapped to each other at the crossing and secured by the turned finial which is dowelled through this joint (the dowel protruding underneath). The seat rails are tenoned to the legs. The legs and the feet, formed separately, are all tenoned to the stretchers. It appears that the feet each have a larger tenon than the legs (this was assessed by seeing how far a thin film of melinex could be eased into the horizontal gaps between the leg and stretcher and the foot and stretcher, before it was obstructed by the tenon). So possibly each foot was first tenoned into the stretcher, and the leg then tenoned down into the foot tenon.

One of the short seat rails has a waney edge (with a natural chamfer where it was cut at the curve of the trunk, next to the bark). This rail is more worm-eaten than the rest of the frame, the waney edge being sapwood, which is particularly prone to worm damage.

Acquired with support from The Art Fund (with a contribution from the Wolfson Foundation), The Brigadier Clark Fund, and the London Historic House Museums Trust in memory of Wendy and George Levy

This stool and its pair, W.15-2009, formed part of the State Bedroom suite at Warwick Castle, where the bed, two elbow chairs and four other stools remain, together with one of a pair of settees that were made in the late 18th century to suit the newly created antiquarian interior. (The second settee was sold from the Castle at Sotheby's, London, 10 September 2007, lot 85.)

The suite, (originally consisting of a bed, armchair and four stools), was supplied in 1701 or 1702 for William III’s Little Bedchamber at Hampton Court Palace, adapted and extended with another armchair and two more stools in 1703 for Queen Anne’s State Bedchamber at Kensington Palace, and with two additional settees at Warwick Castle, probably made for the second Earl of Warwick in the late 1770s, and with a Regency scheme of partial re-upholstery between c.1790 and c. 1820, most likely shortly before 1802 and again for the second Earl.

The suite was restored when it was introduced to the state bedroom at Warwick Castle, around 1800. (Re-gilding of the frames probably dating from this time has been removed from this stool to reveal the original water-gilded surface.) At the same time the upholstery was partly renewed, with new red velvet on the top and sides of the cushion and on the valance below. During recent conservation some of the original textiles were discovered on this stool, including two colourful figured velvets on the cushion sides. The threadbare bordered panel on the top of the cushion is in remnants of the same two velvets, which were evidently used in the same position in the original scheme; and the top originally had outer borders of dark crimson velvet, remnants of which survive. The valance panels were probably in the same dark crimson velvet originally. In the restoration of c. 1800 the original trimmings as well as the top bordered panel were re-used.

This stool, together with W.15-2009, was sold from Warwick Castle, Sotheby’s, London, 4 June 2008, lot 30. The application to export them was refused by the Minister for a period of five months, to allow a British institution to match the price that they had fetched at auction, as a result of which they were purchased by the V&A.


Nineteenth-century accounts of the State Bedroom at Warwick Castle

William Hopton(?), 1807(?) Manuscript
‘State Bed Room
… The Bed & furniture were given by the present King, to the late Earl of Warwick. It belonged to Queen Ann. – The Tapes.try was made at Brussels in 1604. …’
[Warwick Library: Z4244868, untitled manuscript inscribed on flyleaf in a 20th-century hand, ‘apparently written by William Hopton, 1807’ (with dedication to the Earl of Warwick on following page), p. 15.]

1806 inventory
Large 4 post Bedstead with Wrought Velvett }
And Border’d with Crimson Lined with Green }
Sattin and Fringd }
2 White Mattrasss.
1 Velvett Bed Cover 1 Old Cover 1 Bolster
& 3 pillows Coverd.
2 Elbow Chairs to Match the Bed
2 Large Settees to Do. Do.
6 Stools with Cushions to Do.
[Warwickshire County Record Office: CR1886/BB 342 TN 1053, f. 57v]

1809 inventory
‘Large 4 Post Bedstead with wrought Velvett and bordered with Crimson lined with Green Satin and fring’d / 2 White Mattresses / 2 Elbow Chairs to match the Bed / 2 large Settees. Do [ditto] / 6 Stools with Cushions Do.’
[Warwickshire County Record Office: CR 1886/Box 446]

