Lot Essay
The cabinets' golden table-frames, with palm-wrapped ebonised plinths intended for the display of china and flower-vases before mirrored window-piers, are designed in the French/antique manner popularised around 1800 by the decorations introduced by the connoisseur Thomas Hope at his mansion/museum in Duchess Street. Their sunk-panelled friezes are enriched with palm-flowered guilloches derived from the Erectheum in Athens and are supported by Cupid-quiver pilasters accompanying Egyptian monopodia of ribbon-tied reeds and bacchic lioness-heads inspired by such classical precedents as that engraved by Charles Heathcote Tatham in his Etchings of Ancient and Ornamental Architecture, 1799, described as 'Antique Basso Relievos at Rome in The Palace Massimi'. Beribboned reeds were a particular feature of Hope's drawing-room, which was illustrated in his Household Furniture and Interior Decoration of 1807-9, pl.6. Hope also illustrated a centre-table with flower-basket plinth and Egyptian chimaerical monopodia as well as mirror-backed tables with plinth-supported griffin monopodia (op.cit., pls.6 and 7), while Rudolph Ackerman's Repository of Arts, 1809 (pl 3) illustrated a related sphynx-monopodiae pier-table, which was praised for its 'airy and light design'.
The finely executed carving of these frames suggest that they were supplied by one of the leading London firms of the early 19th Century, such as Messrs. Seddon of Aldersgate Street. Indeed, Egyptian reed- supports with lioness-heads later featured on a suite of drawing-room furniture commissioned by George IV in 1827 for Windsor Castle and executed by George Seddon, in partnership with Nicholas Morel (M. Jourdain, Regency Furniture, London, 1965, fig. 100).
However, their antiquarian design, representing a synthesis of Regency Egyptian decoration with the late 17th Century taste for Oriental lacquer, shares much in common with the oeuvre of James Newton of Wardour Street. Two related 'antiquarian' cabinets-on-stands, each with late 17th Century walnut cabinet supported by an Egyptian herm stand, were supplied by Newton to Henry, 10th Earl and later 1st Marquess of Exeter for Burghley House, Lincolnshire before 1804 (G. Ellwood, 'James Newton', Furniture History Society Journal, 1995, vol. XXXI, p. 129-206, figs. 9 & 12).
These cabinets-on-stands may well have been supplied to George, 3rd Earl of Guilford for Waldershare Park, Kent under the direction of Robert William Brettingham (1750-1820), Resident Clerk in the Office of Works, who was engaged by Guilford to design the library wing in 1802.
The first cabinet is a rare example of the transition from the Monoyama style into the Edo export style. It retains the harabishi border typical of the late 16th Century lacquer ordered by the Portuguese. A similar cabinet is in the Danish Royal Collection (Martha Boyes, Lacquer from the Seventeenth Century in the National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, 1959, pl. XV). For further details on this period of export lacquer see Stefan van Raay ed., Imitation and Inspiration, Japanese Influence on Dutch Art, Amsterdam, 1989; Namban-Shikki Cultural Exchange between East and West through Lacquer Craft, Sabai City Museum, 1983; Dr. Oliver Impey, 'Japanese Export Lacquer of the 17th Century', Lacquerwork in Asia and beyond, Colloquies on Art and Archaeology in Asia, London, 1982, Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, pp. 124-158.
The finely executed carving of these frames suggest that they were supplied by one of the leading London firms of the early 19th Century, such as Messrs. Seddon of Aldersgate Street. Indeed, Egyptian reed- supports with lioness-heads later featured on a suite of drawing-room furniture commissioned by George IV in 1827 for Windsor Castle and executed by George Seddon, in partnership with Nicholas Morel (M. Jourdain, Regency Furniture, London, 1965, fig. 100).
However, their antiquarian design, representing a synthesis of Regency Egyptian decoration with the late 17th Century taste for Oriental lacquer, shares much in common with the oeuvre of James Newton of Wardour Street. Two related 'antiquarian' cabinets-on-stands, each with late 17th Century walnut cabinet supported by an Egyptian herm stand, were supplied by Newton to Henry, 10th Earl and later 1st Marquess of Exeter for Burghley House, Lincolnshire before 1804 (G. Ellwood, 'James Newton', Furniture History Society Journal, 1995, vol. XXXI, p. 129-206, figs. 9 & 12).
These cabinets-on-stands may well have been supplied to George, 3rd Earl of Guilford for Waldershare Park, Kent under the direction of Robert William Brettingham (1750-1820), Resident Clerk in the Office of Works, who was engaged by Guilford to design the library wing in 1802.
The first cabinet is a rare example of the transition from the Monoyama style into the Edo export style. It retains the harabishi border typical of the late 16th Century lacquer ordered by the Portuguese. A similar cabinet is in the Danish Royal Collection (Martha Boyes, Lacquer from the Seventeenth Century in the National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, 1959, pl. XV). For further details on this period of export lacquer see Stefan van Raay ed., Imitation and Inspiration, Japanese Influence on Dutch Art, Amsterdam, 1989; Namban-Shikki Cultural Exchange between East and West through Lacquer Craft, Sabai City Museum, 1983; Dr. Oliver Impey, 'Japanese Export Lacquer of the 17th Century', Lacquerwork in Asia and beyond, Colloquies on Art and Archaeology in Asia, London, 1982, Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art, pp. 124-158.