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Lot Essay
The cabinet reflects the George II fashion popularised by Thomas Chippendale's Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, 1754, while its stands reflects the Roman fashion introduced around 1760 by Robert Adam (d.1792).
The distinctively hermed and fluted legs, with feet in the form of altar plinths, were used by both Chippendale and Adam. An elegant use by the former is the legs of the artist's table at Nostell Priory of 1767 (C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, London, 1978, vol. II, fig. 396). Perhaps more important in this context is Adam's use of such feet on the legs of the cabinet-stand designed in 1776 for Lady Wynne, wife of Sir Watkin Williams Wynne of 20 St James's Square. These cabinets were exhibited by Pelham Galleries at Grosvenor House in 1993 and were illustrated in that catalogue.
It is a fact that there is much less neo-classical design in the Director than there is surviving neo-classical furniture by Chippendale. One of the most neo-classical table patterns, with caryatid legs, has a frieze of alternating triglyphs and wreaths, with a central tablet, and this frieze was more or less executed for a table at Harewood of 1769 (Gilbert, op. cit., pl. 473). Taken with Chippendale's repeated use of the heavily-shaded petal flowerhead (ibid., pls. 446 and 429) it does seem possible that he made this cabinet-stand.
THE ICONOGRAPHY
The library medal-cabinet, of commode form with serpentined truss feet, displays tablets of superbly-figured mahogany framed in French hollow-cornered reed mouldings and striated ribbon-bands of richly- figured parquetry. Its architecturally-shaped stand, with tablet corners, evokes an altar to Apollo, as leader of the Muses of artistic inspiration, with its inlaid frieze of golden sunflowerd libation-patera set amongst Doric fluted triglyphs. Its taper-hermed pilasters are fluted in the Roman-tripod altar fashion and stand on hollow-sided 'altar' pedestals.
Lot 30 in this sale was also in the collection of Thomas Inman.
The distinctively hermed and fluted legs, with feet in the form of altar plinths, were used by both Chippendale and Adam. An elegant use by the former is the legs of the artist's table at Nostell Priory of 1767 (C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, London, 1978, vol. II, fig. 396). Perhaps more important in this context is Adam's use of such feet on the legs of the cabinet-stand designed in 1776 for Lady Wynne, wife of Sir Watkin Williams Wynne of 20 St James's Square. These cabinets were exhibited by Pelham Galleries at Grosvenor House in 1993 and were illustrated in that catalogue.
It is a fact that there is much less neo-classical design in the Director than there is surviving neo-classical furniture by Chippendale. One of the most neo-classical table patterns, with caryatid legs, has a frieze of alternating triglyphs and wreaths, with a central tablet, and this frieze was more or less executed for a table at Harewood of 1769 (Gilbert, op. cit., pl. 473). Taken with Chippendale's repeated use of the heavily-shaded petal flowerhead (ibid., pls. 446 and 429) it does seem possible that he made this cabinet-stand.
THE ICONOGRAPHY
The library medal-cabinet, of commode form with serpentined truss feet, displays tablets of superbly-figured mahogany framed in French hollow-cornered reed mouldings and striated ribbon-bands of richly- figured parquetry. Its architecturally-shaped stand, with tablet corners, evokes an altar to Apollo, as leader of the Muses of artistic inspiration, with its inlaid frieze of golden sunflowerd libation-patera set amongst Doric fluted triglyphs. Its taper-hermed pilasters are fluted in the Roman-tripod altar fashion and stand on hollow-sided 'altar' pedestals.
Lot 30 in this sale was also in the collection of Thomas Inman.