DRAWING ROOM
The smaller of two principal rooms on the first floor is the Drawing Room with its complex coffered ceiling and walls hung in a green cotton Damask. At the centre of the ceiling is an emblematic female figure representing Friendship set within an elaborate pattern of interlacing scrolls and foliage.
Most of the furniture in this room is made of walnut and pre-dates the period of the house by 50-70 years. There are two exceptional cabinets on stands: the one with the elaborate 'seaweed' marquetry and the vigorous S-shaped legs dates from around 1695, which may have been made by the royal cabinet-maker Gerard Jensen (fl. 1680-1699), was originally in the collection of the Dukes of Buckingham, while the floral marquetry cabinet on the barley-twist legs (c.1700) is exquisitely veneered with a variety of fruit woods representing flowers and stained ivory used for the leaves. Dominating one side of the room is a double-domed bureau cabinet, c.1710, which contains a large number of ingenious secret drawers. The small gaming table in the centre of the room (c.1810) is made of Sabicu, a far eastern timber, and may have been made in the East Indies (modern Indonesia). The top can be converted to play chess or backgammon, both games that may well have been played by the Viscount and his close male friends as they relaxed in this room.
The pictures in the Drawing Room include Philip Mercier's portrait of Anne's mother Lady Mary Fairfax and a modern copy by Thomas Ramos (1989) of a portrait by an unknown artist of Charles Gregory, 9th Viscount Fairfax. The original of this painting is now in a private collection in the United States. There is also a portrait of Thomas Herring, who was Archbishop of York 1743-47 and subsequently Archbishop of Canterbury, and a painting of a late seventeenth-century gentleman called Mr Tregeagle who sports a fashionable 'Steenkirk' cravat.
The Chinese export ceramics in the Drawing Room are all of the 'famille verte' period and some feature episodes from the popular early fourteenth-century Chinese novel, The Romance of the Western Chamber.
When for much of the twentieth century Fairfax House was used as a cinema and dancehall this room formed part of a large ballroom which stretched across the entire width of the house. The wall dividing it from the adjacent Saloon was demolished to provide a large uninterrupted space, but fortunately steel beams were inserted to support the ceilings, which were left largely undamaged and were successfully restored in the 1980s by the York Civic Trust.
MORE ABOUT THE DRAWING ROOM
Chest on Stand
An imposing floral marquetry chest, c.1700, standing on barley-twist legs, with a fall-front writing top, meant to be used whilst standing up.
Category: Furniture
Double Dome Cabinet
As seen on BBC's Flog It programme. A double dome cabinet, walnut (veneer); oak; pine (carcass); parcel-gilt brass, English, c.1710.
Category: Furniture
Portrait of Mary Palmer
A portrait of the favourite niece of Sir Joshua Reynolds.
Category: Paintings
Stuccowork - 'Friendship'
The image of the barefoot, partly clad woman symbolizing the virtue of friendship is taken from Iconologia, a popular pattern book by Cesare Ripa.
Category: Architectural feature
