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Lot Essay
This extraordinary Queen Anne Japanned high chest of drawers is one of an elite group of American furniture case pieces to survive from the Colonial port city of Boston, Massachusetts c. 1740.
This Queen Anne high chest retains its exceedingly rare "Japanned" surface made to emulate Chinese and Japanese lacquer --the cutting edge of fashion in late 17th and early 18th century Europe and the Americas. Trade with the Far East was begun in the 16th century by Portuguese merchants. By the late 17th century the world was a global economy with goods travelling by ship from the ports of the Far East to Europe and then onto the Colonies. Lacquer objects, primarily chests and boxes, were imported by the Dutch East India Company and may have served as the inspiration for these pieces. Asian lacquer objects, made with the resin of the "lac" tree would have been exotic in both the use of the material and the decorative motifs employed. They would also have been costly objects out of reach of all but the most wealthy of clients. "Japanners" sought to fill this gap by creating and exotic surface, but using locally available and more familiar paint materials.
While "japanners" advertised in the 18th century newspapers in Boston, New York and Philadelphia, the majority of pieces which have survived appear to have been made in Boston. Fewer than 50 japanned case pieces from this era have survived. The craftsmen understood the delicate nature of the work they were creating when layering ground layers (in either black or imitation tortoishell as in this example), buiding up areas of the decoration with gesso and then applying gold and other metal powdered paint as the final coat. In most cases the drawer fronts were made of maple a wood that would be more stable less likely to shrink dimensionally. However, most of the pieces that survive today, show the evidence of this fragile construction and have lost significant areas of the raised decoration. With the exception of the now replaced legs and a small portion of the central finial plith, the surface of this high chest survives in extraordinary condition.
Only three high chests of drawers with the signature or cipher of the original maker are known today. Interestingly all of those pieces bear signatures from the shop of William Randle and Robert Davis. For a closely related example of Japanned decoration see a high chest of drawers, Skinner 7 November 2004, lot 230 signed "Rob't Davis"; a high chest of drawers at the Baltimore Museum of Art signed "Robert Davis" and bearing the cipher "WR" presumably for William Randle in whose shop Davis worked, and a high chest of drawers at the Adams National Historic Site, inscribed "Randle". There is a tall case clock at the Rhode Island Historical Society inscribed "Robt Davis/Jappaner/Boston MA/1736" but the exterior japanning was completely redone in the 19th century so it no longer provides any information about the original decoration. Likewise a dressing table lacking all its decoration, but signed by Davis was sold at Skinner 24 September 1983, lot 149.
This Queen Anne high chest retains its exceedingly rare "Japanned" surface made to emulate Chinese and Japanese lacquer --the cutting edge of fashion in late 17th and early 18th century Europe and the Americas. Trade with the Far East was begun in the 16th century by Portuguese merchants. By the late 17th century the world was a global economy with goods travelling by ship from the ports of the Far East to Europe and then onto the Colonies. Lacquer objects, primarily chests and boxes, were imported by the Dutch East India Company and may have served as the inspiration for these pieces. Asian lacquer objects, made with the resin of the "lac" tree would have been exotic in both the use of the material and the decorative motifs employed. They would also have been costly objects out of reach of all but the most wealthy of clients. "Japanners" sought to fill this gap by creating and exotic surface, but using locally available and more familiar paint materials.
While "japanners" advertised in the 18th century newspapers in Boston, New York and Philadelphia, the majority of pieces which have survived appear to have been made in Boston. Fewer than 50 japanned case pieces from this era have survived. The craftsmen understood the delicate nature of the work they were creating when layering ground layers (in either black or imitation tortoishell as in this example), buiding up areas of the decoration with gesso and then applying gold and other metal powdered paint as the final coat. In most cases the drawer fronts were made of maple a wood that would be more stable less likely to shrink dimensionally. However, most of the pieces that survive today, show the evidence of this fragile construction and have lost significant areas of the raised decoration. With the exception of the now replaced legs and a small portion of the central finial plith, the surface of this high chest survives in extraordinary condition.
Only three high chests of drawers with the signature or cipher of the original maker are known today. Interestingly all of those pieces bear signatures from the shop of William Randle and Robert Davis. For a closely related example of Japanned decoration see a high chest of drawers, Skinner 7 November 2004, lot 230 signed "Rob't Davis"; a high chest of drawers at the Baltimore Museum of Art signed "Robert Davis" and bearing the cipher "WR" presumably for William Randle in whose shop Davis worked, and a high chest of drawers at the Adams National Historic Site, inscribed "Randle". There is a tall case clock at the Rhode Island Historical Society inscribed "Robt Davis/Jappaner/Boston MA/1736" but the exterior japanning was completely redone in the 19th century so it no longer provides any information about the original decoration. Likewise a dressing table lacking all its decoration, but signed by Davis was sold at Skinner 24 September 1983, lot 149.