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Lot Essay
A ROYAL PROVENANCE
This mahogany pedestal cabinet, with its bold and richly carved neo-classical motifs, was almost certainly part of the private furnishings of Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1744-1818), consort to George III, at Frogmore House, Windsor; a cabinet – almost certainly the present one – is illustrated in a watercolour of the Green Pavilion room at Frogmore, circa 1817, by Charles Wild (prepared for W.H. Pyne's History of the Royal Residences, published between 1816-1819).
When Queen Charlotte died in 1818, her will, dated 16 November 1818, stipulated that Frogmore be inherited by her second daughter, Princess Augusta Sophia (in residence thereafter from 1820-1840). The furniture at Frogmore was divided as follows:
‘I further give and bequeath the fixtures the articles of common household furniture… within the said house at Frogmore… to my said daughter Augusta Sophia’; ‘I give and bequeath… all articles of ornamental furniture… to be divided in equal shares according to a distribution and valuation to be made under the direction of my executors among my four younger daughters aforesaid saving and excepting such articles as shall be specified hereinafter or in a Codicil to this my last Will and Testament’ (‘the last Will and Testament of me Charlotte Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain’, PRO, TS 18/249).
A series of auction sales, the property of Queen Charlotte, conducted by James Christie the Younger (1773-1831), occurred between January and August the following year, and these included furniture, but the cabinet was not featured in these sales (nor in any later posthumous sales related to Queen Charlotte or her daughters).
After the death of Princess Augusta Sophia in September 1840, the reversionary interest was purchased by the Crown for £12,535, the Frogmore estate was annexed to Windsor Castle, and the furniture and interiors became the charge of the Lord Chamberlain (J. Mordaunt Crook, The History of the King’s Works, vol. VI, London, 1973, p. 326; PRO, WORK 19/33/1).
However, it seems likely that the cabinet had left Frogmore in late 1819 because in a General Memorandum of the late King’s Personal Property, dated January 1820, furniture at Frogmore is listed as, ‘Sundry Articles chiefly Beds, are Private Property, of very little Value & have always been in use with the Houses’ (PRO, TS 18/249), and this suggests that grander furniture including the cabinet had been removed by this date.
Searches in the Royal archives have not revealed to which Royal palace this cabinet was moved to, or when it might have left the Royal Collection. The fate of the cabinet after Frogmore remains a mystery until its appearance in the collection of William James at West Dean House.
Stylistically, this cabinet relates to late 18th/early 19th century neo-classical columnar clock cases, which have an integrated pendulum clock, often a musical component, and originate from Northern Europe, specifically Berlin, Neuwied and Rostock (G. Hinterkeuseer, Das Berliner Schloss, Regensberg, 2012, fig. 86). Indeed, there is evidence in the construction of this cabinet that it was a clock case – there are filled holes to the top, possibly where the mechanism from the clock above fed through to the musical or organ mechanism below, moreover, the backboards show signs of having been hinged, probably to allow for easy access to the workings to the interior, and it seems likely that the pierced frieze was designed to allow for sound to escape. Examples of clock cases that can be compared to the present cabinet are illustrated in K. Maurice, Die deutsche Räderuhr, Munich, vol. II, 1976, figs. 972, 973, 976, 997 (also see G. Loukomski, The palaces of Tsarskoe Selo: furniture & interiors, reprinted London, 1987, p. 52; the ‘Mechanical Orchestra’ clock in the Hermitage, 3PM-9073). It was thanks to Frederick II, King of Prussia (1712-1786), who invited twenty clockmaker families from Neuchatel and Geneva to settle in Berlin and create clocks, that the mechanical organ clock or Flőtenuhr became a speciality of Berlin craftsmen; prominent German ébénistes such as Johan Fiedler and David Roengen (who paired up with celebrated movement makers like Peter Kinzing) were encouraged to create exceptional musical clocks.
Intriguingly, given the similarity of North German clock cases, Queen Charlotte further specified in her will that various items ‘brought from Mecklenburg’, her North German birth place, were to revert to the House of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and be ‘sent back to the Senior Branch of that House’. The will referred to attached lists that would outline these items but a later note written by the Executors, Charles George Lord Arden and Major General Herbert Taylor, unfortunately states it was unlikely these lists were every compiled (PRO, TS 18/249).
