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拍品专文
Likely to have been commissioned through the East India Company trading in Canton, this multi-purpose commode, bureau-dressing-table and cabinet, with candle-slides incorporated beneath mirrored doors, derived from the George I cabinet supplied for bedroom apartment window-piers by firms such as the St. Pauls Churchyard cabinet-maker John Coxed (fl. 1703-18?) (A. Bowett, English Furntiure 1660-1714, Woodbridge, 2002, p.224). The latters' trade-sheet incorporates a Roman urn-capped triumphal arch, as appears around the tabernacle compartment of this cabinets well-fitted interior. This tabernacle door-panel, like that in the bureau's prospect are indented in French-fashion, and harmonise with the cabinet's reed-moulded angles and mirrors. With its fine figured padouk combined with golden brass bordering the mirrors, it also reflects the fashionable French taste of the 1730s, as represented by boulle-inlaid bookcases manufactured by the London cabinet-maker John Channon (d.1779) (C. Gilbert and T. Murdoch, John Channon and brass-inlaid furniture 1730-1760, London, 1993, fig 4).
The design detail is unusual, and relates to the pieces that have recently been attributed to John Channon, and a few other cabinet makers, some tentatively identified, working in the same milieu (see John Channon and Brass-Inlaid Furniture, 1730-6, Temple Newsam House, Leeds, Victoria and Albert Museum, 1993-4). The design of the interior, with beautifully demarcated shallow sunk panels to the centre door and blocks under the pilasters, resembles the interiors of bureau cabinets of this group, as does the lavish use of exotic and expensive wood. The flaming half urns come straight from Wren and Hawksmoor, and are a further exceptional feature.
This bureau cabinet displays particular refinement of design in the way that the re-entrant corners of the cornice are carried throughout the design, terminating in channelled bracket feet.
The design detail is unusual, and relates to the pieces that have recently been attributed to John Channon, and a few other cabinet makers, some tentatively identified, working in the same milieu (see John Channon and Brass-Inlaid Furniture, 1730-6, Temple Newsam House, Leeds, Victoria and Albert Museum, 1993-4). The design of the interior, with beautifully demarcated shallow sunk panels to the centre door and blocks under the pilasters, resembles the interiors of bureau cabinets of this group, as does the lavish use of exotic and expensive wood. The flaming half urns come straight from Wren and Hawksmoor, and are a further exceptional feature.
This bureau cabinet displays particular refinement of design in the way that the re-entrant corners of the cornice are carried throughout the design, terminating in channelled bracket feet.