A moment in time: The Library

Research, conducted as part of the British and Irish Furniture Makers Online (BIFMO) Digital Research Programme, provides a new way of looking at two spaces within Chatsworth House.

Two detailed watercolour views, capturing the Library (below) and the Great Chamber, have been studied and transformed into a digital resource.

These images provide rare visual evidence of how the rooms were arranged at specific moments in their history. They show furniture, porcelain and textiles in situ, capturing changing taste, use and display within the house. More than decorative views, the watercolours act as detailed historical records of Chatsworth’s interiors.

Introduction

Bright and airy are words one might use to describe the Library at Chatsworth in 1827, shown here in a watercolour by William Henry Hunt.

Sunlight from the east pours through the tall pier windows, each fitted with a bench, bathing the room in morning light. From this elevated retreat, the Library offers a vantage point over the stately gardens, where velvety lawns unfurl towards glimmering sheets of water before dissolving into the woodlands of Stand Wood beyond.

Yet, this atmospheric room did not always serve as a library. As the William Cavendish, the 6th Duke of Devonshire himself recalled in his Handbook, ‘We used to call this the Gallery’. No wonder. The orientation and marvellous outlook of the room made it eminently suited to a Long Gallery: the ideal space for exercise in the most inclement weather. In time, however, as with so many other parts of Chatsworth, the room was reshaped under the hands of the 6th Duke.

To explore the history of the Library, its furnishings, and subsequent reconstruction, hover over the watercolour to identify the objects in the room, then scroll down to learn more.

Folio Cabinets

This mahogany folio cabinet (c. 1735) represents one of four magnificent companions, all bearing the distinctive touch of William Kent.

Kent pioneered the Anglo-Palladian style, designing architecture, furniture, and gardens that delighted Britain’s cultured aristocrats whose Grand Tours had cultivated their eye for continental elegance. His patrons, most notably the 3rd Earl of Burlington, whom he had met whilst studying in Italy between 1709 and 1719, belonged to the highest echelons of society.

Burlington proved a key figure whose heiress would later marry into the Cavendish family. These prominent Whig politicians transformed their grand homes into the ultimate stages for refined taste and intellectual company.

At Houghton Hall for Sir Robert Walpole, and at Chiswick House for the Earl of Burlington, Kent’s furniture flourished, imbued with the cultured sensibilities that defined the grandeur of Georgian society. Walpole praised Kent for having ‘excellent taste for ornaments, and the designs for most of the furniture at Houghton, as he did for several other persons’. To have furniture designed by Kent was to embody the height of 18th-century fashion and status - a dramatic conversational piece intended to stimulate polite discussion and impress the guests received at the country house, whether for a dinner, a house party, or a social gathering.

Kent possessed an eye for extravagant elegance. In his work, there is a clear sense of the mastery of his craft, and his choice over walnut, which reflected the shifting material and political preferences of Georgian England in the 1720s and 1730s. Prior to 1720, Britain depended upon walnut imports from France – a reliance that carried economic and political ramifications. When Walpole, serving as Prime Minister, lifted the tax on mahogany in 1721, these exotic timbers became competitively priced and mahogany swiftly claimed favour amongst craftsmen. The wood ‘enabled crisp, high-quality carving’. This shift also embraced other precious woods such as rosewood, which is also found in the Devonshire Collections in pieces such as card tables.

The folio cabinets remain working pieces of the Library. The back panels are adorned with a double festoon of leaves, a motif that recurs in Kent’s other work, such as the square plinths for the Garden Rooms at Chiswick House (below) – a home also associated with the Devonshires.

The tabletops are inset with red-stencil leather, lending further sophistication and allure to a piece traditionally used to house the books gentlemen collected during their Grand Tours. This cabinet not only displayed the books of a cultured aristocrat but also signified the sociability that made possible such knowledge, travel, collecting, and patronage.

As John, Lord Hervey observed in 1731, the furniture designed by Kent cultivated ‘the floors of taste, expense, state, and parade’. Hunt’s watercolour captured many treasures, yet only this cabinet remains in the room today.

The 19th century brought subtle changes to the piece. Brass grilles now occupy the space once filled by panelled doors adorned with central medallions. Still, it persists as our living connection to history, observing the architectural changes to a fully fitted library under the hands and direction of the 6th Duke.

Images below:
- A Carved Mahogany Folio Cabinet, part of a set of four, William Kent c.1735
- Garden Plinth at Chiswick

François Hervé Giltwood Suite

Supplied in 1783 by François Hervé, active between 1781–1796, to the 5th Duke of Devonshire for his London residence, Devonshire House, this giltwood suite is a fine example of his craftsmanship, made all the more significant given how little is known of his wider career.

Hervé, a renowned joiner of French origin, brought to London an ornamental taste that spoke of continental elegance, marrying the influences of England and France and appealing particularly to the Francophile leanings of the Whig party.

Glimpses of his life in the capital emerge only fleetingly: entries from London Directories of 1790 and 1793, which record a ‘F.Hervé chairmaker’ worked at 32 Johns Street, off Tottenham Court Road. Hervé was known to have supplied furniture to the most fashionable patrons (the Duke of Devonshire, the Prince of Wales, and the Earl Spencer) and thus, such fragments of evidence of his whereabouts lend a certain mystery to the elusive hand behind this glittering suite. Whilst the suite no longer has a place in the Library today, it proudly remains part of the Devonshire Collection.

