Charlotte Hamilton (5.20.07)
Furniture Monologue
When I was a young child there existed in my grandfather’s house a pair of chairs. These were placed either side of the long low sideboard and but for one small detail were identical. Even at an early age I recognised their uniqueness. I knew instinctively that there was something special about them, but without being able to say just what. I have an early memory of sitting, or rather wriggling and fidgeting as I tried to settle, my feet did not touch the floor and whatever else they were they were not comfortable for reasons that will be revealed.
These chairs are now in my parent’s home, separated from each other, due to lack of sufficient space to place them together, which I think is a great pity.
A few years ago, they made an appearance on the BBC Antique’s Road show, and for the first time my parents and I learnt a little of their origins. It is perhaps a failing on my part, that though they have been a source of fascination for more than half a century, I am unable to recall with a hundred percent accuracy all the minute details and intricacies of their design, just sufficient for you to conjure up, I hope, a picture in your minds eye.
I have altered the era, but the location remains the same.
Ghent 1540
Once I was a tree. Tall and straight, rooted in the soil of Ghent, part of the landscape, each year growIng stronger, reaching for the sky.
Breughalesque villagers made merry in my shade, bonnets and skirts swirling, ale flowing, dancing and feasting and young lovers made love beneath my spreading summer branches.
So I stood year upon year witness to the passing seasons.
My branches shook – a searing pain ripped through my very being, another, and another. My strength ebbing with every blow.
Felled….stripped…abandoned. Seasons changed.
Summer breezes fluttered over my nakedness. Winter snow chilled me to the core. Seasons changed. The essence of my being, my chi, my life force fading with each setting of the sun.
Though old and wizened, I sensed the strength in his hands. A powerful energy, tangible, stirred something from deep within my core. A slow resinous tear oozed and trickled, as if in gratitude, coursing down my nakedness, halted by his outstretched finger. Tenderly he wiped it away. My saviour.
The fire crackled, filling the room with warmth and the fragrance of distant pine forests. Between the firelight and the meagre light from the candle, he poured over his drawings, spread across the table. ‘Morgen wij begin.’ He murmured, his voice thick and low.
The days lengthened, but as the shape of his days remained unchanged so my shape began to change. From early morning till the setting of the sun he worked diligently, barely stopping to eat a hunk of bread and cheese and drink a tankard of ale.
My arms grew thick and strong, the grain, like veins, long and straight.
My legs bowed and bent, my back, broad , my seat, vacant, empty.
My rudimentary skeletal form, rude and rustic, plain and unpolished.
As the days turned into weeks and the weeks became months, my metamorphosis continued. I was planed and sanded, carved and gouged, smoothed and polished. I belonged to no ‘school’, for my saviour, my creator was rich in original ideas that conformed to no particular aesthetic. Out of my plainness emerged an abundance of fantasy. I was both monstrous and delicate, conflicting contradictory elements, a vision of brooding Gothic horror.
As if in anticipation of the ample weight of the Burgers of Ghent that I would bear, my legs thrust squarely outward. I am multi talonted. Feet that are large and heavy end in wretched talons that curve like scimitars with malicious intent, they sink into the soft roundness of the orbs they clasp. I am a Renaissance prototype for the ball and claw designs of the future.
My staves writhe with an entanglement of leaves and vines, demonic faces, caught in the tracery, peer out, ears like bat wings, eyes, narrow, suspicious. I hear the soft hissing of their words as they whisper to each other. Malice crawls from between their evil lips.
The curve of my seat is wide and deep, an appropriate shape for the wide posteriors that will sit thereon in my future. Rich brown leather, cut and shaped is held in place with a row of bright, shiny domed tacks. The leather creaks and gives a little as it receives the weight of his rotund rump. He’s not a very big man, but heavy, like me short and squat. He plants his feet firmly apart and leans back, placing his arms over mine.
His arms are pale, never seeing much of the pale northern sun, yet powerful, ending with large hands and dexterous fingers. By contrast my arms are a rich brown, smooth where his are sinewy, but strong and solid. In place of hands, my arms end in large knobbly arthritic stumps – ugly – bony, they curl back on themselves, like some poor leper, or unfortunate amputee. I am stumped.
My arms flow into my back, with an upward curve ending in finely turned finials – dainty – delicate. A row or spindles like a horizontal spine dainty –delicate, spans across my back, in sharp contrast to my overall pedantic frame.
I am almost complete.
