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Lot Essay
The beautifully engraved bureau-cabinets, serving as portable desk jewel-case and dressing-box, are designed as a miniature 'desk and bookcase' with Roman-temple pediment in the George II 'Modern' fashion popularised by Thomas Chippendale's, Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, 1754. Engraved tablets, wreathed by floral 'chintz' fashioned borders, portray magnificent villa landscapes that would harmonise with the Georgian reception dressing apartments that were hung with landscape prints. English Roman-style architecture from Colen Campbell's much reprinted Vitruvius Britannicus (published in several volumes from 1715) featured alongside views from the Haarlem publication, Her Zegepralent Kennemerlant, 1729, on a cabinet from the collection of a Governor of the Dutch Cape Colony; while scenes from R. and J. Dodsley's, London and Its Environs Described, 1761, appear on another related cabinet at Arundel Castle, Sussex. A cabinet on loan to the Victoria & Albert Museum features feet engraved with similar fantastical lions (A. Jaffer, Luxury Goods from India, London, 2002, pp. 80-81, no. 33). A related bureau-cabinet with tiger-decorated feet was sold by Robert H. Metzger, Sotheby's, New York, 27 October 1995, lot 184.
This artistic India-flowered furniture, crafted in exotic ivory veneer, was retailed in Madras and Calcutta by the English and Dutch East India Companies; but it was primarily manufactured in Vizagapatam, on the northern Coromandel Coast. Two other related cabinets, from the estate of Alexander Wynch, a former East India Company Governor of Fort St. George, were acquired in the 1770s by George III (A. Jaffer, Furniture from British India and Ceylon, London, 2001, p. 202).
Sir John Dalling (c.1731-1798) joined the army as an Ensign probably through the influence of family connections with the Duke of Cumberland. He was involved as a junior officer in the French wars in North America 1757-60, and from 1761-81 was stationed in the West Indies, principally in Jamaica, of which he served as Governor 1777-81. His period of office was controversial involving risky adventures on the mainland of Central America leaving the islands open to French raids during the American War of Independence, while he also managed to upset the judiciary in Jamaica before being recalled in 1781. By the iron laws of seniority he was promoted to Lieutenant General in 1782 and to a baronetcy in 1783 and finally served as Commander-in-Chief Madras 1784-86, at the end of his military career, arriving in Madras in 1785. After retirement, he was awarded an annuity of £1000 per annum. He was made a full General in 1796.
A pair of Tanjore School paintings, commissioned by Sir John Dalling whilst in southern India, depicting him and his fellow officers, is included in this sale as lot 43.
This artistic India-flowered furniture, crafted in exotic ivory veneer, was retailed in Madras and Calcutta by the English and Dutch East India Companies; but it was primarily manufactured in Vizagapatam, on the northern Coromandel Coast. Two other related cabinets, from the estate of Alexander Wynch, a former East India Company Governor of Fort St. George, were acquired in the 1770s by George III (A. Jaffer, Furniture from British India and Ceylon, London, 2001, p. 202).
Sir John Dalling (c.1731-1798) joined the army as an Ensign probably through the influence of family connections with the Duke of Cumberland. He was involved as a junior officer in the French wars in North America 1757-60, and from 1761-81 was stationed in the West Indies, principally in Jamaica, of which he served as Governor 1777-81. His period of office was controversial involving risky adventures on the mainland of Central America leaving the islands open to French raids during the American War of Independence, while he also managed to upset the judiciary in Jamaica before being recalled in 1781. By the iron laws of seniority he was promoted to Lieutenant General in 1782 and to a baronetcy in 1783 and finally served as Commander-in-Chief Madras 1784-86, at the end of his military career, arriving in Madras in 1785. After retirement, he was awarded an annuity of £1000 per annum. He was made a full General in 1796.
A pair of Tanjore School paintings, commissioned by Sir John Dalling whilst in southern India, depicting him and his fellow officers, is included in this sale as lot 43.