Footstool thumbnail 1
Footstool thumbnail 2
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On loan

  • On display at Houghton Hall, Norfolk

Footstool

ca. 1732 (made)
Artist/Maker
Unknown
Place of origin
Great Britain (made)

On loan to Houghton Hall.

Object details

Category
Furniture
Object type
Footstool
Parts
This object consists of 2 parts.

  • Footstool
  • Cover (Overlying Object)
Materials and techniques
Legs and seat frame of beech, pine and walnut, oil gilded, partially over a sanded ground; cover (joined) of green silk velvet with applied silver-thread decoration; structural upholstery of linen, linen webbing and horsehair
Walnut
Beech
Pine
Metal Thread
Velvet
Linen
Horsehair
Carving
Embroidery
Upholstery
Brief description
Footstool, carved and gilded walnut, green velvet cover with silver-thread decoration, Britain, ca. 1732
Physical description
Footstool, the top rectangular with rounded top corners; cabriole legs terminating in paw feet, the top of the legs carved with lion masks; the deep seat rails curved in profile and carved in the centre front with a satyr mask and in the centre of the sides with shells, all flanked by scrolling foliage. Cover of green velvet with silver-thread decoration (joined).

Cover of dark green velvet is not original; it has applied metal-thread embroidery which is presumably original to this velvet; the two motifs point inwards from the short sides, and are joined in a front-to-back seam, slightly off-centred. The velvet perhaps comes from some curtains. Metal-thread embroidery does not match that on the bed.
Dimensions
  • Approx., maximum height: 47cm
  • Maximum, at feet width: 66.5cm
  • Of seat (stuffing cover, not the top cover) width: 59.3cm
  • Maximum, at feet depth: 51cm
  • Of seat (stuffing cover, not the top cover) depth: 42.6cm
Credit line
Accepted by HM Government in lieu of Inheritance Tax and allocated to the Victoria and Albert Museum
Summary
On loan to Houghton Hall.
Bibliographic references
  • West, Annabel, Fringe, Frog and Tassel. The Art of the Trimmings-Maker in Interior Decoration in Britain and Ireland (London: Philip Wilson and the National Trust, 2019, ISBN 978 1 78130 075 6), pp. 97-98, fig. 5:13
  • Geoffrey Beard, Upholsterers and Interior Furnishing in England 1530-1840 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997), p. 181.
  • Gill, Kathryn, 'Eighteenth-century close fitting detachable covers preserved at Houghton Hall: A techinical study', in Kathryn Gill and Dinah Eastop eds., Upholstery Conservation Principles and Practice (Oxford, 2001), pp. 133-144.
Collection
Furniture and Woodwork Collection
Accession number
W.50:1-2002

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Record createdApril 30, 2003
Record URL
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O80382/footstool-unknown/
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