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Lot Essay
Such brilliantly coloured cabinets proved an essential element of fashionable bedroom apartments that were flowered in the French antique or 'Louis Quatorze' style and evoked everlasting spring according to the Roman concept of Ver Perpetuum. The fashion, promoted through Parisian marchands-merciers and East India imports of silks, lacquer and porcelain, caused the manufacture of imitation lacquer wares and the cutting of Chinese lacquer panels to serve as an exotic veneer. The fashion was discussed by the St. James's maker of japanned furniture John Stalker in his Treatise of Japanning and Varnishing, which he published in 1688 in conjunction with Mr. Parker of Oxford.
The cabinet's drawers are veneered with flowered lacquer that derive from a Chinese screen such as that introduced in the 1670s at Ham House, Surrey (see P. Thornton, 'The Furnishing and Decoration of Ham House', Furniture History, 1980, fig. 59).
Amongst the principal manufacturers of lacquer-veneered furniture was the St. Martin's Lane cabinet-maker Gerrit Jensen (d. 1715), who is thought to have employed ébénistes from abroad such as Peter Berew (G. Beard & C. Gilbert (eds.), Dictionary of English Furniture Makers: 1660-1840, Leeds, 1986, pp. 485-487). Its golden lambrequin-draped stand, is designed in 'Louis Quatorze' fashion promoted by the French Pelletier family who in the late 17th century supplied related table frames to William III (T. Murdoch, 'Jean René and Thomas Pelletier, a Huguenot family of carvers and gilders in England 1682-1726. Part I', Burlington Magazine, November 1997, p. 735-6, fig. 5).
The cabinet's drawers are veneered with flowered lacquer that derive from a Chinese screen such as that introduced in the 1670s at Ham House, Surrey (see P. Thornton, 'The Furnishing and Decoration of Ham House', Furniture History, 1980, fig. 59).
Amongst the principal manufacturers of lacquer-veneered furniture was the St. Martin's Lane cabinet-maker Gerrit Jensen (d. 1715), who is thought to have employed ébénistes from abroad such as Peter Berew (G. Beard & C. Gilbert (eds.), Dictionary of English Furniture Makers: 1660-1840, Leeds, 1986, pp. 485-487). Its golden lambrequin-draped stand, is designed in 'Louis Quatorze' fashion promoted by the French Pelletier family who in the late 17th century supplied related table frames to William III (T. Murdoch, 'Jean René and Thomas Pelletier, a Huguenot family of carvers and gilders in England 1682-1726. Part I', Burlington Magazine, November 1997, p. 735-6, fig. 5).