Rare and Documented Pair of Charles II Long Joined Oak Benches, c. 1674

Each having a single-board top with square-rounded edge and applied under-edge molding, the plain rails with applied lower edge molding on eight elegant baluster-turned legs, joined by capped stretchers on turned feet.

Provenance:

These benches formed part of a set of at least eight benches furnishing the refectory of the Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers, London, that was formed in 1403, receiving its royal charter from Queen Mary I in 1557.
An identical bench that remains at the Stationers Company bears a label reading “This bench was one of those supplied in 1674 by Mr. Coffen for use with the refectory tables, also still in the hall.”
The Stationers Company moved to its present location when it purchased Abergavenny House from the widow of the Earl of Pembroke in 1606, acquiring the freehold in 1611. Destroyed by the Great Fire of London in 1666 the premises were rebuilt between 1670 and 1673 and exist in the same form today.
Documentation remains in the archives for many of the furnishings including invoices in 1674 for screens and woodwork by the carpenter Henry Ford who may actually have produced the present benches. Further woodwork was invoiced in 1676 by the joiner Stephen Colledge. Despite the label identifying Mr. Coffen he has not been recorded in other sources.

Literature:

Recorded in a lithograph by Thomas Robert Way (1861-1913) in Philip Norman’s “The Ancient Halls of the City Guilds” (1910).  Also recorded in F. Litchfield “Illustrated History of Furniture: From the Earliest to the Present Time” (1893).

English, Charles II, 1674

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