Lot Essay
This sumptuous cabinet is 'flowered' to harmonise with the so-called 'India' fashioned lacquer and porcelain furniture of rooms that evoked a ver perpetuum (everlasting Spring), as associated with Arcadia's Nature deity Venus and the festive Spring deity Flora. The prototype, inspired by Messrs. J. Stalker and G. Parker's Treatise of Japanning and Varnishing, 1688, is a group of late 17th century cabinets associated with one recently acquired from Witcombe Park, Gloucestershire by The Holborne Museum of Art in Bath, which is thought to have been commissioned by Sir Michael Hicks (d. 1710) (D. Beevers ed., Chinoiserie in Britain, Brighton, 2008, no. C5).
A pair of japanned cabinets similarly decorated on a white ground were commissioned by Ralph, 1st Duke of Montagu and now form part of the celebrated collection at Boughton House, Northamptonshire (T. Murdoch, ed., Boughton House: The English Versailles, London, 1992, col.pl.80). Described as 'Two little white India Cabinets' listed in Montagu House, Bloomsbury in 1707, these may conceivably have been executed by the Huguenot Gerrit Jensen as he was certainly paid £5 in 1694 'For mending the Jappan for 2 white India Cabinets & Varnishing the frames black and cleaning the brass work'; interestingly their original stands were replaced by 1718 with giltwood bases by the Royal cabinet-maker James Moore.
Similar white-japanned cabinets were also produced by Gerard Dagley (d.1714) in Berlin (M. Jarry, Chinoiseries, Paris, 1981, p.156, pl.166 and H. Huth, Lacquer of the West, London, 1971, figs.160-161), as well as in Holland (M. Jarry, op.cit., p.137, pl.142).
A pair of japanned cabinets similarly decorated on a white ground were commissioned by Ralph, 1st Duke of Montagu and now form part of the celebrated collection at Boughton House, Northamptonshire (T. Murdoch, ed., Boughton House: The English Versailles, London, 1992, col.pl.80). Described as 'Two little white India Cabinets' listed in Montagu House, Bloomsbury in 1707, these may conceivably have been executed by the Huguenot Gerrit Jensen as he was certainly paid £5 in 1694 'For mending the Jappan for 2 white India Cabinets & Varnishing the frames black and cleaning the brass work'; interestingly their original stands were replaced by 1718 with giltwood bases by the Royal cabinet-maker James Moore.
Similar white-japanned cabinets were also produced by Gerard Dagley (d.1714) in Berlin (M. Jarry, Chinoiseries, Paris, 1981, p.156, pl.166 and H. Huth, Lacquer of the West, London, 1971, figs.160-161), as well as in Holland (M. Jarry, op.cit., p.137, pl.142).