Lot Essay
This magnificent cabinet represents a crowning achievement of the fascinating blend of cultures embodied in Anglo-Indian art, with English forms executed by indigenous craftsmen of extraordinary skill. Exotic local materials such as teak,sandalwood,padoukwood,ebony and ivory were employed on a wide range of finely crafted items such as cabinets and work boxes, mostly created for the European market and often commissioned by the East India Company. The technique of inlay with ivory finely incised with black lac, as seen on this cabinet,was particularly associated with the port of Vizagapatam in Andhra State, South East India. The Dutch East India Company had established its own factory there in 1686 to help satisfy the increasing demand in the West for the dazzling products of the East. The Company patronized and trained Indian carpenters who produced goods based on European designs for export. The exotic paradisical decoration of profusely blossoming trees with animals and birds derives from 17th century Mughal textiles, particularly the painted Palampore cotton hangings of South India.
Examples from the Vizagapatam workshop on this scale are particularly rare. Although dating from the latter part of the 18th century, its form, with double-arched pediment, derives from earlier Queen Anne examples more commonly executed in walnut or colourful japanned decoration. A closely related bureau-bookcase,almost certainly from the same cabinet making firm and also from the Charles Deering collection,is in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Another similar bureau-bookcase was sold in Christie's London, 18 November 1993, lot 95 (for £100,500), and a further example from the North Carolina Museum of Art, was sold Sotheby's New York, 16 October 1993, lot 348,(for $145,500).
CHARLES DEERING
Charles Deering (1852-1927) inherited a vast fortune from his father William Deering, who invented the Deering harvesting machine. Charles was a noted patron of the arts in a wide range of fields. He accumulated one of the first great collections of Oriental carpets in the United States which was published in 1924 in a landmark book by O.S.Berbeyan and W.G.Thomson, The Charles Deering Collection of Carpets of Spain and the Orient . A Royal Louis XIV Savonnerie carpet from the Charles Deering collection was sold in these Rooms, 30 October 1993, lot 415, for $660,000. Charles was also an important patron of the Swedish artist Anders Zorn and assembled the largest collection of works by the artist in America and also introduced the artist to other high society patrons such as Cornelius Vanderbilt and Andrew Carnegie. Charles's brother James built Vizcaya,an extraordinary residence on the Miami shoreline in the style of a Palladian palazzo and furnished with a rich blend of Italian and Biedermeier furniture. At the time it was built in 1914-1916 it cost more than the Woolworth building in New York. CHARLES DEERING
Charles Deering (1852-1927) inherited a vast fortune from his father William Deering, who invented the Deering harvesting machine. Charles was a noted patron of the arts in a wide range of fields. He accumulated one of the first great collections of Oriental carpets in the United States which was published in 1924 in a landmark book by O.S.Berbeyan and W.G.Thomson, The Charles Deering Collection of Carpets of Spain and the Orient . A Royal Louis XIV Savonnerie carpet from the Charles Deering collection was sold in these Rooms, 30 October 1993, lot 415, for $660,000. Charles was also an important patron of the Swedish artist Anders Zorn and assembled the largest collection of works by the artist in America and also introduced the artist to other high society patrons such as Cornelius Vanderbilt and Andrew Carnegie. Charles's brother James built Vizcaya,an extraordinary residence on the Miami shoreline in the style of a Palladian palazzo and furnished with a rich blend of Italian and Biedermeier furniture. At the time it was built in 1914-1916 it cost more than the Woolworth building in New York.
Examples from the Vizagapatam workshop on this scale are particularly rare. Although dating from the latter part of the 18th century, its form, with double-arched pediment, derives from earlier Queen Anne examples more commonly executed in walnut or colourful japanned decoration. A closely related bureau-bookcase,almost certainly from the same cabinet making firm and also from the Charles Deering collection,is in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Another similar bureau-bookcase was sold in Christie's London, 18 November 1993, lot 95 (for £100,500), and a further example from the North Carolina Museum of Art, was sold Sotheby's New York, 16 October 1993, lot 348,(for $145,500).
CHARLES DEERING
Charles Deering (1852-1927) inherited a vast fortune from his father William Deering, who invented the Deering harvesting machine. Charles was a noted patron of the arts in a wide range of fields. He accumulated one of the first great collections of Oriental carpets in the United States which was published in 1924 in a landmark book by O.S.Berbeyan and W.G.Thomson, The Charles Deering Collection of Carpets of Spain and the Orient . A Royal Louis XIV Savonnerie carpet from the Charles Deering collection was sold in these Rooms, 30 October 1993, lot 415, for $660,000. Charles was also an important patron of the Swedish artist Anders Zorn and assembled the largest collection of works by the artist in America and also introduced the artist to other high society patrons such as Cornelius Vanderbilt and Andrew Carnegie. Charles's brother James built Vizcaya,an extraordinary residence on the Miami shoreline in the style of a Palladian palazzo and furnished with a rich blend of Italian and Biedermeier furniture. At the time it was built in 1914-1916 it cost more than the Woolworth building in New York. CHARLES DEERING
Charles Deering (1852-1927) inherited a vast fortune from his father William Deering, who invented the Deering harvesting machine. Charles was a noted patron of the arts in a wide range of fields. He accumulated one of the first great collections of Oriental carpets in the United States which was published in 1924 in a landmark book by O.S.Berbeyan and W.G.Thomson, The Charles Deering Collection of Carpets of Spain and the Orient . A Royal Louis XIV Savonnerie carpet from the Charles Deering collection was sold in these Rooms, 30 October 1993, lot 415, for $660,000. Charles was also an important patron of the Swedish artist Anders Zorn and assembled the largest collection of works by the artist in America and also introduced the artist to other high society patrons such as Cornelius Vanderbilt and Andrew Carnegie. Charles's brother James built Vizcaya,an extraordinary residence on the Miami shoreline in the style of a Palladian palazzo and furnished with a rich blend of Italian and Biedermeier furniture. At the time it was built in 1914-1916 it cost more than the Woolworth building in New York.