Last week saw the return of the three Signet Library William Trotter sofas after restoration and reupholstering. The sofas date from the early 1820s and form part of a complete set of pieces acquired to furnish the Upper Hall. William Trotter was one of the greatest cabinet-makers in Scottish history – a Scottish Chippendale, whose work is prized and collected, and sets of this kind are few and far between (the Signet Library’s set is the most famous surviving Trotter commission alongside that of Paxton House). His workshops on a site now occupied by Waverley Station and the North British Hotel. Not long after the completion of the Signet Library set, Trotter served two years as Lord Provost.
The sofas were last reupholstered in the early 1960s as part of the then-new colour scheme and carpeting, and during the restoration evidence of this work and earlier reupholstering and repairs has been gathered and will be kept as documentation of the sofas long career. In their original form, they were upholstered in a pale blue silk which would usually have been obscured by a cloth cover as seen in their depiction by Thomas Shepherd in his famous 1829 engraving. For most of their lives, however, the sofas have been upholstered in leather in a variety of shades, including oxblood, the 1960s green, and the new shade.
The presence of sofas – let alone sofas large enough to accommodate five people – in a library might surprise some, but it reflects the different tradition of a Scottish lawyers’ library which were intended as places for sociability and society as well as learning and study, more comparable with the Long Library at Blenheim Palace in use and intent than academic or clerical foundations like Chetham’s Library in Manchester or the Chained Library at Hereford.
