VIZAGAPATAM, LATE 18TH CENTURY

細節

AN ANGLO-INDIAN ENGRAVED IVORY AND SANDALWOOD MINIATURE BUREAU-CABINET**
VIZAGAPATAM, LATE 18TH CENTURY
The rectangular top with a panel of engraved birds within a foliate border and a faux-dentil cornice with an architecturally decorated frieze drawer above a central bank of frieze drawers flanked by doors each enclosing two pigeonholes and four drawers, the fall further decorated with buildings enclosing further pigeonholes and drawers divided by column-fronted document slides, the underside of each inscribed in pencil Cobie De Benoit/fecit, above a conformingly decorated deep drawer and shaped bracket feet
31 in. (79 cm.) high, 24¼ in. (62 cm.) wide, 11 in. (28 cm.) deep

注意事項

Prospective purchasers are advised that several countries prohibit the importation of property containing materials from endangered species, including but not limited to coral, ivory and tortoiseshell. Accordingly, prospective purchasers should familiarize themselves with relevant customs regulations prior to bidding if they intend to import this lot into another country.

拍品專文

This engraved bureau-cabinet, serving as portable desk jewel-case and dressing-box, is designed as a miniature 'desk and bookcase'. 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).