LATE 17TH CENTURY

Details

AN ANGLO-DUTCH BRASS-MOUNTED KINGWOOD COFFRE FORT
LATE 17TH CENTURY
With a hinged fall-front and fitted interior
11 in. (28 cm.) high; 19¼ in. (49 cm.) wide; 11 in. (28 cm.) deep

Literature

Shown illustrated in the Cromwell Hall, Chirk Castle, watercolours by the Hon. Mrs. Mary Wombwell and Sarah Myddelton, 1862.
C. Hussey, 'Chirk Castle', Country Life, 5 October 1951, fig.8. (illustrated in situ in the Corridor).

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis

Sale room notice

Please note that the ormolu mounts are stamped with the C couronné poinçon, a tax mark used on any alloy made or sold in Paris between March 1745 and February 1749. This coffre therefore presumably came to Chirk in the later 18th or early 19th Century.

Lot Essay

This fine strong-box, parquetried in rose-flowered mosaics of richly figured kingwood and wrapped by lily-flowered brass, is likely to have been acquired by Sir Richard Myddelton, 3rd Bt (d.1716) around the time of his marriage in 1686 to Frances Whitmore. It relates to one supplied in 1688 by the St. Martin's Lane court cabinet-maker Gerret Jensen (d.1715) to Colonel James Grahme, which is now at Levens Hall, Cumbria (A. Bowett, English Furniture 1660-1714, Woodbridge, 2002, p.6l:29). Around 1670 Jensen also supplied the 1st Duke of Richmond with a 'strong box' (G.Beard and C. Gilbert, Dictionary of English Furniture Makers, Leeds, 1986, p.486). Similar strong boxes veneered with kingwood or 'prince's wood' were supplied for the Duke of Lauderdale at Ham House, Surrey and appear in the inventories of 1677 and 1683. The 1683 inventory of the Duchess's Bedchamber lists 'Two Strong boxes & one box wth an extraordinary Lock; Three frames to the boxes'. (Furniture History Society Journal, 1980, fig.68).

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