CIRCA 1830

This splendid writing-table was conceived in the Dutch version of the early 19th Century Gothic style. Its delicate trefoil and quatrefoil motifs are combined with inlaid pinnacles with medieval warriors, which relate to the designs for Gothic furniture in Jean-Josse Caron's (1773-1838) Manuel de l'ébéniste, published in 1836. These designs were employed by the Frisian cabinet-maker Jan Adolf Hillebrand jr. (1818-1887), who showed his 'Gotische, à la renaissance bewerkte zilverkast...' at an exhibition held in 1844 in Leeuwarden in the Northern Dutch province of Friesland. With its intricate carving and flamed mahogany veneers, and light maple and satinwood veneers to the interiors, Hillebrand's oeuvre demonstrates great refinement, which is even more apparent in a similar silver cabinet in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, which was acquired by King William II of the Netherlands at the exhibition for F 1100 (R. Baarsen et.al., De Lelijke Tijd, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, 1995, pp. 58-61).

The King collected several items of rosewood furniture in the fashionable Gothic style, which in ornament and construction are closely related to the present table. These were executed by a number of prominent Dutch furniture-makers such as Johannes Abraham (1750-1829) and Johan George Schick (1790-1862), who were based in The Hague, but also by the Amsterdam cabinet-maker Carel Breytspraak (1796-1858), whose father had already supplied furniture to the Royal Palace in Amsterdam in 1808 (J.W.M van Voorst tot Voorst, 'Biedermeiermeubels van het Koninklijk Huis', Antiek 6 (1995), pp. 34-40).