Polescreen

The most prized of the furnishings perhaps is the polescreen in the front parlor, whose needlepoint is dated the second half of the seventeenth century .

The engravings, by J.-M. Delattre, were framed to make an attractive pair of Neoclassical shield-shaped pole-screens (sold by Sotheby's 18 May 1990, lot 202) around 1785.

His eyes rested absently on an embroidered polescreen, as if his mind had passed on to quite different matters.

The eighteenth-century designer Thomas Sheraton once qualified the purpose of a polescreen or firescreen as " a piece of furniture to shelter the face or legs from the fire . "

The polescreen, with a sliding screen on a turned upright pole, four to five feet tall, supported on a tripod base, was also known as a screenstick in the late 17th century.