This mahogany pedestal cabinet, with its bold and richly carved neo-classical motifs, was almost certainly part of the private furnishings of Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1744-1818), consort to George III, at Frogmore House, Windsor; a cabinet – almost certainly the present one – is illustrated in a watercolour of the Green Pavilion room at Frogmore, circa 1817, by Charles Wild (prepared for W.H. Pyne's History of the Royal Residences, published between 1816-1819).
When Queen Charlotte died in 1818, her will, dated 16 November 1818, stipulated that Frogmore be inherited by her second daughter, Princess Augusta Sophia (in residence thereafter from 1820-1840). The furniture at Frogmore was divided as follows:
‘I further give and bequeath the fixtures the articles of common household furniture… within the said house at Frogmore… to my said daughter Augusta Sophia’; ‘I give and bequeath… all articles of ornamental furniture… to be divided in equal shares according to a distribution and valuation to be made under the direction of my executors among my four younger daughters aforesaid saving and excepting such articles as shall be specified hereinafter or in a Codicil to this my last Will and Testament’ (‘the last Will and Testament of me Charlotte Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain’, PRO, TS 18/249).
A series of auction sales, the property of Queen Charlotte, conducted by James Christie the Younger (1773-1831), occurred between January and August the following year, and these included furniture, but the cabinet was not featured in these sales (nor in any later posthumous sales related to Queen Charlotte or her daughters).
After the death of Princess Augusta Sophia in September 1840, the reversionary interest was purchased by the Crown for £12,535, the Frogmore estate was annexed to Windsor Castle, and the furniture and interiors became the charge of the Lord Chamberlain (J. Mordaunt Crook, The History of the King’s Works, vol. VI, London, 1973, p. 326; PRO, WORK 19/33/1).
However, it seems likely that the cabinet had left Frogmore in late 1819 because in a General Memorandum of the late King’s Personal Property, dated January 1820, furniture at Frogmore is listed as, ‘Sundry Articles chiefly Beds, are Private Property, of very little Value & have always been in use with the Houses’ (PRO, TS 18/249), and this suggests that grander furniture including the cabinet had been removed by this date.
Searches in the Royal archives have not revealed to which Royal palace this cabinet was moved to, or when it might have left the Royal Collection. The fate of the cabinet after Frogmore remains a mystery until its appearance in the collection of William James at West Dean House.
Stylistically, this cabinet relates to late 18th/early 19th century neo-classical columnar clock cases, which have an integrated pendulum clock, often a musical component, and originate from Northern Europe, specifically Berlin, Neuwied and Rostock (G. Hinterkeuseer, Das Berliner Schloss, Regensberg, 2012, fig. 86). Indeed, there is evidence in the construction of this cabinet that it was a clock case – there are filled holes to the top, possibly where the mechanism from the clock above fed through to the musical or organ mechanism below, moreover, the backboards show signs of having been hinged, probably to allow for easy access to the workings to the interior, and it seems likely that the pierced frieze was designed to allow for sound to escape. Examples of clock cases that can be compared to the present cabinet are illustrated in K. Maurice, Die deutsche Räderuhr, Munich, vol. II, 1976, figs. 972, 973, 976, 997 (also see G. Loukomski, The palaces of Tsarskoe Selo: furniture & interiors, reprinted London, 1987, p. 52; the ‘Mechanical Orchestra’ clock in the Hermitage, 3PM-9073). It was thanks to Frederick II, King of Prussia (1712-1786), who invited twenty clockmaker families from Neuchatel and Geneva to settle in Berlin and create clocks, that the mechanical organ clock or Flőtenuhr became a speciality of Berlin craftsmen; prominent German ébénistes such as Johan Fiedler and David Roengen (who paired up with celebrated movement makers like Peter Kinzing) were encouraged to create exceptional musical clocks.
Intriguingly, given the similarity of North German clock cases, Queen Charlotte further specified in her will that various items ‘brought from Mecklenburg’, her North German birth place, were to revert to the House of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and be ‘sent back to the Senior Branch of that House’. The will referred to attached lists that would outline these items but a later note written by the Executors, Charles George Lord Arden and Major General Herbert Taylor, unfortunately states it was unlikely these lists were every compiled (PRO, TS 18/249).