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Lot Essay
The design of this bookcase, with its various planes, reflects the mid-l8th century interest in architectural 'movement' promoted by architects such as the Rome-trained architect Robert Adam (d.1796), who also helped introduce the use of tablets, medallions or paterae according to his concept of 'Roman' interior decoration.
Much of its architecture and decorative elements featured in Thomas Chippendale's published engravings. The base section, with its commode flanked by doors, derives first from a pattern for a 'Desk and Bookcase' issued in The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, 3rd ed., 1754, pl. LXXVIII. In the pattern the arrangement is breakfront in the centre; the reverse is executed here. The combination of the arched door flanked by foliate spandrels and pilasters filled with tapering husks probably derives most closely from another Bureau Bookcase pattern that was not in the 1754 edition of the Director but was pl. CVII in the third of 1763.
The most obvious related specific feature among Chippendale's documented work, as opposed to his published patterns, is the patera-enriched tablet featured on the medal cabinet fitted in the Library at Nostell Priory in 1767 (C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, London, 1978, vol. II, pl. 99). Elsewhere in his documented works, with related features such as the dentilled cornice and hollow-scrolled brackets or trussed feet, are secretaires that he supplied for Aske Hall, Yorkshire, in 1764 and Nostell Priory in 1766 (ibid., figs. 87 and 90).
The glazing pattern as executed is clearly of the same inspiration as that with more Chinoiserie ornament on the famous bookcase at Dumfries House (ibid., fig. 63).
THE ICONOGRAPHY
The recessed pilasters of the triumphal-arched and dentil-corniced bookcase are vase-capped by festive 'thyrsic' pine-cone finials, and festooned with ring-tied laurels beneath sunflowered and pearl-wreathed libation-paterae that evoke the poetry deity Apollo, and the history of Apollo and Clytie recounted in Ovid's Metamorphoses. The door's hollowed corners are embellished with flowered paterae, while its spandrels are festooned with Roman acanthus and its key-stone comprises reeded and serpentined truss. Its reed-moulded glazing bars are trellis-mosaiced in lozenge and tablet compartments. Its commode base has flute-enriched and 'tablet' corners and a central projecting drawer-nest. Its bureau-drawer, concealed in the frieze, bears a 'poetic trophy' tablet that comprises a beribboned, laurel-festooned and sunflowered patera. More paterae enrich the hollowed corners of reed mouldings enclosing the fine flame-figured veneered tablets of the recessed commode doors, while brass patera-plate handles are fitted to the drawers.
Lot 89 in this sale was also sold by Norman Adams to Mrs Prescott in the early 1960s and then re-sold to this collector after her sale. Lot 155 is also from the Prescott collection.
Much of its architecture and decorative elements featured in Thomas Chippendale's published engravings. The base section, with its commode flanked by doors, derives first from a pattern for a 'Desk and Bookcase' issued in The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, 3rd ed., 1754, pl. LXXVIII. In the pattern the arrangement is breakfront in the centre; the reverse is executed here. The combination of the arched door flanked by foliate spandrels and pilasters filled with tapering husks probably derives most closely from another Bureau Bookcase pattern that was not in the 1754 edition of the Director but was pl. CVII in the third of 1763.
The most obvious related specific feature among Chippendale's documented work, as opposed to his published patterns, is the patera-enriched tablet featured on the medal cabinet fitted in the Library at Nostell Priory in 1767 (C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, London, 1978, vol. II, pl. 99). Elsewhere in his documented works, with related features such as the dentilled cornice and hollow-scrolled brackets or trussed feet, are secretaires that he supplied for Aske Hall, Yorkshire, in 1764 and Nostell Priory in 1766 (ibid., figs. 87 and 90).
The glazing pattern as executed is clearly of the same inspiration as that with more Chinoiserie ornament on the famous bookcase at Dumfries House (ibid., fig. 63).
THE ICONOGRAPHY
The recessed pilasters of the triumphal-arched and dentil-corniced bookcase are vase-capped by festive 'thyrsic' pine-cone finials, and festooned with ring-tied laurels beneath sunflowered and pearl-wreathed libation-paterae that evoke the poetry deity Apollo, and the history of Apollo and Clytie recounted in Ovid's Metamorphoses. The door's hollowed corners are embellished with flowered paterae, while its spandrels are festooned with Roman acanthus and its key-stone comprises reeded and serpentined truss. Its reed-moulded glazing bars are trellis-mosaiced in lozenge and tablet compartments. Its commode base has flute-enriched and 'tablet' corners and a central projecting drawer-nest. Its bureau-drawer, concealed in the frieze, bears a 'poetic trophy' tablet that comprises a beribboned, laurel-festooned and sunflowered patera. More paterae enrich the hollowed corners of reed mouldings enclosing the fine flame-figured veneered tablets of the recessed commode doors, while brass patera-plate handles are fitted to the drawers.
Lot 89 in this sale was also sold by Norman Adams to Mrs Prescott in the early 1960s and then re-sold to this collector after her sale. Lot 155 is also from the Prescott collection.