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拍品專文
The 'Hadspen' cabinet richly figured mahogany is designed in the George II 'Roman' fashion, while its French 'picturesque' embellishments are in the 'Modern' style promoted by the St. Martin's Lane cabinet-maker Thomas Chippendale (d.1779) in his celebrated pattern-book The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, 1754. Patterns for its temple-pedimented and Ionic-dentilled cornice with vase or bust hollow, feature in his 'Library Bookcase' pattern (pl. LXVII); while that for its base, with 'commode' and recessed chest-of-drawers appeared in his 'Library Bookcase' pattern (pl. LXII). The drawers display 'picturesque' ormolu handles comprising shell-scalloped and foliated cartouches, while the commode doors are enriched with hollow-cornered and reed-mounted tablets that are flowered with Roman acanthus in the manner of one of Chippendale's 'Library Table' patterns (pl. LVII). The cabinet's novel 'gothic' glazing pattern, with triumphal-arched, cusped and pointed and acanthus-wrapped reeds, features in his 'Library Bookcase', pattern (pl. LXXI) as well as in his illustration of a lady's 'China Case' cabinet that he had executed around 1750 (pl. CVI and reproduced here). By the mid-eighteenth century, such cabinets were not only provided for the library, but, as is the present case, for the lady's apartment, where it could serve in addition for procelain display and as a clothes-chest.
The Hadspen drawers are fitted with unusual 'S-shaped' escutcheons, while its commode conceals sliding clothes-trays that are lined with 'Roman fashion' marbled paper. This coupled with the design affords us a possible attribution to Thomas Chippendale (d.1779). The escutcheons feature on bookcases supplied by Chippendale to Sir Penistone Lamb for the Library at Brocket Hall in 1772-1775 (see C.Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, London, 1978, vol.II, figs.77,80 and 267). They also appear on a clothes-press at Harewood House, Yorkshire that was supplied by Chippendale in the late 1760s (C.Gilbert, op.cit., fig. 249). The ornament of this Harewood clothes-press relates in turn to Chippendale's 'desk and bookcases' pattern in the 3rd edition of his Director, 1762 (pl. CVII); and this pattern, like the Hadspen cabinet, also featured a dentilled pediment and 'commode' doors with flowered tablets. Similar marbled paper covered trays are contained in a serpentine clothes press that was supplied by Chippendale to Sir Rowland Winn in 1766 for Nostell Priory (C.Gilbert, ibid, figs. 245-247).
The Hadspen drawers are fitted with unusual 'S-shaped' escutcheons, while its commode conceals sliding clothes-trays that are lined with 'Roman fashion' marbled paper. This coupled with the design affords us a possible attribution to Thomas Chippendale (d.1779). The escutcheons feature on bookcases supplied by Chippendale to Sir Penistone Lamb for the Library at Brocket Hall in 1772-1775 (see C.Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, London, 1978, vol.II, figs.77,80 and 267). They also appear on a clothes-press at Harewood House, Yorkshire that was supplied by Chippendale in the late 1760s (C.Gilbert, op.cit., fig. 249). The ornament of this Harewood clothes-press relates in turn to Chippendale's 'desk and bookcases' pattern in the 3rd edition of his Director, 1762 (pl. CVII); and this pattern, like the Hadspen cabinet, also featured a dentilled pediment and 'commode' doors with flowered tablets. Similar marbled paper covered trays are contained in a serpentine clothes press that was supplied by Chippendale to Sir Rowland Winn in 1766 for Nostell Priory (C.Gilbert, ibid, figs. 245-247).