Lot 80

A TALE OF TWO SECRETAIRES By Anthony Coleridge Last year I wrote an article on a splendid, George III lacquer upright secretaire entitled An addition to Chippendale's oeuvre, which was published in New York in the June issue of Antiques. The secretaire, or lady's secretary as it would have been called in the 18th Century, had been unrecognised when catalogued for an auction in Northumberland in February 1993 and I was asked to write the article when it was in the stock of Hotspur Limited in London. It is a very fine example of an English neoclassical upright secretaire in the French taste. Veneered with panels of Chinese lacquer which would have been painstakingly subtracted from a large Chinese screen, the frieze and border are decorated with English japanning and enriched with carved and oil-gilt neoclassical motifs. In November 1773 Thomas Chippendale supplied to Edwin Lascelles of Harewood House in Yorkshire a lacquer secretaire for the State Bedchamber at a cost of twenty-six pounds. It was described in the invoice as 'A Lady's Secretary vaneer'd with your own Japann [lacquer] with additions of Carved Ornaments &c Japann'd and part Gilt, the front of the Secretary to rise with Ballance Weights'. There is at Harewood House today, a satinwood and marquetry upright secretaire which is attributed to Chippendale. Although not included in his extant accounts, it is part of the 1795 inventory taken on the death of Edwin Lascelles. This piece and the lacquer secretaire are identical in form, construction and measurement and they have identically arranged interiors. I then compared the lacquer secretaire to a dressing commode which was also supplied for Harewood House, again for the State Bedchamber. This piece, now in a private collection, was invoiced by Chippendale as 'A large Commode with folding Doors vaneer'd with your own Japann with additions Japann'd to match with a dressing Drawer and fine locks.' These two pieces of furniture, both invoiced on 12 November 1773, for the same Room, the State Bedchamber, have much in common, but I would describe them as 'first cousins' rather than 'brother and sister'. The secretaire under discussion has various other decorative, stylistic and constructional elements which point to Chippendale's workshop but space precludes further discussion here. I had almost completed my article and was confident that the secretaire was the one described in Chippendale's 1773 Harewood account, as was Christopher Gilbert, author of The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, 1978. However there are at Osterley Park House in Middlesex two very grand lacquer commodes which have previously been attributed to Chippendale, although unsupported by a bill, which have much in common with the secretaire under discussion. I was discussing the merits of these commodes with my colleague John Hardy, when he had a brilliant recollection. When curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum, with responsiblity for Osterley, he recalled having seen an identical lacquer secretaire, illustrated in a view of the Etruscan Room, published in 1922 in Arthur T. Bolton's Architecture of Robert and James Adam. There it was staring us in the face. The secretaire can be identified as the 'japanned secretaire with pictures and books' which was listed as part of the contents of Mr Child's Dressing Room where an inventory was taken at Osterley after his death in 1782. A comparison of the original secretaire with the two Osterley commodes is most rewarding. The gilded, trumpet-shaped, fluted legs with unusual recessed roundels in the block feet, and the bifurcated leaf motif to the lower borders all conform and there are also close similarities to be found in the detail of the decoration in the Chinese lacquer panels. It was now becoming apparent to us that Chippendale not only made the secretaire but that he also supplied it to Robert and Sarah Child, for Osterley. If this was so, then in all probability he made the two Osterley lacquer commodes too. Happily the attribution of the secretaire to Chippendale became universally accepted and funds were found from a private benefactor, the National Art Collections Fund and the National Heritage Memorial Fund to purchase the secretaire for the National Trust and return it to Osterley where it belongs. Simon Jervis, Historic Building secretary to the National Trust, marked the happy ending to this story by writing an article for the June 1996 Apollo entitled Acquisition in Focus, a 'Lady's Secretary' for Osterley Park. However the story has by no means ended yet. Towards the end of my article in Antiques I wrote 'Perhaps the Lady's Secretary that Chippendale supplied to Harewood still awaits discovery'. Last year my colleague Edward Lennox-Boyd was researching in the late Robert Symonds' photographic archive at Winterthur, Delaware, when he came across a photograph of a George III black and gilt lacquer upright secretaire. Its similarity to the Osterley secretaire is very striking. The giltwood borders of interlaced roundels and the guilloche border dividing the front panels appear to be identical: the fluted trumpet-shaped legs and block feet are similar, although those illustrated in Symonds' photograph have a foliated collar above the block feet and the latter are not incised with roundels. The Chinese lacquer panels have uncanny similarities, for not only do the buildings and pagodas conform, but the rockwork, spiky palm trees, needle dripping pines and wave ornament are extraordinarily alike, not only on the two secretaires but also on the two Osterley commodes. Were the wafer-thin lacquer panels which are veneered to the two secretaires and the two commodes cut from panels of the same screen? Chinese lacquer screens at this date are similar in detail of decoration and design but, notwithstanding this, there seems to be an unmistakeable common factor present in the pieces under discussion. If the panels for the four pieces all had the same source in one screen, then how is it explained that Chippendale, in his 1773 Harewood account, describes the secretaire as being 'vaneer'd with YOUR OWN Japann'? Did Edwin Lascelles send panels from a Chinese lacquer screen to Chippendale which the latter cut up to enrich his patron's case furniture ordered for the State Bedchamber, and did Chippendale then either buy or just recycle the unused lacquer for the Osterley commission? It is doubtful that he bought it as there is no sign of a credit in Chippendale's accounts for Harewood. I fear that we may never know the answer. Could the 'Symonds' secretaire be the missing one from the State Bedchamber at Harewood House? Unless it had been destroyed since the photograph was taken, it had to be somewhere. This tale has turned up many bizarre coincidences. I had completed this short article, as far as this point, by the late afternoon of 10 February and had obviously hoped that it might be read by the owner of the Harewood Secretaire. Later that evening I listened to a telephone message from a colleague that the secretaire which was illustrated in Robert Symonds' photograph had been delivered to our warehouse. A client has sent it in for advice and, my colleagues had recognised it. I could hardly believe it. It is a splendid piece of furntiure as one would expect: Chippendale at his best. Here was the 'Lady's Secretary vaneer'd with your own Japann with additions of Carved Ornaments & c Japann'd and part Gilt, the front of the Secretary to rise with Ballance Weights', which Thomas Chippendale supplied to Edwin Lascelles of Harewood House in November 1773 at a cost of twenty-six pounds for the State Bedchamber. The hunt was over before it had really begun. It gave tremendous pleasure to compare the Harewood Secretaire with detailed photographs of the Osterley Secretaire. The marked similarities and slight differences are self evident. The measurements of the height and width were very close: the Harewood Secretaire was, however, 1½ in. deeper. It was veneered with panels of Chinese lacquer to the two front panels and to the top and left hand side: however, the borders, cusped upper section and, unexpectedly, right hand side are japanned in simulation of the Chinese lacquer. The lacquered and japanned decoration are remarkably similar. The Osterley secretaire has the intials 'MW' scratched into the carcase underneath it which are presumably those of a journeyman cabinet-maker. The Harewood Secretaire bears no such intials. Chippendale, in his invoice, states 'the front of the Secretary to rise with Ballance Weights': it does, as does the Osterley example. The three keyhole escutcheons to the front of both secretaires are in a straight line which is aesthetically pleasing. One would normally expect the locks on the lower doors to be on the left, on the opposite side to the hinges, which is asymmetrical and less pleasing to the eye. The Harewood Secretaire was purchased in 1946 for £350 from J.M. Botibol of Hanway Street, off Oxford Street, who in his advertisements described himself as 'Dealer in fine old French and English Furntiure'. By a final extraordinary coincidence, the Osterley secretaire also passed through the stock of Botibol shortly after it left Osterley in 1949 when the house was presented to the National Trust by the Earl of Jersey. It is fascinating that these two secretaires which were supplied by Chippendale for two of our great English houses should have passed through one dealer's hands within a few years of each other. PROPERTY OF A LADY

