Heraldic Forgery: The Case of George Shaw

Lindfield, Peter ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8393-9344 (2021) Heraldic Forgery: The Case of George Shaw. The Coat of Arms, 4 (238). pp. 177-204. ISSN 0010-003X

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Abstract

George Shaw was an enterprising antiquary in early Victorian Britain. He collected and studied furniture and heraldry, and he used this knowledge to produce faked historical furniture and interiors. At the heart of this imaginary recreation of past historic material was his access to a bed which was one of the most precious and important pieces of late-medieval domestic royal furniture to have survived the Civil War. Shaw’s resultant furniture, particularly for his own house, demonstrate his desire to create interiors that were based on romanticised ideas of the past. These included the liberal use of arms of which his entitlement to some was questionable; others reflect his armigerous ancestors. He unfortunately abused his antiquarian knowledge both to deceive his clients and to enhance his own social prestige.