The suite depicted in Hunt’s watercolour comprises George III giltwood bergères, chairs, and a sofa. In the watercolour, the pieces appear covered in a green silk damask. The suite has since been reupholstered in a modern damask in imitation of that shown in Hunt’s depiction. Only the sofa departs from this scheme, now upholstered in a modern pink cotton/silk brocade that, whilst contemporary, speaks to the enduring adaptability of these exceptional pieces to contemporary decorative fashions.

The seats retain à chassis upholstery system: a thoughtful design that ensured the longevity of these pieces as they are passed down through generations. This ingenious construction allows for seat covers to be changed with the decorative seasons, their backs securing to the frame with short dowels below and brass catches above, removable with ease. Such considerate design reflects the elegant domestic living of the Georgian aristocracy, where even furniture could be adapted to the grand ceremonial cycles of fashionable society.

The chairs epitomise the fashionable craftsmanship for which Hervé became renowned amongst London’s elite. As Ivan Hall notes, the seats can be described as being 'fauteuils à la Reine': a graceful transitional style that dances between the ornate late-Rococo and emerging Neoclassical movements while melding together the finest influences of France and England.

Notice how the back legs splay slightly in the distinctly English manner. The stepped arms are characteristic of the late Rococo period, while they have been overlaid with neoclassical beading and acanthus motifs - a decorative scheme that extends across the serpentine top rail of the oval seat back and frame. Elegant paterae embellish the panelled friezes at each junction where the fluted tapering legs meet the seat frame.

Images below:
- George III Giltwood Chair, François Hervé Mid–1780s
- George III Giltwood Bergére, François Hervé Mid–1780s
- A George III Giltwood Sofa, François Hervé Mid 1780s

Ghiordes Prayer Rug

In the foreground of William Hunt’s watercolour stands a table draped entirely with a rug.

Until the mid 18th century, such carpets were displayed on tables rather than on floors. Recently, this textile has been identified as a ‘Ghiordes Prayer Rug’. Due to its age and condition, it is not displayed on the public route but is preserved and stored in Chatsworth's extensive textile archives.

The striking textile has been identified by two key elements that lend meaning to its production; firstly, seven alternating pale and dark stripes, which are traditionally interpreted as representing the Seven Heavens in Islamic belief, and secondary, directing the gaze to the table’s centre, nestled underneath the Corinthian lamp, there is a glimpse of the colour blue of what resembled a mehrab, or prayer niche.

A similar prayer rug is in the collection of Hardwick Hall. Hunt’s technical attention to detail makes the identification of this object clear, though this does not necessarily indicate prior religious use but perhaps the thriving market in ‘turkie carpetts’ specifically catered to Georgian elite tastes.

Though the precise journey of this remarkable piece into the collection remains shrouded in mystery, as is often the case with historic textiles, it reveals the mind of the 6th Duke as a collector.

The historic library inventories contain no definitive match for this rug, but they do reveal the display practices of the household: ‘a velvet pile table cover, fringe’ and ‘a mahogany stool, on wheels, top covered in carpet’.

Whilst this rug has been identified as a 19th century piece, the Devonshire family has an extensive history of collecting textiles across generations, most famously beginning with Bess of Hardwick.

Bess herself was an accomplished needlewoman and acquired tapestries to furnish her houses. The acquisition of textiles was also part of a wider network of global connection trade; carpets in particular were often referred to as ‘Turkey work’, reflecting their Middle-Eastern origin.

Bess’s son, Henry Cavendish, travelled widely across the Continent, visiting Padua, Venice and later, Constantinople, where he had been sent on a trade expedition by his mother and father-in-law, the Earl of Shrewsbury. There, he would have been able to acquire carpets, sugared wines, spices, and other expensive Eastern goods. Indeed, Bess’s 1601 inventory of Hardwick describes three ‘turkie carpetts’, which have today been tentatively identified within the National Trust’s collection.

Image below:
- Ghiordes Prayer Rug c. 1800–30

Mahogany Dining Chair

Casually positioned, pulled out from beneath the foreground table, stands a George IV dining chair. It is stylistically attributed to the firm Morel & Hughes.

The Devonshire Collection houses a larger suite from this same workshop, originally commissioned for the salon at Devonshire House in London; these pieces remain in use in the Chatsworth Library.

The archives reveal that the 6th Duke delighted in the excellent company found through his patronage of Morel & Hughes. Today, this particular mahogany dining chair resides at the Bolton Abbey Estate, part of the Devonshire ancestral lands that came into the family through the 4th Duke’s marriage to Lady Charlotte Boyle in 1748, the daughter of Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington.

True to aristocratic tradition, furniture circulated among the Devonshire Estates, wherein each piece found new homes as circumstances required.

Crafted from rich mahogany, this chair showcases typical features of a George IV dining chair: a rope twist centre rail with reeded scroll and a padded red leather central panel. The stuff-over seat, upholstered in red leather, rests upon distinctive sabre legs that curve in a Regency manner. Above, a simple rectangular top rail closes the composition, whilst button friezes flank the padded central back panel, adding structure and texture to the reeded frame.

Image below:
- A George IV Mahogany Dining Chair, Robert Hughes 19th century

Learn more about the history of the Library and its transformation by the 6th Duke of Devonshire.