Footnotes

• Provenance: The Forbes Family, Callendar House, Falkirk, Scotland and sold Dowell's Ltd, 9th October 1963, lot 493 from the 'Drawing Room', "Pair handsome console tables, carved and gilt scroll shell and acanthus leaf designs, marble tops, on cabriole legs, and rosewood slab bases, mirror-backs, in gilt pillar frames surmounted by pierced shell and acanthus leaf pediment, overall 12ft.3ins. x 5ft.3ins."
  
  The present Callendar House appear to be an impressive 19th century mansion with a 300 foot frontage and is built in the French Renaissance style although at its core is a 14th century tower house. In the fourteenth century the estate was acquired by the Livingston family who were prominent in Scottish affairs over the coming centuries. Sir Alexander Livingston (1500-1553) was the guardian of Mary, Queen of Scots and the marriage agreement between Mary and French Dauphin was signed at Callendar House. The daughter of James VI & I, Princess Elizabeth spent much of her childhood at Callendar House with Alexander, 7th Lord Linlithgow and 4th Earl of Callendar, before becoming Queen of Bohemia and Electress Palentine. The family lost control of the estate when James Livingston, 5th Earl Linlithgow was forced into exile after the Jacobite Rising of 1715. The Callendar estate was forfeited and purchased by The York Buildings Company who auctioned it off in 1783.
  
  The estate was purchased by William Forbes (1756-1823), an Aberdeen coppersmith for £100,000. Forbes was hugely wealthy with a fortune estimated at £500,000, the equivalent of $1 billion dollars today). Forbes made significant alterations to the house adding various turrets and exterior decorations, as did his son and grandson. In 1827 a scheme of internal alterations where undertaken to the designs of the architect David Hamilton (1768-1843). Forbes is known to have favoured the newest fashions and purchased the best furniture from London and Edinburgh although he had a reputation for being careful with money. The Forbes family sold the house in the 1960s. Callendar House is now the Falkirk Museum.
  
  Our thanks to the Falkirk Community Trust for additional research relating to this footnote.

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Category: Furniture / English Furniture and Works of Art

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