hidden in plain view
1779 Shenstone-Green; or, the New Paradise Lost mocks ‘Lord George Gildcover’, who ‘hath the largest library of wooden books I ever saw. Remarkable for having the best imitations of leather bindings in England’. In Mary Meeke’s 1800 Anecdotes of the Altamont Family Lord Fitzarran gives express instructions for his library, ‘fearful the good man would fob me o V with wooden books’. 18 The majority of Trust examples date from the first half of the nineteenth century, by which time the library jib door decorated with false books was very much de rigueur . There are early nineteenth century examples at Tatton Park, Cheshire, by Lewis William Wyatt (executed 1809–12) and a beautifully preserved door at Philipp’s House, near Salisbury, by Sir Je V rey Wyatville, executed 1817. If the Trust’s libraries are representative, the heyday for the private library jib door seems to have been the 1830s; highlights include the door at Charlecote Park near Stratford-upon-Avon, c. 1833, possibly by Crace, Castle Ward in Strangford, c.1835, Salvin’s wonderful example at Scotney Castle in Kent, and Buckler’s at Oxburgh Hall in Norfolk, c.1839. As with much else in the Palladian house, the origins of the use of false books stemmed directly from the influence of Grand Tour. Tourists visiting Santa Maria in Organo or Monte Oliveto Maggiore in Siena, the Basilica di San Dominico in Bologna, the duomos of Florence or Modena, or the Pallazzo Ducale in Gubbio, would have been surrounded with the very finest examples of Italian intarsio and wood carving. Optical illusions were central to the work of craftsmen like Francesco Pianta, Fra Giovanni da Verona, Fra Damiano Zambelli, Christophero and Lorenzo Canozi and Giuliano da Maiano. All used wooden books, shelved in presses, artfully glimpsed through partially-closed cupboard doors or open, as if in use, as central motifs in their bewilderingly complex inlays and carvings. 18 . The Builders Price-book (London: I. Taylor, 1776), pp. 36, 38; The Carpenter and Joiner’s Assistant (London: I. and J. Taylor, 1797), p. 31; W. Creech, Edinburgh Fugitive Pieces (Edinburgh: W. Creech and T. Cadell, 1791), p. 30; S. J. Pratt, Shenstone-Green; or, the New Paradise Lost (London: printed for R. Baldwin, 1779), vol. 1, p. 165; M. Meeke Anecdotes of the Altamont Family (London: printed at the Minerva-Press, for William Lane, 1800), vol. 2 page 183.
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