A GEORGE III BLACK AND GOLD-LACQUER AND JAPANNED SECRETAIRE

BY THOMAS CHIPPENDALE

Details

A GEORGE III BLACK AND GOLD-LACQUER AND JAPANNED SECRETAIRE
By Thomas Chippendale
Decorated overall with Chinese river landscapes and temple enclosures, the rectangular moulded top above a spreading canted frieze and a lappeted band, above a long frieze mahogany-lined drawer and a fall-front enclosing to the reverse a green baize-lined writing-surface and a fitted interior decorated with scrolling foliage with a central recess and eleven short mahogany-lined drawers, one fitted with two glass wells, and six pigeon-holes, the lower section with a door enclosing three long drawers, flanked by a flowerhead bulb guilloche band headed by a patera on reeded tapering legs and block feet, the locks stamped 'Joseph Bramah NS3619', inscribed to reverse 'MEF32', with some discoloured restoraton
34 in. (86 cm.) wide; 53½ in. (136 cm.) high; 17 in. (43 cm.) deep

Provenance

Almost certainly supplied by Thomas Chippendale to Edwin Lascelles, Esq., for Harewood House, Yorkshire, and invoiced on 12 November 1773 for £26.
Bought from J.M. Botibol on 22 October 1946.
Thence by descent.

Literature

C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, London, 1978, vol. I, p. 197.

Lot Essay

This secretaire is almost certainly the one described in Thomas Chippendale's 12 November 1773 account to Edwin Lascelles for furniture supplied to Harewood House, as:
A Ladys Secretary vaneer'd with your own
Japann with additions of Carved Ornaments &c
Japann'd & part Gilt, the front of the Secretary
to rise with ballance weights
The next object listed on the invoice was 'A large commode with folding doors vaneer'd with your own Japann with additions Japann'd to match with a dressing drawer &c.'. This magnificent dressing-commode was sold from Harewood, in these Rooms, 28 June 1951, lot 74, and again on 22 November 1973, lot 58. The sections of oriental lacquer that comprise the doors of the commode and this secretaire are so strikingly similar that it is tempting to speculate that they were cut from the same oriental lacquer screen provided by Lascelles - 'your own Japann'.
The closest parallel to this secretaire at Harewood is a fall-front secretaire of the same form veneered in marquetry with the front inset with oval medallions enclosing a classical urn and a reclining figure symbolising Learning, while the side panels display profile heads and vases (ibid., vol. II, p. 62, fig. 96).

More from Important English Furniture

View All