Above this row of spindles, into the centre of the uppermost part of my back, My creator has carved, maybe as a final act of vanity ,his likeness into an egg sized oval. It is him, but it’s the him of bygone years, before he became fat and rubicund. This face is thin, the face of an aesthete, intelligent eyes, long straight nose, smiling lips framed in a small pointed beard, no resemblance to the man of the moment. As a bas relief stands proud from its surround so does his mini portrait. It is so artfully placed as to be a reminder to whoever sits ensconced, regardless of age or build. There is an unreachable spot inaccessible to all but those with the most flexible of arms, midway between the shoulder blades. Lean back in me, and the beard of a young Meinheer Nicolaes van Zegherscappel of Ghent will hit the spot - the G spot.
Down the years I have been well cared for by a series of rich owners, as my patina, now honed to that of a shiny brown conker, straight from its prickly casing shows. At first I stood in the palace of Emperor Charles V of Habsburg, he carted me off to his villa next to the monastery in Yuste, in Spain after he abdicated. The warm Spanish sun filled me with a new contentment, even the whispering demons stayed quiet. He spent his last years there worshipping God, eating heavily, listening to music and dismantling and assembling old clocks. Monks from the monastery would visit, quaff wine, yet never unbend sufficiently to sit in me in anything but straight backed, as though I was a test of their monastic discipline.
To mention all my illustrious owners would be a tedious catalogue of name dropping, suffice to say I can number painters and musicians among those whose bottoms I have housed. My likeness has been captured by the great master himself (Rubens (1577 – 1640) I am an ideal subject, I have an infinite capacity for stillness, I do not fidget, like the sitters he paints.
Centuries past, the rhythm of my days unchanged, yet boredom was something I seldom experienced. Astonishing then as it might seem one fine day I was polished and packed, stowed and shipped, arriving unscathed, having found my sea legs a day out of port. I did not care for the rough hands of the men who handled me. Course, insensitive ruffians. I do not want to remember the details of what happened next. Instead I will recall a pleasanter memory. The day I was brought to the home of he who was to be my penultimate owner. Far removed from the low country, I was now in a land that I heard called the Black Country, though why or how this was so called I was never able to comprehend. Certainly the people who came to the house, were not black, they were as white and pale as my creator. There was plenty to amuse and interest. It appeared that my new owner was a man of some wealth who had a taste for the unusual. I soon adjusted to my new surroundings and soon fell into conversation with the sideboard, a construction of truly monumental proportions, its back, ornately carved with wild life flying and resting amidst an abundance of flora and fauna, surpassed the plate rail, laden with pewter plates and flagons, ended within inches of the ceiling. I recognized his uniqueness, never in all my existence and travels had I ever looked upon something so extraordinary.
Into this normally quiet and calm home, there bounced one day, a small girl, plaits flying. Her fingers tickled as they lightly moved over me, seeking out all the intricacies of my ornament. There was not an inch of me left untouched. This was no mere childish inquisitiveness; she examined me with a thoroughness I had never previously experienced save perhaps from my creator, but that was long ago. Finally satisfied that her examination was complete, she climbed in, wriggled, to left and right, then lent back. Mineheer’s beard did the trick and she was out of the chair in a flash. I heard her complaint as she sought refuge in the sideboard cupboard. She never failed to come to me whenever she visited.
More than half a century has passed since then. If the woman who was that little girl gets her wish, then my future is secure, but if the tide of decision is against her wish, then my future may be precarious, for he who may become my next owner, cares nothing for me. I never held the same fascination for him. He will sell me and spend the proceeds.
Until my next home is determined I stand four square on my robust feet, warmth from the radiator at my back seeps into my being bringing comfort in my old age. It is good to be warm. I have intermittent converse with the hall table opposite, a reproduction of the Jacobean period, (from the same home as myself- an aberration of taste I believe) nice, but lacks true breeding. I was born in the Age of the Carpenter, when furniture making bore the characteristics of the craftsman. I lived through the Ages of the Cabinet maker and much later the Age of the Designer. Now is the Age of the Flat Pack, I shiver to my very timbers when I consider what this might be, for I have had no experience of this , but have overheard things I would rather not contemplate.
I’ve lost count of the bottoms that have sat in me, none of them ever sat for long, declaring me to be uncomfortable, yet I held, still hold, a curious fascination for anyone who looks upon me.
By turns ugly, and refined
I am an enigma - an existentialist conundrum on legs.
