Details
A Flemish silver and brass-inlaid rosewood, satinwood and parcel-gilt secretaire-cabinet, attributed to Hendrich van Soest, inlaid overall with panels of foliate scrolls and decorated with scenes of Europeans in China, the superstructure with raised central section with rectangular top and a drawer above a small central drawer flanked by short drawers and with further drawers to each side, the lower section with panelled slide and secretaire drawer enclosing lined writing surface and six drawers above recessed concave long drawer, on later turned tapering legs inlaid with simulated flutes and headed by gadrooning, joined by a flattened concave undertier and on leafy bun feet, restorations, c.1700 -- 35in. (89cm.) wide, 23½in. (60cm.) deep, 50¾in. (129cm.) high.
Further details
This distinctive piece is identical in form, and in the majority of the decoration, to the celebrated bureau-cabinet supplied by Hendrich van Soest to Max-Emmanuel, Elector of Bavaria for Schloss Schleissheim and now in the Bayerisches National Museum, Munich (see H. Kreisel, Die Kunst des Deutschen Mobels, 2nd Vol., Munich, 1970, figs 318 and 322).
The chinoiserie panels are based on the engravings of Johann Nieuhof, published in Het Gezantschaft der Neerlandtsche Oost-Indishe Compagnie, aan den Grooten Tartarischen Cham ........., Amsterdam
1699. Sent to Peking as Steward to the Dutch Ambassador, after the flight of the last Ming Emperor in 1644, Nieuhof's drawings, once transferred into engravings, led to the first widespread flowering of European Chinoiserie, eg. John Ogilby's English Translation of 1669, An Embassy from the East India Company of the United Provinces to the Grand Tour Cham Emperor of China, (see H. Honour, Chinoiserie: The Vision of Cathay, London 1961).