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Lot Essay
This magnificent bureau cabinet, with its double-height pediment and elaborately fitted interior, is one of the richest examples known of Chinese lacquer case pieces made for export to the West.
Western travellers to the East brought back tantalising tales of the amazing sights they had seen there, and collectors in the West were particularly fascinated by the exotic wares produced there such as porcelain and lacquer, and their attempts to imitate them throughout the 17th and 18th centuries are well documented. A huge trade developed specializing in importing these goods to the West through companies such as the East India Company in England and the Compagnie des Indes in France.
Lacquer originates with the sap of the lacquer tree (Rhus vernicifera) and involves a painstaking process of allowing layer after layer to dry until it achieves a remarkably lustrous finish, which led one traveller in the 17th century to remark, commenting on the lacquer he had seen in Chinese interiors that '...it is so beautiful and lasting that they use few or no table cloths at meals, for if they spill any grease or other liquor on the table, it is easily rubbed off with a little fair water' (see Ogilby, Translation of an Embassy from the East India Company of the United Provinces to the Grand Tartar Cham, 1669, p. 243, quoted in M. Jourdain and R. Soame Jenyns, Chinese Export Art in the Eighteenth Century, London, 1950, p. 17).
Much of the lacquer created for export to the West was produced in Canton, although the finest wares were thought to come from the towns of Tonking and Nanking. As with this splendid cabinet, much of what was produced for export was based on Western protoypes, in this case the English bureau bookcase, of which many examples with a japanned decoration in imitation of lacquer were produced in England.
Two other closely related Chinese export bureau cabinets are known, with the same distinctive double-height pediment with detachable upper section. One is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, illustrated here and in Jourdain op. cit., p. 84, fig. 24, while a further example was previously with Mallett, London (illustrated in L. Synge, Mallett Millenium, London, 1999, p. 133, fig. 149).
Two further related Chinese Export bureau cabinets were sold from the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Christie's, London, 14 December 2000, lot 340 (£120,000 exc. premium), and another formerly in the collection of Lord Plender, sold Sotheby's, London, 7 November 1997, lot 22 (£100,500 inc. premium).
Western travellers to the East brought back tantalising tales of the amazing sights they had seen there, and collectors in the West were particularly fascinated by the exotic wares produced there such as porcelain and lacquer, and their attempts to imitate them throughout the 17th and 18th centuries are well documented. A huge trade developed specializing in importing these goods to the West through companies such as the East India Company in England and the Compagnie des Indes in France.
Lacquer originates with the sap of the lacquer tree (Rhus vernicifera) and involves a painstaking process of allowing layer after layer to dry until it achieves a remarkably lustrous finish, which led one traveller in the 17th century to remark, commenting on the lacquer he had seen in Chinese interiors that '...it is so beautiful and lasting that they use few or no table cloths at meals, for if they spill any grease or other liquor on the table, it is easily rubbed off with a little fair water' (see Ogilby, Translation of an Embassy from the East India Company of the United Provinces to the Grand Tartar Cham, 1669, p. 243, quoted in M. Jourdain and R. Soame Jenyns, Chinese Export Art in the Eighteenth Century, London, 1950, p. 17).
Much of the lacquer created for export to the West was produced in Canton, although the finest wares were thought to come from the towns of Tonking and Nanking. As with this splendid cabinet, much of what was produced for export was based on Western protoypes, in this case the English bureau bookcase, of which many examples with a japanned decoration in imitation of lacquer were produced in England.
Two other closely related Chinese export bureau cabinets are known, with the same distinctive double-height pediment with detachable upper section. One is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, illustrated here and in Jourdain op. cit., p. 84, fig. 24, while a further example was previously with Mallett, London (illustrated in L. Synge, Mallett Millenium, London, 1999, p. 133, fig. 149).
Two further related Chinese Export bureau cabinets were sold from the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Christie's, London, 14 December 2000, lot 340 (£120,000 exc. premium), and another formerly in the collection of Lord Plender, sold Sotheby's, London, 7 November 1997, lot 22 (£100,500 inc. premium).