Domestic furnishing in early modern Scotland
A taste for London-made furnishings was satisfied by new workshops in Edinburgh, including the making of cane backed and seated chairs by William Scott,[5] by James Leblanc of the Canongate who made looking-glasses, and Sarah Dalrymple who painted furniture in the Japan style.
Marc Ellington collected furniture at Towie Barclay,[15] including an early Scottish cupboard or dresser dated 1613, now displayed at the V&A Dundee.
[16] The National Museum of Scotland has a well-known chair, a Scottish caquetoire, with the initials and star heraldry of Annabell Murray, Countess of Mar.
[20] Furniture in rural, Highland, or vernacular use was collected by Isabel Grant, George 'Taffy' Davidson, Jean Maitland of Burnside, Forfar, and Margaret Michie.
In 1578 Margaret Kennedy, Countess of Cassilis discussed the design or "fassone" of a laich bed with her daughter, asking her to get one made of pine wood for £3 Scots.
Colin Campbell of Glenorchy and Katherine Ruthven owned a valance (an embroidered strip running around the top of the bed curtains) depicting Adam and Eve, with their initials.
Inventories of furnishings and beds consigned to charge of her wardrobe servant Servais de Condé at Holyrood Palace in September and November 1561, written in the Scots Language may include such items.
[45] Mary almost suffocated at Stirling Castle when a candle set her bed curtains and "tester", as the English diplomat Thomas Randolph called her canopy or head-cloth, on fire.
[46] A French poet, Chastelard, was found on 14 February 1563, St Valentine's day hiding in Mary's chamber under her Great Bed at Rossend Castle at Burntisland in Fife.
[47] Mary's half-brother, James Stewart, then Earl of Mar owned a "standing bed" of oak made by a man called Schange in 1562.
[57] When Lord Darnley arrived at the Provost's Lodging at Kirk o'Field in February 1567, Mary asked Servais de Condé to provide tapestry hangings for the chamber and a new bed of black figured velvet.
He spoke to a lady in waiting Madame de Bryant, and noticed her talking privately with James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, who was concealed behind a curtain.
[65] A carved walnut bed from Dunfermline Palace, thought to have belonged to Anne of Denmark, was transferred to an inn in the town, and was later dismantled to embellish a fireplace at nearby Broomhall House.
[66] In 1760 the antiquarian Richard Pococke saw this bed at the inn and described it, seeing in the carvings of caryatid figures of a men and women emblems of fidelity and benevolence.
Colin Campbell of Glenorchy (died 1640) employed a silk weaver from Antwerp, Nicolas Herman, who had set up his workshop in Perth, to make passementerie for his beds at Balloch.
[98] Marie Stewart, Countess of Mar countersigned an inventory for Brechin Castle which records that three of two dozen great pewter charger plates were stolen during the royal visit in May 1617.
Annabell Murray, Countess of Mar (died 1603) left a legacy to Janet Scobie and to the three women who worked in the womanhouse with her, and to the lavendar (laundress).
The Countess of Mar also left a legacy to her servant Jonet Patersoune, who was a kind of still-room assistant, of "the whole drugs extant in my possession the time of decease together with my whole stillitoures, glasses, leam (earthenware) pots, and other furniture pertaining thereto".
Another canopy of yellow shot silk taffeta for a stool of ease was used to furnish Lord Darnley's lodging at the Kirk o'Field and destroyed in the explosion.
[105] Her secretary Claude Nau described Mary talking to the Countess of Huntly about their plans to escape from Holyroodhouse after the murder of David Rizzio, while she was sitting on her close stool or chaise percée.
At Stirling Castle, in 1585, the king's "own hall" contained five pieces of tapestry with a dais (cloth of estate) of red damask fringed with gold, a cupboard, and a hanging chandelier of timber.
Four pieces of the Hunts of the Unicorn were displayed in another room in 1578, and this suite was recreated by Historic Environment Scotland and weavers in association with West Dean College.
[113] An Edinburgh merchant bought tapestries for Cawdor Castle in 1682, and they were carried from Oudenarde to Ghent and shipped to Dysart, to Leith, and finally to Findhorn.
[117] Servais de Condé worked in Holyrood Palace for Mary, Queen of Scots in September 1561 lining a cabinet room with 26 ells of a fabric called "Paris Green".
[120] The wealthy merchant John Clerk settled at Newbiggin House at Penicuik, and in 1665 ordered striped wall hangings from a weaver working in Edinburgh's Canongate, James Crommie or Crombie.
[124] In the early 19th-century these "Stirling Heads" were dispersed among several collectors, and were drawn and published by Jane Ferrier (1767-1846) and Edward Blore with a list of the owners in Lacunar Strevelinse (Edinburgh, 1817).
[125] Carved roundels with the coats of arms of Mary of Guise, Henry II of France, and Regent Arran decorated a house in Blythe's Close on the Castlehill, the upper stretch of the Royal Mile, in Edinburgh.
[131] According to an inventory of furniture and fixtures taken from the house of William Hamilton of Sanquhar, an associate of Regent Arran and Captain of Edinburgh Castle, in 1559 his woodwork was carved in the "courtly manner", and he had eight doors "with fine and raised work of the most recent and curious fashion used within the realm".
[143] The earliest surviving business records made by a Scottish furniture maker are 17th-century accounts and invoices drafted in a minute book of the Perth craft incorporation held by the National Library of Scotland.
[144] Tapestry and wall hangings were complemented by painted friezes and ceilings, by artists including Walter Binning, Valentine Jenkin, and the Warkman family.