When I was a young child there existed in my grandfather’s house a pair of chairs. These were placed either side of the long low sideboard and but for one small detail were identical. Even at an early age I recognised their uniqueness. I knew instinctively that there was something special about them, but without being able to say just what. I have an early memory of sitting, or rather wriggling and fidgeting as I tried to settle, my feet did not touch the floor and whatever else they were they were not comfortable for reasons that will be revealed.
These chairs are now in my parent’s home, separated from each other, due to lack of sufficient space to place them together, which I think is a great pity.
A few years ago, they made an appearance on the BBC Antique’s Road show, and for the first time my parents and I learnt a little of their origins. It is perhaps a failing on my part, that though they have been a source of fascination for more than half a century, I am unable to recall with a hundred percent accuracy all the minute details and intricacies of their design, just sufficient for you to conjure up, I hope, a picture in your minds eye.
I have altered the era, but the location remains the same.
Ghent 1540
Once I was a tree. Tall and straight, rooted in the soil of Ghent, part of the landscape, each year growIng stronger, reaching for the sky.
Breughalesque villagers made merry in my shade, bonnets and skirts swirling, ale flowing, dancing and feasting and young lovers made love beneath my spreading summer branches.
So I stood year upon year witness to the passing seasons.
My branches shook – a searing pain ripped through my very being, another, and another. My strength ebbing with every blow.
Felled….stripped…abandoned. Seasons changed.
Summer breezes fluttered over my nakedness. Winter snow chilled me to the core. Seasons changed. The essence of my being, my chi, my life force fading with each setting of the sun.
Though old and wizened, I sensed the strength in his hands. A powerful energy, tangible, stirred something from deep within my core. A slow resinous tear oozed and trickled, as if in gratitude, coursing down my nakedness, halted by his outstretched finger. Tenderly he wiped it away. My saviour.
The fire crackled, filling the room with warmth and the fragrance of distant pine forests. Between the firelight and the meagre light from the candle, he poured over his drawings, spread across the table. ‘Morgen wij begin.’ He murmured, his voice thick and low.
The days lengthened, but as the shape of his days remained unchanged so my shape began to change. From early morning till the setting of the sun he worked diligently, barely stopping to eat a hunk of bread and cheese and drink a tankard of ale.
My arms grew thick and strong, the grain, like veins, long and straight.
My legs bowed and bent, my back, broad , my seat, vacant, empty.
My rudimentary skeletal form, rude and rustic, plain and unpolished.
As the days turned into weeks and the weeks became months, my metamorphosis continued. I was planed and sanded, carved and gouged, smoothed and polished. I belonged to no ‘school’, for my saviour, my creator was rich in original ideas that conformed to no particular aesthetic. Out of my plainness emerged an abundance of fantasy. I was both monstrous and delicate, conflicting contradictory elements, a vision of brooding Gothic horror.
As if in anticipation of the ample weight of the Burgers of Ghent that I would bear, my legs thrust squarely outward. I am multi talonted. Feet that are large and heavy end in wretched talons that curve like scimitars with malicious intent, they sink into the soft roundness of the orbs they clasp. I am a Renaissance prototype for the ball and claw designs of the future.
My staves writhe with an entanglement of leaves and vines, demonic faces, caught in the tracery, peer out, ears like bat wings, eyes, narrow, suspicious. I hear the soft hissing of their words as they whisper to each other. Malice crawls from between their evil lips.
The curve of my seat is wide and deep, an appropriate shape for the wide posteriors that will sit thereon in my future. Rich brown leather, cut and shaped is held in place with a row of bright, shiny domed tacks. The leather creaks and gives a little as it receives the weight of his rotund rump. He’s not a very big man, but heavy, like me short and squat. He plants his feet firmly apart and leans back, placing his arms over mine.
His arms are pale, never seeing much of the pale northern sun, yet powerful, ending with large hands and dexterous fingers. By contrast my arms are a rich brown, smooth where his are sinewy, but strong and solid. In place of hands, my arms end in large knobbly arthritic stumps – ugly – bony, they curl back on themselves, like some poor leper, or unfortunate amputee. I am stumped.
My arms flow into my back, with an upward curve ending in finely turned finials – dainty – delicate. A row or spindles like a horizontal spine dainty –delicate, spans across my back, in sharp contrast to my overall pedantic frame.
I am almost complete.
