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Lot Essay
The elegant china-cabinets' Roman 'tablet' compartmented glazing and antique-fluted cornices enriched with 'Etruscan' pearl-strings reflect the George III Roman fashion popularised by The Works in Architecture of Robert and James Adam, 1773-9. Similar ornament features in designs for Roman-medallioned chairs executed in the late 1770s by Thomas Chippendale Junior (d. 1822), author of a pattern-book of decorative tablets entitled Sketches of Ornament, 1779 (C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, London, 1978, figs. 202, 28-31and 33).
The St. Martin's Lane firm which Thomas Chippendale Junior inherited from his father in 1779, supplied much of the furnishings that harmonised with Robert Adam's architecture at Harewood House, Yorkshire; so it is likely that these cabinets may well be amongst the furniture commissioned from them by Edwin Lascelles, Lord Harewood (d.1795). They could conceivably be the '2 Mahogany China Cupboards' listed in the 1795 inventory in 'Mrs. Sands Room' (MS. Sheepscar Branch Library, Leeds). It must however be remembered that much of the furniture at Harewood was inherited from other houses - particularly Goldsborough Hall, Yorkshire.
The St. Martin's Lane firm which Thomas Chippendale Junior inherited from his father in 1779, supplied much of the furnishings that harmonised with Robert Adam's architecture at Harewood House, Yorkshire; so it is likely that these cabinets may well be amongst the furniture commissioned from them by Edwin Lascelles, Lord Harewood (d.1795). They could conceivably be the '2 Mahogany China Cupboards' listed in the 1795 inventory in 'Mrs. Sands Room' (MS. Sheepscar Branch Library, Leeds). It must however be remembered that much of the furniture at Harewood was inherited from other houses - particularly Goldsborough Hall, Yorkshire.