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.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
