The Renaissance - England - Part 4

The panelling of the great halls of the early Tudor period displays these formal linenfold patterns and much of it bears evidence of the influence of a new breed of craftsmen who were being imported from the Continent to teach their English brothers. Peaceful times in England and the growth of domestic refinement required more comfortable surroundings. Royalty had its sumptuous palaces at Windsor and Richmond while elsewhere, feudal castles had given way to mansions which found ready employment for foreign craftsmen, artists and woodcarvers.

In Henry VIII's reign a traditional carving style which was a mixture of both Gothic and classical Renaissance was employed. A notable example of this transitional movement can be seen in the woodwork of King's College Chapel, Cambridge. Superb examples of the newly invigorated woodcarvers' skills can also be seen in the Great Hall at Hampton Court. The roof and choir stools of Henry VII's chapel at Westminster Abbey are rich in the new art. Later the Elizabethan carvers took the ribbon decoration of the French and the intricately laced strapwork of the Flemish, and combined them with grotesque figurework - creatures that were half human, half monster - in a distinctive style adapted from foreign ideas.

Italian influence was strong, both directly and indirectly (through movements from the Low Countries, where Italian Renaissance seeds had been quick to flower). In mid-Elizabethen times the country benefited from the flight of Antwerp merchants and their attendant craftsmen who were suffering at the hands of the Duke of Parma.
In Southwark Cathedral, London, there stands a magnificent treasure which owes its existence to the European influx into England during the 16th century. Not only is it yet another example of the church's part in handmade furniture development, but if offers a rare opportunity to examine a piece which represents an important landmark in case furniture design; the transition from the lidded box to the chest of drawers as a storage unit.

What had begun as the Church of St Mary Overie in 1106, probably on the site of an earlier religious establishment, became in 1540 the parish church of St Saviour, and in 1905 the Cathedral of Southwark. In 1588 the church received from Hugh Offley, Lord Mayor of London, and his father-in-law, Richard Harding, a piece of non fitted furniture, an oak chest which stands 99cm high and 198cm wide. The architecturally representative decoration in coloured wood on the front gives the chest its name - Nonsuch.
Nonsuch chests, many of which were made in southern England in the mid to late 16th century, are so named from a corruption of Toto del Nunziata, an Italian artist who was responsible for designs from which Henry VIII had a palace built at Cheam in Surrey. Late 16th century Nonsuch chests usually bore a resemblance in their decoration to the palace's appearance as depicted in contemporary illustrations. The Southwark piece is so decorated and it is believed to have been the work of German immigrant craftsmen, to whom similar chests have also been attributed.

The Southwark chest is on an arcaded stand of probably later date and sports characteristic subsidiary decoration of floral arabesques. But what sets it apart as the harbinger of a new and exciting development in case furniture is the existence of three small drawers in its lower portion. It is without doubt an extremely early example of a chest with drawers, although it is not claimed to be the first or even among the first such examples. Nevertheless chests with drawers did not become common in England for a decade or two after Offley and Harding made their presentation to the church.