Above this row of spindles, into the centre of the uppermost part of my back, My creator has carved, maybe as a final act of vanity ,his likeness into an egg sized oval. It is him, but it’s the him of bygone years, before he became fat and rubicund. This face is thin, the face of an aesthete, intelligent eyes, long straight nose, smiling lips framed in a small pointed beard, no resemblance to the man of the moment. As a bas relief stands proud from its surround so does his mini portrait. It is so artfully placed as to be a reminder to whoever sits ensconced, regardless of age or build. There is an unreachable spot inaccessible to all but those with the most flexible of arms, midway between the shoulder blades. Lean back in me, and the beard of a young Meinheer Nicolaes van Zegherscappel of Ghent will hit the spot - the G spot.
Down the years I have been well cared for by a series of rich owners, as my patina, now honed to that of a shiny brown conker, straight from its prickly casing shows. At first I stood in the palace of Emperor Charles V of Habsburg, he carted me off to his villa next to the monastery in Yuste, in Spain after he abdicated. The warm Spanish sun filled me with a new contentment, even the whispering demons stayed quiet. He spent his last years there worshipping God, eating heavily, listening to music and dismantling and assembling old clocks. Monks from the monastery would visit, quaff wine, yet never unbend sufficiently to sit in me in anything but straight backed, as though I was a test of their monastic discipline.
To mention all my illustrious owners would be a tedious catalogue of name dropping, suffice to say I can number painters and musicians among those whose bottoms I have housed. My likeness has been captured by the great master himself (Rubens (1577 – 1640) I am an ideal subject, I have an infinite capacity for stillness, I do not fidget, like the sitters he paints.
Centuries past, the rhythm of my days unchanged, yet boredom was something I seldom experienced. Astonishing then as it might seem one fine day I was polished and packed, stowed and shipped, arriving unscathed, having found my sea legs a day out of port. I did not care for the rough hands of the men who handled me. Course, insensitive ruffians. I do not want to remember the details of what happened next. Instead I will recall a pleasanter memory. The day I was brought to the home of he who was to be my penultimate owner. Far removed from the low country, I was now in a land that I heard called the Black Country, though why or how this was so called I was never able to comprehend. Certainly the people who came to the house, were not black, they were as white and pale as my creator. There was plenty to amuse and interest. It appeared that my new owner was a man of some wealth who had a taste for the unusual. I soon adjusted to my new surroundings and soon fell into conversation with the sideboard, a construction of truly monumental proportions, its back, ornately carved with wild life flying and resting amidst an abundance of flora and fauna, surpassed the plate rail, laden with pewter plates and flagons, ended within inches of the ceiling. I recognized his uniqueness, never in all my existence and travels had I ever looked upon something so extraordinary.
Into this normally quiet and calm home, there bounced one day, a small girl, plaits flying. Her fingers tickled as they lightly moved over me, seeking out all the intricacies of my ornament. There was not an inch of me left untouched. This was no mere childish inquisitiveness; she examined me with a thoroughness I had never previously experienced save perhaps from my creator, but that was long ago. Finally satisfied that her examination was complete, she climbed in, wriggled, to left and right, then lent back. Mineheer’s beard did the trick and she was out of the chair in a flash. I heard her complaint as she sought refuge in the sideboard cupboard. She never failed to come to me whenever she visited.
More than half a century has passed since then. If the woman who was that little girl gets her wish, then my future is secure, but if the tide of decision is against her wish, then my future may be precarious, for he who may become my next owner, cares nothing for me. I never held the same fascination for him. He will sell me and spend the proceeds.
Until my next home is determined I stand four square on my robust feet, warmth from the radiator at my back seeps into my being bringing comfort in my old age. It is good to be warm. I have intermittent converse with the hall table opposite, a reproduction of the Jacobean period, (from the same home as myself- an aberration of taste I believe) nice, but lacks true breeding. I was born in the Age of the Carpenter, when furniture making bore the characteristics of the craftsman. I lived through the Ages of the Cabinet maker and much later the Age of the Designer. Now is the Age of the Flat Pack, I shiver to my very timbers when I consider what this might be, for I have had no experience of this , but have overheard things I would rather not contemplate.
I’ve lost count of the bottoms that have sat in me, none of them ever sat for long, declaring me to be uncomfortable, yet I held, still hold, a curious fascination for anyone who looks upon me.
By turns ugly, and refined
I am an enigma - an existentialist conundrum on legs.
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