Ralph Grynder or Grinder (died 1654) was a London-based furniture maker and upholsterer who worked for Charles I of England and Henrietta Maria. He bought and sold art treasures from the Royal Collection in 1651.Geoffrey Beard, Upholsterers and Interior Furnishing in England, 1530–1840 (London, 1997), pp. 60–62: Victor Chinnery, Oak Furniture: The British Tradition (Antique Collector's Club, 1986), p. 128.
Career
Grynder was an apprentice of the Draper's Company in 1605. Later, he lived and worked at the sign of the Lion in the Poultry, London.J. J. Cartwright, 'Pictures of Charles I', The Academy (18 April 1874), p. 442 citing BL Egerton MS 1636 Possibly, Grynder was a Catholic.Caroline Hibbard, 'The Queen's Patronage of Artists and Artisans', Erin Griffey, Henrietta Maria (Ashgate, 2008), p. 126. Upholsterers supplied new furniture to aristocrat's houses and were the major figures in interior decoration.Peter Thornton, Seventeenth Century Interior Decoration in England, France and Holland (Yale, 1978), pp. 100–103. Grynder and other tradesmen were questioned in the Court of Chancery about the possessions of William Cecil, 16th Baron Ros in 1617.Johanna Luthman, Family and Feuding at the Court of James I: The Lake and Cecil Scandals (Oxford, 2023), p. 82: TNA C 8/32/151.
He worked with the silkman Benjamin Henshawe in the 1620s, making beds, couches, chairs, and cushions.Annabel Westman, Fringe Frog & Tassel: The Art of the Trimmings-Maker in Interior Decoration in Britain and Ireland (London: Philip Wilson, 2019), p. 20. When Henrietta Maria came to England in 1625 as the bride of Charles I, she was accompanied by the Duke and Duchess of Chevreuse.Roger Lockyer, Buckingham (London: Longman, 1981), pp. 236, 241. Their lodgings were furnished with pieces hired from Grynder.Linda Levy Peck, Consuming Splendor: Society and Culture in Seventeenth-Century England (Cambridge, 2005), p. 222.
Grynder supplied green cotton matting and 2,000 black tacks to cover the floor of a room at Somerset House for a masque in 1626 which involved a performance by Jeffrey Hudson.John H. Astington, English Court Theatre, 1558–1642 (Cambridge, 1999), p. 95: Bernard Quaritch's Catalogue, 253 (November 1906), p. 5 The cloth was used to muffle noise. Grynder features as a supplier in later accounts for Henrietta Maria's masques and pastorals, including The Shepherd's Paradise.Barbara Ravelhofer, The Early Stuart Masque: Dance, Costume, and Music (Oxford, 2006), p. 86: Barbara Ravelhofer, 'Bureaucrats and Courtly Cross-Dressers in the "Shrovetide Masque" and "The Shepherd's Paradise"', English Literary Renaissance, 29:1 (Winter 1999), pp. 81, 83.
In 1628, Grynder was asked to appraise the inventory of the Jesuit College in Clerkenwell, London. The inventory was taken by Justinian Povey, a royal auditor, and George Longe.John Gough Nichols, 'The Discovery of the Jesuits' College at Clerkenwell', The Camden Miscellany, 2 (London: Camden Society, 1853), pp. 54–57.
He made couches for Henrietta Maria in the 1630s and these were supplied with suites of matching chairs and stools with a canopy suspended above. These commissions can be associated with the surviving Knole sofa.Christopher Rowell, 'A Set of Early Seventeenth-Century Crimson Velvet Seat Furniture at Knole: New Light on the Knole Sofa', Furniture History, 42 (2006), p. 30. Grynder's bills include:For making a lardge couch bedd of figured velvett with two heades the seat being fitted on with staples and garnished round with fringes & ovr. styles and feete, £3-0-0.For workmanship in making a Lardge Couch chayre of brancht velvett being covered all over on rayles styles and feete with 2 cushion winges garnished with silver fringes, £4-0-0.Christopher Rowell, 'A Set of Early Seventeenth-Century Crimson Velvet Seat Furniture at Knole: New Light on the Knole Sofa', Furniture History, 42 (2006), pp. 30–31.
