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Lot Essay
THE DESIGN
The cabinet is designed in the antique fashion promoted by George III's Rome-trained court architects, Sir William Chambers and Robert Adam. The tympanum of its elliptic arched pediment is carved in bas relief with a palm-flowered sacred urn framed in a laurel-wreathed medallion, and reflects the 'Etruscan vase' or 'Roman columbarium' fashion illustrated in Robert and James Adam's Works in Architecture, 1774. THE ATTRIBUTION
This cabinet forms part of a small group of bookcases with elements of their design that are characteristic of the work of the cabinet-makers Mayhew and Ince. Prime among these is the urn-centred cresting which is shared by a pair of bookcases of two-door form that were sold at Christie's, London, 8 July 1993, lot 111, also a bookcase formerly in the collection of Jules C. Stein that was sold Christie's, New York, 28 January 1989, lot 199, and another that was sold anonymously, Christie's, New York, 27 January 1990, lot 185. The cornice and frieze of the last bookcase is strikingly similar to that on the Style cabinet and it shares also the design of the panelling of the lower doors. The disitinctive frieze of swags hung from ribbon-ties is of a very similar type to those on the Mayhew and Ince commode sold from Burley-on-the-Hill, Rutland, in these Rooms, 6 July 1989, lot 147.
Both the New York bookcases had bands of guilloche carving at the top of the lower sections that appear in marquetry on a pair of satinwood cabinets that are possibly by Mayhew and Ince and are at Broadlands, Hampshire (H. Roberts, 'The Ince and Mayhew Connection, Furniture at Broadlands, Hampshire - I', Country Life, 29 January 1981, p.287, fig. 7) The same guilloche appears on a pier glass in the Drawing Room at Broadlands that is definitely by the firm and which is surmounted by a swag-draped urn with a fluted band. A further link is the fact that the bookcases sold from the Behrens collection in 1993, referred to above, have the same wave scroll ornament on their waist friezes as on the present lot.
The large scale urns in the cresting is perhaps the most typical Mayhew motifs. Their marquetry furniture is also characterised by the use of big neo-classical motifs, often copied from engravings.
THE PROVENANCE
In the current generation of the Style family it is tentatively thought that this bookcase came from Godmersham Park, the house in Kent best known as the home of Jane Austen's brother, Edward Austen Knight. This house was owned and restored by Mrs Robert Tritton from 1936 so it is possible that David Style acquired it from a post-war dispersal sale of contents bought with the house.
The cabinet is designed in the antique fashion promoted by George III's Rome-trained court architects, Sir William Chambers and Robert Adam. The tympanum of its elliptic arched pediment is carved in bas relief with a palm-flowered sacred urn framed in a laurel-wreathed medallion, and reflects the 'Etruscan vase' or 'Roman columbarium' fashion illustrated in Robert and James Adam's Works in Architecture, 1774. THE ATTRIBUTION
This cabinet forms part of a small group of bookcases with elements of their design that are characteristic of the work of the cabinet-makers Mayhew and Ince. Prime among these is the urn-centred cresting which is shared by a pair of bookcases of two-door form that were sold at Christie's, London, 8 July 1993, lot 111, also a bookcase formerly in the collection of Jules C. Stein that was sold Christie's, New York, 28 January 1989, lot 199, and another that was sold anonymously, Christie's, New York, 27 January 1990, lot 185. The cornice and frieze of the last bookcase is strikingly similar to that on the Style cabinet and it shares also the design of the panelling of the lower doors. The disitinctive frieze of swags hung from ribbon-ties is of a very similar type to those on the Mayhew and Ince commode sold from Burley-on-the-Hill, Rutland, in these Rooms, 6 July 1989, lot 147.
Both the New York bookcases had bands of guilloche carving at the top of the lower sections that appear in marquetry on a pair of satinwood cabinets that are possibly by Mayhew and Ince and are at Broadlands, Hampshire (H. Roberts, 'The Ince and Mayhew Connection, Furniture at Broadlands, Hampshire - I', Country Life, 29 January 1981, p.287, fig. 7) The same guilloche appears on a pier glass in the Drawing Room at Broadlands that is definitely by the firm and which is surmounted by a swag-draped urn with a fluted band. A further link is the fact that the bookcases sold from the Behrens collection in 1993, referred to above, have the same wave scroll ornament on their waist friezes as on the present lot.
The large scale urns in the cresting is perhaps the most typical Mayhew motifs. Their marquetry furniture is also characterised by the use of big neo-classical motifs, often copied from engravings.
THE PROVENANCE
In the current generation of the Style family it is tentatively thought that this bookcase came from Godmersham Park, the house in Kent best known as the home of Jane Austen's brother, Edward Austen Knight. This house was owned and restored by Mrs Robert Tritton from 1936 so it is possible that David Style acquired it from a post-war dispersal sale of contents bought with the house.