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Lot Essay
While Eighteenth Century production of Chinoiserie decorated gilt leather panels is mostly associated with workshops in the North and South Netherlands, a recent article in the Furniture History Journal has pointed out that English craftsmen were also producing high quality leather panels during this time (E. Koldeweij, Gilt Leather Hangings in Chinoiserie and Other Styles: An English Speciality', Furniture History Journal, 2000, vol. XXXVI, p. 61-101). Published correspondence between Dutch patrons and English craftsman, foremost the London gilt leather maker John Rowland (d. 1744) and a number of his apprentices who later established independant workshops to continue the craft in London, demonstrate the degree of cross-chanel commission and trade in such decorative panels.
Details of the price, maintanence, workshop production and frequency of custom orders have been gleaned from these remarkable survivals of correspondence between a patron and craftsman. Quite often, sets of wall hangings could be ordered with specific motifs and decorative schemes - in fact the practice of the time seemed to favor custom orders rather than panels made ahead of time and kept in stock.
While the current state of scholarship in this field prevents any firm attribution, highly idiosyncratic features, such as the black-and-white parquetry floor to the central pagoda, are shared with a signed and dated screen by John Footman at Huis Doorn, Doorn, The Netherlands (illus. E. Koldeweij, op. cit., p. 77, fig. 14). Footman (active 1760-1808) trained under Robert Halford, who was in turn had taken over the workshop of one of John Rowland's assistant's, Samuel Williams (active 1696-1752). In all likelihood, motifs and compositions would have been passed along from master to apprentice making it impossible at this point to further determine the attribution of the present screen.
Details of the price, maintanence, workshop production and frequency of custom orders have been gleaned from these remarkable survivals of correspondence between a patron and craftsman. Quite often, sets of wall hangings could be ordered with specific motifs and decorative schemes - in fact the practice of the time seemed to favor custom orders rather than panels made ahead of time and kept in stock.
While the current state of scholarship in this field prevents any firm attribution, highly idiosyncratic features, such as the black-and-white parquetry floor to the central pagoda, are shared with a signed and dated screen by John Footman at Huis Doorn, Doorn, The Netherlands (illus. E. Koldeweij, op. cit., p. 77, fig. 14). Footman (active 1760-1808) trained under Robert Halford, who was in turn had taken over the workshop of one of John Rowland's assistant's, Samuel Williams (active 1696-1752). In all likelihood, motifs and compositions would have been passed along from master to apprentice making it impossible at this point to further determine the attribution of the present screen.