Grynder may have worked with the joiner Charles Godeliere,Simon Jervis, 'Furniture in the Commonwealth Inventories', Arthur MacGregor, The late king's goods : collections, possessions, and patronage of Charles I in the light of the Commonwealth sale inventories (London and Oxford, 1989), p. 305 fn. 160, 164. who was a member of the French Church at Threadneedle Street.William John Charles Moens, The registers of the French Church, Threadneedle Street, London (Lymington, 1896), pp. 148, 179, 218. Other furniture makers and suppliers to court circles at this time include John Baker and Oliver Browne. Some furniture was painted by the sergeant painter John de Critz or specialists like Thomas Capp and the gilder Philip Bromefield.Edward Town, 'A Biographical Dictionary of London Painters, 1547–1625', Walpole Society, 76 (London, 2014), p. 51: Edward Town & Olivia Fryman, 'A rich inheritance: Lionel Cranfield's legacy at Knole', National Trust Historic Houses and Collections Annual, Apollo (2016), pp. 35–37James Yorke, 'Royal Painted Furniture in Charles I's England', Valerie Dorge & F. Carey Howlett, Painted Wood: History and Conservation (Getty, 1998), pp. 120–27
Grynder provided a fringe of "Turkey orange of worsted" for the bed curtains of the bed of Little Sarah, a servant of Henrietta Maria, and a bed with a "round French canopy" for Jeffrey Hudson. In 1632, his two workmen were employed at Somerset House putting up a bed.Annabel Westman, Fringe Frog & Tassel: The Art of the Trimmings-Maker in Interior Decoration in Britain and Ireland (London: Philip Wilson, 2019), pp. 37, 250 fn. 79: Caroline Hibbard, 'The Queen's Patronage', Erin Griffey, Henrietta Maria (Ashgate, 2008), p. 132. He supplied "French chairs" to the Queen's House at Greenwich in 1637, upholstered with figured velvet and silver fringes,Adam Bowett, English Furniture, 1660-1714: From Charles II to Queen Anne (London, 2002), p. 69. and used trimmings supplied by William Geere.Annabel Westman, Fringe Frog & Tassel: The Art of the Trimmings-Maker in Interior Decoration in Britain and Ireland (London: Philip Wilson, 2019), p. 30. In June 1640, Rachel Bourchier, Countess of Bath bought nails supplied by "Mr Grinder".Todd Gray, Devon Household Accounts: Henry, fifth Earl of Bath and Rachel, Countess of Bath (Devon and Cornwall Records Society, 1996), p. 174.
Dorothy Sidney, Countess of Leicester, as the wife of the English ambassador in Paris, was involved in the bespeaking of beds provided for Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford. She recommended that Ralph Grynder's workshop supply the woodwork of the beds and the matching suites of chairs and stools, because he was "the best in that trade".Michael G. Brennan, Noel J. Kinnamon, Margaret P. Hannay, The Correspondence of Dorothy Percy Sidney, Countess of Leicester (Routledge, 2016), p. 157.
He worked for the Earl of Antrim and his wife, Katherine Villiers, Duchess of Buckingham, in 1638 and 1639.Jane H. Ohlmeyer, Civil War and Restoration in the Three Stuart Kingdoms: The Career of Randal MacDonnell, Marquis of Antrim, 1609–1683 (Four Courts, 2001), p. 252. They owed him £761-18s.George Hill, An Historical Account of the Macdonnells of Antrim (Belfast, 1873), p. 475. An inventory of their furniture from Dunluce Castle includes couches and beds possibly supplied by Grynder. Furniture for Duchess in previous years was supplied by her wardrobe keeper Thomas Lovett.Hector MacDonnell, 'A Seventeenth Century Inventory from Dunluce Castle, County Antrim', The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 122 (1992), pp. 109–127: Megan Shaw, 'The Duchess of Buckingham's Furniture at York House', Furniture History, 58 (2022), pp. 3, 11, 20. Their debt to Grynder remained outstanding, and in 1660, Mary Grinder, probably his widow, signed a joint petition for payment.Robert Pentland Mahaffy, Calendar of the State Papers relating to Ireland, 1660–1662 (London: HMSO, 1905), no. 212. His first wife, Anne Grinder, had committed suicide in 1626 after losing her child. She was buried at St Stephen Coleman Street. He had a son, Ralph Grynder junior, also a member of the draper's company.Paul S. Seaver, 'Suicide and the Vicar General in London', Jeffrey Watt, From Sin to Insanity: Suicide in Early Modern Europe (Cornell, 2004), pp. 32, 199: TNA SP 28/283/3.
