Comments on: Clever waiters

By: Emile de Bruijn

Emile de Bruijn — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 10:59:28 +0000

How interesting – perhaps ‘Susan’ was a name that was prevalent among the class of women likely to be servants or waitresses at that time The history of fashions in first names is fascinating.

By: Jolie Beaumont (@JolieBeaumont)

Jolie Beaumont (@JolieBeaumont) — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 07:20:18 +0000

Thanks for another fascinating post. The dumbwaiter began to be called a “Lazy Susan” In the United States in the early 1900s, for unknown reasons. An ad in the December 1917 issue of the magazine “Vanity Fair,” dubbed the recently renamed table “the cleverest waitress in the world” – an echo of your title for this blog post, but a reflection of the fact that by this time, in the US at least, dinner was more often served by a female servant, if there were servants to serve at all.

By: Emile de Bruijn

Emile de Bruijn — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 11:39:24 +0000

Emily, that is quite something, coming from someone who works at beautiful Knole

Columnist, yest it is wonderful isn’t it. The height of the chimneypiece appears (from my naked eye) to be about two-thirds of the height of the overmantel, so probably some pleasing ‘golden section’ proportions at work there.

By: Columnist

Columnist — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 03:30:00 +0000

The Soane chimneypiece I recognise immediately, but the Regency overmantel is new to me, but utterly delightful.

By: knolenationaltrust

knolenationaltrust — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 18:39:33 +0000

My favourite National Trust library!

By: Emile de Bruijn

Emile de Bruijn — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 09:21:12 +0000

Courtney, yes, bite-size intellectual pastries

Mark, yes I too am intrigued by the way Soane played with volumes and voids. There always seems to be something uniquely ‘Soaneian’ about examples of his work.

By: Mark D. Ruffner

Mark D. Ruffner — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 01:33:40 +0000

It’s always a thrill for me to discover examples of Sir John Soane’s work heretofore unknown to me. I think his style and taste was very modern.

By: style court

style court — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 18:06:59 +0000

Emile — I’m thrilled to see your example at Wimpole. Again, here, the small books are displayed almost like special pastries. It really puts de Grey’s hazy (in a nice way) rendering in context. And how great to stumble across Nicola’s example, too. Thank you!

Courtney

By: Nicola Thwaite

Nicola Thwaite — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 16:21:39 +0000

I hope it won’t be too long before we start the blog up. The furniture manufacturers should be Morgan and Sanders, by the way, not Morgan and Stanley. Must have high finance on my mind.

By: Emile de Bruijn

Emile de Bruijn — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 16:14:42 +0000

Nicola, what a wonderful example, and how interesting that that type of bookcase has links with both dumb waiters and library steps.

Excellent too that you are preparing a blog on NT libraries – do let me know when you start posting.