POSSIBLY BY JOHN GUILBAUD, CIRCA 1690

The flower-vases relect the French style made fashionable in the late 17th and early 18th centuries by Jean Baptiste and Antoine Monnoyer, and popularised by Daniel Marot's pattern book Nouveaux Livre de Tableaux, de Ports et Cheminees utiles aux Peintres en fleurs published in around 1700. This cabinet, reputedly from the collection of the Dukes of Buccleuch, may have belonged to Anne, Duchess of Buccleuch and Monmouth, who introduced a mirror painted with a related vase in her furnishing of Dalkeith Palace, Edinburgh at this period (see J. Cornforth, 'Looking-Glass Mysteries', Country Life, 21 October 1993, pp.72-75). Similar richly polychromed japanning on a black ground features on a contemporary bedroom apartment pier-suite of mirror, table and stands at Hopetoun House, near Edinburgh (see P. Thornton, Form and Decoration: Innovation in the Decorative Arts 1470-1870, New York, 1998, p.136, pl.284). This suite is thought to have been supplied by John Guilbaud who was paid for two overmantel mirrors at Hopetoun in 1703. Guilbaud, a Huguenot working in London, sold 'all manner of Cabbinet work and Japan Cabbinets, Large Tables, Small suets of all manner of Looking Glasses, Pannells of Glasse, Chimney peaces and all sorts of Glasse Sconces' according to his trade label (see G. Beard and C. Gilbert, eds., Dictionary of English Furniture Makers 1660-1840, Leeds, 1986, p.378). The reputed Buccleuch provenance is of interest in view that their family properties include Dalkeith, Drumlamrig and Bowhill in Scotland. Another cabinet with identical painted decoration but different stand and cresting appears in a photograph of Sir Roger Newdigate's 'gothick' library at Arbury Hall, Warwickshire (see C. Hussey, English Country Houses: Mid-Georgian 1760-1800, Woodbridge, 1955, p.44, fig.70). A further related cabinet from the collection of Mrs. Dorothy Hart was lent to an exhibition of 'Masterpieces of British Art and Craftsmanship' at Ormeley Lodge, 1954, and to 'The Age of Charles II' at Burlington House in 1960-61, and is now in the collection of J. Paul Getty at Sutton Place, London together with its pair and a further cabinet of this type (all three are illustrated in R.W.P. Luff, 'Oriental Lacquer and English Japan', The Antique Collector, December 1962, figs.1,5,6).

A very similar pair of stands with pierced tapering legs and central mask within a shell surround, supporting Japanese lacquer cabinets, was sold by the Lady Anne Tree, Christie's London, 21 May 1970, lot 133. Another related stand notably sharing the heavily carved cushioned waist is in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (see M. Jarry, Chinoiserie, Paris, 1981, p.143, col.pl.149). A further stand with similar cushioned waist and thought to be of Northern European origin was sold from Hackwood Park, Hampshire, Christie's house sale, 20-22 April 1998, lot 203.