Lot Essay
This dressing-table would have formed part of a Charles II bedroom apartment 'pier-set', comprising a wall-mirror and table with accompanying stands. With its black japanning and golden Chinese landscapes imitating lacquer, it relates to a table, executed in the 1670's 'India' or 'Bantam' fashion and supplied for Ham House, Surrey (P. Thornton, 'The Furnishing and Decoration of Ham House', Furniture History, 1980 (fig. 77). This exotic form of decoration was popularised by the 1688 publication of John Stalker and George Parker's Treatise of Japanning and Varnishing. The table-top features a garden vignette, whose huge flowering shrubs relate closely to those on a cabinet-on-stand acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1912 from Horwood House, Bideford (O. Brackett, An Encyclopaedia of English Furniture, London, 1927, p.112).
The table bears the label adopted by the firm of John Marsh and Edward Jones of Cavendish Street, London following their purchase in 1869 of the Leeds workshops of John Kendell. The work of this successful company of furniture manufacturers and retailers is discussed in B.J. Talbert's, Examples of Ancient and Modern Furniture Metal Work Tapestries Decoration etc., London, 1876.
The table bears the label adopted by the firm of John Marsh and Edward Jones of Cavendish Street, London following their purchase in 1869 of the Leeds workshops of John Kendell. The work of this successful company of furniture manufacturers and retailers is discussed in B.J. Talbert's, Examples of Ancient and Modern Furniture Metal Work Tapestries Decoration etc., London, 1876.