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Lot Essay
Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, writer, dilettante and a leading figure in the Picturesque movement, who served as Secretary both to the Board of Manufacturers and the Encouragement of the Fine Arts, in Scotland enjoyed three domaines, an ancient seat at Fountainhill, west of Edinburgh, a 16th Century grange in the city and 'Relugas', his tower near Inverness. 'The Grange' was enlarged in 1830 and Relugas was also expanded, by the architect William H. Playfair (d.1857), renowned for his lively revival of the Tudor, Jacobean or Baronial styles and much favoured by those searching to recreate an architecture which Sir Walter Scott described as 'less Gothic and more in the old fashioned Scotch style'.
In 1824, Sir Thomas Dick Lauder wrote to Sir Walter Scott from Relugas describing with great enthusiasm a pair of hall chairs he had designed.
'I have had two of them executed here for my vestibule, and the arms emblazoned on them in the true tinctures and metals and their effect really exceeds my most sanguine expectations... The idea occured to me of giving the chair somewhat the appearance of the shield and helmet as erected in the chapel previous to a tilting match; ... The front feet of my chairs are made to represent the buts of two tilting lances. Those behind are carried quite through the chair, and elevated to the length of 11 feet... they are terminated with real lance heads of iron and have the proper red silken pennons attached to them, with the crest and motto done in silver on them. The seat, legs and lances, are all made of black bog oak, or the wood stained black. The shields are cut out of Sycamore and the carved helmet and crest are (to use the carpenters language) planted on, and the whole is painted and gilded and silvered properly, according to the heraldic bearings. The moment I had conceived the idea of these chairs, the armoury at Abbotsford crossed my mind, and I bethought me how noble would be the effect of a few of these chairs placed in two rows down the sides of the grand hall of arms, and I resolved to take the liberty of sending you a sketch of one'
Lauder's chairs were last recorded in the entrance hall at the Grange in Edinburgh in 1898 and their present whereabouts is unknown. The link between Lauder's chairs and the present ones, which bear the arms of Alexander Maconochie-Welwood, Lord Meadowbank, is the architect Playfair, who after having worked for Lauder, designed a new porte cochre and entrance hall for Meadowbank in May 1835. It is likely that these chairs were made for the new entrance hall and the arms were re-emblazoned in a quartering granted in 1854, when Alexander assumed the additional surname of Welwood.
In 1824, Sir Thomas Dick Lauder wrote to Sir Walter Scott from Relugas describing with great enthusiasm a pair of hall chairs he had designed.
'I have had two of them executed here for my vestibule, and the arms emblazoned on them in the true tinctures and metals and their effect really exceeds my most sanguine expectations... The idea occured to me of giving the chair somewhat the appearance of the shield and helmet as erected in the chapel previous to a tilting match; ... The front feet of my chairs are made to represent the buts of two tilting lances. Those behind are carried quite through the chair, and elevated to the length of 11 feet... they are terminated with real lance heads of iron and have the proper red silken pennons attached to them, with the crest and motto done in silver on them. The seat, legs and lances, are all made of black bog oak, or the wood stained black. The shields are cut out of Sycamore and the carved helmet and crest are (to use the carpenters language) planted on, and the whole is painted and gilded and silvered properly, according to the heraldic bearings. The moment I had conceived the idea of these chairs, the armoury at Abbotsford crossed my mind, and I bethought me how noble would be the effect of a few of these chairs placed in two rows down the sides of the grand hall of arms, and I resolved to take the liberty of sending you a sketch of one'
Lauder's chairs were last recorded in the entrance hall at the Grange in Edinburgh in 1898 and their present whereabouts is unknown. The link between Lauder's chairs and the present ones, which bear the arms of Alexander Maconochie-Welwood, Lord Meadowbank, is the architect Playfair, who after having worked for Lauder, designed a new porte cochre and entrance hall for Meadowbank in May 1835. It is likely that these chairs were made for the new entrance hall and the arms were re-emblazoned in a quartering granted in 1854, when Alexander assumed the additional surname of Welwood.