William Field, An Historical … Account of the town and castle of Warwick … (1815), pp. 192–93 (evidently derived in part from Hopton)

STATE BED ROOM
The bed and furniture of this room [the State Bed Room] are of crimson velvet, embroidered with green and yellow silk. They belonged to Queen Anne: and were given, by the present King, to the late Earl of Warwick. The room is hung with tapestry, which appears by the date of it, to have been made at Brussels, 1604. It is supposed to represent the Gardens of Versailles, as they were at that time. – The chimney-piece, executed by WESTMACOTT, is remarkably handsome. It is formed of verd antique and white marble. Two black marble vases stand on its mantle; and a bronze copy of the Borghese Vase on the hearth.

HERE is a Cabinet highly curious, made of ebony, inlaid with wood of various shades and colours, beautifully representing flowers, birds, and various animals. On this Cabinet, stands a chrystal cup, mounted, between two engraved chrystal vials. Behind, are a bronze lion and lioness. On another cabinet, opposite the window, is an essence vase, of the old enamel, on copper mounted on or moulou.

Charles William Spicer, History of Warwick Castle (1844), pp. 31–32
‘This Chamber [the State Bed Room] … measures 24 feet square, and is high in proportion. The walls are hung with finely preserved tapestry, worked at Brussels about the year 1604, and on the border is inscribed “Franciscus Spiringius.” The bed itself, in perfect harmony with the other furniture, is of salmon-coloured damask, and having coverlids and counterpanes of satin, all richly embroidered and bordered with crimson velvet; this, with the corresponding chairs, sofas, and fauteuils, formerly belonged to Queen Anne, and were presented to the Warwick family by George III. Opposite the bed is a beautiful chimney-piece, executed by Westmacott in verd antique and white marble.’

The upholstery method -- with a cushion resting in a well over a four-sided valance -- is a very rare survival. Another upholstered stool fitted with a cushion – but a much thinner one – is shown in a Baroque interior of 1721 by Jan Vierpyl (National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin; see Charles Saumarez Smith, Eighteenth-Century Decoration: Design and the Domestic Interior in England (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1993), p. 87, fig. 66). Even more remarkable is the use of ribbon bows to tie the valance down at the four corners of its platform, since these would never be seen when the cushion was in place -- and the depth of the well is such that the stool could never be used without the cushion. Although we now see this in the stool as restored around 1800, it almost certainly replicates the technique used when the stool was first made around 1700--10, since remnants of a blue ribbon survive at the corners, sewn to the stuffing-cover beneath the valance. No other instance of this usage is known, but a parallel custom is the contemporary (early 18th-century) use of decorative tufting on the seat platforms of sofas, beneath a deep cushion. Examples of the latter usage are a settee of ca. 1700--05 from Hampton Court, Herefordshire, in the V&A (Museum no. W.15-1945), and another ca. 1710 at Lyme Park, Cheshire (see Lucy Wood, The Upholstered Furniture in the Lady Lever Art Gallery (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2008), p. 22, figs 30--31, 54).

This stool and its pair (Museum no. W.15-2009) form part of an important bedroom suite (with a four-post bed, two armchairs and four other stools), which has been at Warwick Castle since the late 18th century.

The suite, originally consisting of a bed, armchair and four stools, was supplied in 1701 or 1702 for William III’s Little Bedchamber at Hampton Court Palace. It was adapted and extended with another armchair and two more stools in 1703 for Queen Anne’s State Bedchamber at Kensington Palace. George III gave the suite to the first Earl of Warwick, and two settees were added at Warwick Castle, probably for the second Earl of Warwick in the late 1770s. The expanded suite was restored and partially reupholstered between c.1790 and c. 1820, most likely shortly before 1802 and again for the second Earl.

W.14:1 to 3-2009