FACTORES DE INFRAESTRUCTURA Y TECNOLOGICOS

Although few of the many surviving eighteenth century English masonic chairs are fully documented, some have attracted the attention of furniture historians and provide important comparisons with Scottish material. The following selection is not comprehensive (and approximately half were made in London) but seeks to illustrate the range and diversity as well as to identify common characteristics. Many of the decorative themes introduced here made their first appearance in England, coming to Scotland only thereafter. Scottish freemasonry was not only under the influence of English freemasonry, however, sharing to some extent in the culture of the trade incorporation. Consequently the Scottish trade incorporation Deacon’s chair is also briefly surveyed.

Perhaps the first masonic furniture in to be made in England was the trio of chairs purchased by the Old Dundee Lodge of London in 1741.68 69 The Master’s chair cost £18 18s. and the two Wardens’ chairs came to £21 but none of the three are known to have survived. Another set of chairs formerly belonging to the South Middlesex Lodge (Figure 10) are dated to around 1730 by Clare Graham although a date in the 1740s is equally likely.70 71 They may be compared with a more advanced, splat-backed trio from Exeter in Figure 11. There is an inscription under the Master’s chair of this set: Daniel Simpson, sculpsit, 1769. Flamboyantly rococo they are considerably more ornate than the South Middlesex chairs and employ a greater number of emblematic details. The arms of the Master’s chair are supported by uprights in the form of Doric columns entwined with vine leaves which, if James Stevens Curl’s conjecture is correct, would have held masonic significance at the time they were made.72 The top rail of the Senior Warden’s chair is incised with lines representing 68

Graham 1994 is valuable together with Joy 1965. Cryer 1989 is not a work of scholarship but suggests many rewarding lines of enquiry.

69 Rose 1949, p.220. 70 Graham 1994, p.112. 71

Hope 1893. Simpson does not appear in DEFM.

72 See Curl 1991, p.103 and plates 64, 65, 121, 125 and IV. Twisted columns were associated with the Temple in Jerusalem from at least 1470 when the illuminator Jean Foucquet depicted the sacking of the Temple by the Romans. Rosenau 1979, p.84. Curls examples are either French or Austrian but the Corinthian canopy built in 1820 to cover the royal throne in the House of Lords, and designed by the freemason John Soane for the freemason George IV, also employed helical foliage. Graham 1994, Figure 66. Finally see Figure 9 above.

Figure 10

Officers’ chairs, South Middlesex Lodge, c. 1730. Victoria and Albert Museum. (Graham 1994)

Daniel Simpson

Officers’ chairs, Freemasons’ Hall, Exeter, 1769. (Hope 1893)

25

rough ashlar masonry, on the Junior Warden’s chair both rough and smooth ashlar, motifs applied with care and appropriate to each officer.73 Across the top of each chair is wound an inscription taken from the works of Horace.

Edward Joy discusses several chairs made in London dating from the 1760s including that in Figure 12, the central back splat of which is taken from a design in Plate XI of the third edition of Chippendale’s Director. The trio of chairs belonging to the Britannic Lodge, Figure 3, are of a particularly vast size, the solid upholstered back adding to the throne-like quality. Gilt carvings of the sun, moon and seven stars protrude from the top of the Master’s chair. (Figure 4.) The fashionable blind fretwork and rococo carving are juxtaposed with classical columns as in the pilasters of the Master’s chair from Exeter and that in Figure 12.

The Master’s chair made in 1789 and subsequently acquired second-hand by the Lodge of Unanimity and Sincerity, Taunton, Figure 14, may have been the first to employ globes as stile finials although the inclusion of celestial and terrestrial globes in Robert Kennett’s Grand Master’s Throne of 1791 probably led to their use on a wide scale thereafter. The Taunton chair was also unusual in that its columnar stiles were carved in the round. Ball finials on a masonic chair should perhaps be taken metaphorically for celestial and terrestrial globes as in the case of Figure 15 made in 1814 by John Connop for the Old Union Lodge, London, or Figure 16 made for the Queen’s Head Lodge, probably around 1770.74 The crocodile motif on the former represents the Deity, a literary allusion to Plutarch’s description of the transparent membrane over its eyes by reason of which it sees and is not seen, as God sees all, Himself not being seen.75

It is notable that several of these columned chairs also include stylobate, entablature and pediment and that the detailing is as accurate as the capitals of the columns. The column shafts in the case of the Britannic Master’s chair, for example, are reeded in the lower third, fluted above. Architectural precision in joinery and cabinet-making was not unusual, of course. The Bishop’s chair in St Paul’s Cathedral, probably made between 1697 and 1699 by John Bernard, displays this use of both reeding and fluting.76 Any furniture maker could turn to an architectural treatise for information on the arrangement of the classical orders and after 1754 these were available in Chippendale’s Director. Bookcases and break-front bureaux were given pilasters and 73

In relation to the rough and smooth ashlar Jones 1956 comments on the passage from the natural, uneducated man to the cultured man, aware of his duty to society.

74 Discussed in Joy 1965. 75 Graham 1988.

Master’s chair, c.1765. Freemasons’ Ha!ls London

Figure 13

J White. Master’s chair, Lodge of Unanimity and Sincerity Taunton. 1807. (Jones 1956)

Master’s chair, Lodge of Unanimity and Sincerity, Taunton, 1789. (Jones 1956)

Figure 15