CIRCA 1675-1685

Details

A JAMES II OYSTER-VENEERED OLIVEWOOD AND MARQUETRY CABINET-ON-STAND
CIRCA 1675-1685
Inlaid overall with shaped panels of flowers and birds, with cushion frieze drawer above a pair of oval-panelled doors enclosing a fitted interior with ten drawers around a central cupboard enclosing a further four drawers, the stand with a drawer, on spirally-turned ash legs joined by a shaped stretcher, on bun feet, the handles apparently original, with ivorine Partridge label, inscribed in ink 'desu' on the carcase of the cabinet, the interior arrangement of the interior cupboard possibly altered at the time of manufacture, the legs probably replaced
63½ in. (161.5 cm.) high; 42½ in. (108 cm.) wide; 19½ in. (49.5 cm.) deep

Provenance

Possibly Thomas Assheton-Smith (d. 1774) of Ashley Hall, Cheshire and by descent with the Duff-Assheton-Smiths, Vaynol Hall, Carnarvon, to
Sir Charles Duff-Assheton-Smith, 3rd Bt. (early 20th century).
Frank Partridge, 26 King Street, St. James's, London.

Literature

P. Macquoid and R. Edwards, The Dictionary of English Furniture, London, rev. ed., 1954, vol. 1, p. 165, fig. 6 (when in the Assheton-Smith collection).

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis

Lot Essay

The cabinet is richly flowered in 'Roman' mosaiced compartments and the marquetried door tablets evoke the Roman lyric poets' concept of a golden age of plenty and everlasting Spring ('Ver Perpetuum') with their display of festive laurel-wreathed medallions of flowered krater-vases. Together with trompe l'oeil flowers issuing from Roman foliage, they are tied by ribbon-bands, whose marbled 'shell' parquetry recalls the triumph of the nature-deity Venus. Such plinth-supported vases attended by birds harmonised with the 'architectural' paintings considered appropriate for bedroom apartments, and featured in Marot's Nouveaux Livre de Tableaux de Portes, et Cheminée utiles aux Peintres en Fleurs. Its ebony tablets and medallions of green-stained bone and woods of various hues reflect the French court style associated with the ébéniste A. C. Boulle. The St. Paul's Church Yard cabinet-maker Phillip Hunt illustrated a similarly flowered and shell-parquetried cabinet in his 1680s trade-card. It too incorporated drawers grouped round a tabernacle compartment, and is displayed on a stand with Solomonic pillars. Hunt, who traded at 'Ye Looking Glas [sic] and Cabinet' also sold such marquetry described as 'Curious [very fine] inlaid Figures Park' (A. Bowett, English Furniture 1660-1714 From Charles II to Queen Anne, London, 2002, p. 294, pl.9:42). A floral marquetry table, with similar vase-turned and spiralled pillars, has been identified with the 'wall[nut] flowerd' furniture likely to have been purchased in 1684 by James Grahme (1650-1730) from the Ludgate Hill cabinet-maker Thomas Pistor (d.1706) (ibid, p. 116 and A. Turpin, 'Thomas Pistor, Father and Son, and Levens Hall', Furniture History, 2000, pp. 43-60). The marquetry of the Levens table has also been compared to that of a cabinet-on-stand, which in turn relates closely to the present cabinet (ibid, figs. 8 and 9).

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