LATE 17TH CENTURY, ATTRIBUTED TO GERHARD DAGLY

These pier-set gueridon-stands for vases or candelabra would have been designed en suite with a table and its accompanying mirror, and are japanned with golden vines and foliage in trompe l'oeil Chinese lacquer. Considered appropriate for the decoration of a 17th Century bedroom apartment, such furnishings generally accompanied the lacquered imports of the East India Companies, including cabinets and screens. A pair of gueridon-stands with Roman or Solomonic-spiralled columns and flowered decoration on a red ground, has been identified with the 'Indian lacquer work' or 'lacquer work in the Chinese manner' for which Gerhard Dagly (d.1715) became celebrated following his appointment in Berlin in the 1680s as 'Kammerkünstler' to Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg (d.1688). Dagly was afterwards appointed Intendant des Ornements at the court of Frederick III, Elector of Brandenburg, later Frederick I of Prussia. (H. Huth, 'Lacquer Work by Gerhard Dagly', Connoisseur, vol. 95, 1935, p.14).

Dagly and his brother Jacques provided japanned furnishings of exceptional quality to Frederick I and his court, on one occasion the Kurfürstin of Hanover sent an English clock-case to her son-in-law and felt bound to mention that 'Dagly makes much better ones' (H. Honour, Chinoiserie: The Vision of Cathay, London, 1961, p. 66).