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Lot Essay
The importance of the Earlshall commission cannot be overstated in the career of Lorimer. It was his good fortune that the first major job that the young architect received was from R.S.Mackenzie, a friend of his parents. Mackenzie was inspired to purchase the dilapidated 16th century castle at Earlshall by the example of the restrained & sympathetic restoration that the Lorimers had carried out at Kellie Castle in the late 1870's, a place that he knew well. Earlshall was only eleven miles from Kellie and had been empty for 70 years. The untried architect was instructed to restore the place, to create a garden & provide some furniture for the castle to go with the antique tapestries and furniture that Mackenzie collected with such passion. The benches & tables are the first pieces of furniture that Lorimer designed for a client and the simplicity of design, the quality of the limed oak and the skill with which they have been made acknowledges the leaning towards the Arts & Crafts that attracted both patron & architect. They were intended for the 'cottage' kitchen in the remodelled south block of the castle with a 'bink' (or long bench) and a collection of Wemyss ware on simple hanging shelves and were illustrated in situ in Laurence Weaver's article for Country Life in 1905 (See Peter Savage, Lorimer and the Edinburgh Craft Designers, Paul Harris, 1980, opp. page 13)
These first essays in furniture design display many of the hallmarks that characterise Lorimer furniture: the emphasis on craftsmanship, simple design (Lorimer commented that three things were of vital importance to an architect 'proportion, proportion and proportion') and timber of the finest grade. The motifs on the frieze are significant: the motif of the trailing vines is matched in the decoration of the Upper Chamber in the south range and influenced by the celebrated plasterwork in the Vine Room at Kellie Castle, a ceiling that inspired & fascinated Lorimer throughout his career. The 'Lorimer' songbirds appear again & again in the oeuvre of the architect, often in relief at the top of mirrors, more rarely inlaid in marquetry and reflect Robert's passionate love of bird song & in particular of the dawn chorus & his belief that listening to bird song in a wood brought him as close to God as listening to music in a cathedral.
Lorimer got on well with Mackenzie, who was eleven years his senior, and had made his fortune in a bleaching firm near Perth and both shared a particular interest in tapestry. His passion was breeding Shetland ponies & his wife bred bloodhounds. He was a freemason & believed that tea & coffee were poisons & drank whisky most of the time.
These first essays in furniture design display many of the hallmarks that characterise Lorimer furniture: the emphasis on craftsmanship, simple design (Lorimer commented that three things were of vital importance to an architect 'proportion, proportion and proportion') and timber of the finest grade. The motifs on the frieze are significant: the motif of the trailing vines is matched in the decoration of the Upper Chamber in the south range and influenced by the celebrated plasterwork in the Vine Room at Kellie Castle, a ceiling that inspired & fascinated Lorimer throughout his career. The 'Lorimer' songbirds appear again & again in the oeuvre of the architect, often in relief at the top of mirrors, more rarely inlaid in marquetry and reflect Robert's passionate love of bird song & in particular of the dawn chorus & his belief that listening to bird song in a wood brought him as close to God as listening to music in a cathedral.
Lorimer got on well with Mackenzie, who was eleven years his senior, and had made his fortune in a bleaching firm near Perth and both shared a particular interest in tapestry. His passion was breeding Shetland ponies & his wife bred bloodhounds. He was a freemason & believed that tea & coffee were poisons & drank whisky most of the time.