Grynder's dividend Grynder and Charles Moseley were owed money by Sir Charles Cavendish, the owner of Bolsover Castle, and they could not be paid or receive land instead in 1649, because Cavendish was sequestered as a royalist.Mary Anne Everett Green, Calendar of the Proceedings of the Committee for Compounding, Cases 1647–1650 (London, 1891), p. 2023.
During the sales of the royal collection, in 1651, Grynder formed a syndicate or "dividend" with nine other speculators or creditors to buy artworks.Jonathan Brown, Kings & Connoisseurs: Collecting Art in Seventeenth-Century Europe (Yale, 1995), p. 81. The members of the dividends were mostly owed money by the former crown. The Committee for the sale of Late King's Goods accepted claims for payments from artisans and former royal servants (or their executors), named in the "necessitous list" and the "second list",Allan Pritchard, 'George Wither and the Sale of the Estate of Charles I', Modern Philology, 77:4 (May 1980), p. 378. including Grynder (owed £1000), John de Critz' son Emmanuel (£1500), Oliver Browne, Samuel Vincent the husband of the widow of the joiner Charles Godeliere (£100), the silkman William Geere, the mercer Philip Lazenby, the gilder Philip Bromefield, the arras workers (£400), the embroiderer Edmund Harrison (£800),Harrison, Edmund (1590-1667): Textile Research Centre the armourer Arnold Rotsipen, Henry Stone, the executors of the goldsmith Alexander Heriot (£600), Frederick the son of apothecary John Wolfgang Rumler, Ester the widow of Nicholas Briot (£160), Penelope the widow of the coffer-maker Henry Lewgar (£250), Elizabeth Sanderson for the saddler Abraham Abercromby, Philip Armstrong the executor of Archibald Armstrong (£80), Lettice Holcroft widow of Sir Henry Holcroft (£320), and musicians including Theophilus Lupo, Jeremy Heron (£14), and Jacques Gaultier (£150).Oliver Millar, The Queen's Pictures (Gallery Books, 1977), p. 59: Journals of the House of Commons, vol. 6 (London, 1803), p. 606, a list of abatements: TNA SP 28/283 receipts of the committee.
The names of Grynder's associates and members of the other dividends are listed in a manuscript at the Bodleian Library.Martin Kemp, Margaret Dalivalle, Robert B. Simon, Leonardo's Salvator Mundi and the Collecting of Leonardo in the Stuart Courts (Oxford, 2019), p. 255: Bodleian Library, Rawlinson D.695 Elias Ashmole, 'Persons who bought the King and Queenes Goodes'. The account of the Committee treasurer, Humphrey Jones, shows that the sale goods were valued at £135,484, of which £96,475 was for the necessitous creditors, and £26,500 given as a loan to the navy.A. Jefferies Collins, Jewels and Plate (London: British Museum, 1955), p. 193.
Grynder and his dividend acquired paintings of eleven emperors on horseback made by the workshop of Giulio Romano for the Palazzo Ducale, Mantua.Mary Beard, Twelve Caesars: Images of Power from the Ancient World to the Modern (Princeton, 2021), p. 176.The Emperor Otto on Horseback: RCIN 404729 Other items bought by Grynder's dividend included portraits of Jeffrey Hudson and Mary, Queen of Scots, by Daniël Mijtens and a ten-piece suite of tapestry of the Old and New Law which had belonged to Catherine of Aragon.Oliver Millar, 'The Inventories and Valuations of the King's Goods, 1649–1651', The Volume of the Walpole Society, 43 (1970–1972), pp. 69, 207, 270: Charlotte C. Stopes, 'Daniel Mytens in England', Burlington Magazine, 17:87 (June 1910), p. 162,Jeffrey Hudson (1619-1682): RCIN 402815