Furnishings of distinction

David Jones explains the significance of the furniture at Blair Castle in Perthshire and reveals his recent discoveries relating to this outstanding 18th-century ensemble

- David Jones

THE furniture collection at Blair Castle is remarkable for several reasons, not least the turbulent circumstances in which the ambitious mid-18th-century furnishing programme took place. A twoweek siege by Jacobite forces had hardly come to an end in April 1746, when James, 2nd Duke of Atholl, resumed his orders for furniture from notable cabinetmakers. He was in the middle of planning new state rooms and had begun to buy furniture on a large scale in the early 1740s.

The resulting aesthetic transformation changed the castle from an antiquated fortalice into a modern and sophisticated Highland palace, involving major refitting of the interior and the employment of an impressive roll call of furniture makers, including Thomas Chippendale the Elder, George Cole (Fig 2), James Cullen, John Gordon, William Masters, John Schaw and George Sandeman. Most of their bills, dating from between 1746 and 1770, survive, which makes this period of improvement one of the best-documented schemes of patronage in 18th-century Britain.

The furniture of this and the later period of 1770–1820 is understandably eclectic, reflecting changes in fashion and the differing tastes of successive dukes. Overriding this variety, a unifying strand is apparent: the use of unusual and sometimes unique cabinet woods, mostly from resources available locally on the Atholl estates.