National Trust Collections continue to grow, reflecting our evolving awareness of the cultural significance of our properties to our members and audiences. A pair of hall chairs acquired recently for Franklin House illustrate a Georgian approach of creating a sense of arrival.
A pair of mahogany hall chairs acquired recently for Franklin House illustrate a Georgian approach of creating a sense of arrival. Colonial publican and speculative builder, Britton Jones, built Franklin House with an Ionic portico. The back of the house is chamingly informal and vernacular. This contrast between front and back-of-house was often cheerfully dismissed as ‘Queen Anne’ (i.e. fit for royalty) and ‘Mary Anne’, a popular name amongst servants.
Hall chairs always had timber seats and backs and were notoriously uncomfortable to deter servants or unwanted guests remaining in the hall. According to Georgian convention, halls were treated as an extension of the house’s exterior architecture, hence wall treatments resembling marble blocks (in paint or wallpaper), tile pattern oil cloths (rather than carpets) and ‘architectural’ furniture that was not upholstered. Franklin House’s Hall chairs are neoclassical in design. They pick up the theme of Franklin House’s Ionic portico and bring it inside.
The design for the Franklin House hall chairs was published in John Claudius Loudon’s Encyclopaedia of Cottage Farm and Villa Architecture and Furniture, London, various editions 1833-1869. J. C. Loudon was a prolific publisher of books and magazines on domestic and garden design, aimed at Britain’s burgeoning middle class. His publications were owned by Tasmanians (such as Lady Franklin) and held in Tasmanian lending libraries. Local makers copied Loudon’s furniture designs in local materials such as Australian red cedar. A pair of Sydney examples is illustrated in Fahy & Simpson’s Australian Furniture – A Pictorial History and Dictionary 1788-1938 (Sydney, Casuarina Press, 1997) plate 143.
The back of each chair is carved with a central anthemion motif (a Classical Greek motif based on the honeysuckle vine) flanked by elaborate scrolls with lotus decoration. The rear legs are outswept (i.e. sabre legs), another detail copied from Classical Greek sculpture. The backs of each of the Franklin House chairs has a recessed cartouche where a coat or arms or crest (whether bestowed by the College of Arms or made up by the owner) may have been painted.
By all means come to a Franklin House event. You could channel Goldilocks and try them out.
