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| The Erddig Bookcase | |||||||||||
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We were enchanted by this refined pair of open bookcases in the drawing room at Erddig. They appear to be of pure late eighteenth century design with more than a little influence from Hepplewhite and Sheraton. The brass square toe castors, the diminutive size and the brass lifting handles all emphasise their intended mobility. The receding shelves add to this look of graceful delicacy. Being made from yew tree makes them especially unusual and delightfully provincial and as such, perhaps later than the design suggests? In fact…much later! Louisa M. Yorke (the last chatelaine of Erddig), in her 1924 journal entitled ‘Facts and Fancies at Erthig on the Dyke’, recorded them as having been ‘made for the Misses Yorke about 1894, from their own designs’. This is not really surprising… By the end of the nineteenth century, tastes in furniture were beginning to move towards the simpler more elegant lines of the late eighteenth century… a trend clearly apparent in the ‘Edwardian’ period. So, it might be fair to conclude that Etheldred and Agneta Yorke played their part in sustaining ‘British taste’ by commissioning these most pleasing examples of early ‘reproductions’!
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