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拍品专文
This elegant and imposing cabinet is a remarkable instance of the close links that existed between English and Dutch cabinet-making during the reign of William and Mary.
A Dutch cabinet.
There can be little doubt that this piece was made in Holland. Its shape is characteristically Dutch: large cabinets of this model had become the standard form of fashionable storage furniture in Holland by the 1690s. Typical features include the tall, flat cornice and base to the cabinet proper; the two large doors, the right hand one being furnished with a broad, flat moulding that secures the left one when closed and masks the junction between the two; the plain interior containing three shelves of varying height and an arrangement of drawers below the two bottom ones; the geometric marquetry of lozenges inside the doors; and the wavy stretcher. Many constructional features are consistent with Dutch cabinet-making of the period as well; for instance, some of the drawers run on grooves in their sides, an old-fashioned method that had been all but abandoned in England by the late 17th Century.
The most conspicuous feature of these cabinets is the absence of any moulded borders or carved detail. They are conceived as a series of flat surfaces that offer large, uninterrupted spaces for the application of marquetry decoration. Many types of marquetry were practised in Holland at the time, the best known being the sumptuous floral compositions that are attributed to the Amsterdam maker Jan van Mekeren (see Reinier Baarsen, Dutch furniture 1600-1800, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam 1993, nos. 25, 27 and 28).
Marquetry à l'anglaise
In contrast with the shape of the cabinet, its marquetry is more English than Dutch in style, and no immediate parallels for it are recorded on other late 17th Century furniture from Holland. The doors and sides show a pattern composed of oval and shaped reserves on a burr walnut ground, filled with small-scale scrollwork. Many late 17th Century English cabinets and other pieces of furniture have marquetry that is similarly disposed and includes comparable ornament. The scrollwork is close to the so-called seaweed marquetry generally associated with the Royal cabinet-maker Gerrit Jensen who, incidentally, may have been of Dutch origin (see for example Adam Bowett, English furniture 1660-1714, From Charles II to Queen Anne, Woodbridge 2002, figs. 7:9-12, 7:20-21, 7:35, 7:39-40 and 7:48-49). Clearly, the maker of this cabinet was consciously following English fashion. This is not surprising: during the period of William and Mary, the links between Dutch and English furniture-making were exceptionally close. Even the famous Jan van Mekeren mentioned above, who was born in the Dutch town of Tiel in 1658, worked in London from 1683, probably as a journeyman, before becoming a master with the Amsterdam guild in 1687 (Adriana Turpin, 'Floral marquetry in late seventeenth-century England and Holland', in: Dutch and Flemish artists in Britain 1550-1800, (Leids Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 13, 2003), p. 214). His was not an isolated case: there was a constant flow of furniture makers between London, Amsterdam, The Hague and other Dutch cities. A Dutch cabinet that is quite close in feeling to the present piece is in the collection of the National Trust at Kingston Lacy in Dorset. It is inscribed with the names of two Dutchmen, Jan Roohals and I. Hoogeboom, presumably journeymen in the workshop where it was made. Decorated with an overall scroll pattern, it shares with the offered piece the legs formed as broken scrolls, a shape that is encountered more often on English furniture of the period than on Dutch pieces (Reinier Baarsen, 'Mix and match marquetry', Country Life 182 (1988), pp. 226-227, fig. 8). Finally, a unique cabinet decorated with Japanese lacquer panels in the Rijksmuseum, is veneered with borders and strips of seaweed marquetry (Baarsen, Dutch furniture, no. 29).
A table en suite?
When sold from Cornbury Park in 1967, the cabinet was accompanied by a similarly decorated table (Christie's, Cornbury Park, 22 May 1967, Lot 143; again sold in these rooms from the collection of Humphrey Whitbread, 5 April 2001, Lot 411) that to the unsuspecting eye looks totally English, although the shape of the legs may be thought to be somewhat stiff. Without inspecting this piece, it is impossible to establish if it is Dutch as well, as the shared provenance with the cabinet suggests. This would provide an even more striking demonstration of the influence exerted by the London cabinet-makers of the William and Mary period on their Dutch contemporaries.
A Dutch cabinet.
There can be little doubt that this piece was made in Holland. Its shape is characteristically Dutch: large cabinets of this model had become the standard form of fashionable storage furniture in Holland by the 1690s. Typical features include the tall, flat cornice and base to the cabinet proper; the two large doors, the right hand one being furnished with a broad, flat moulding that secures the left one when closed and masks the junction between the two; the plain interior containing three shelves of varying height and an arrangement of drawers below the two bottom ones; the geometric marquetry of lozenges inside the doors; and the wavy stretcher. Many constructional features are consistent with Dutch cabinet-making of the period as well; for instance, some of the drawers run on grooves in their sides, an old-fashioned method that had been all but abandoned in England by the late 17th Century.
The most conspicuous feature of these cabinets is the absence of any moulded borders or carved detail. They are conceived as a series of flat surfaces that offer large, uninterrupted spaces for the application of marquetry decoration. Many types of marquetry were practised in Holland at the time, the best known being the sumptuous floral compositions that are attributed to the Amsterdam maker Jan van Mekeren (see Reinier Baarsen, Dutch furniture 1600-1800, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam 1993, nos. 25, 27 and 28).
Marquetry à l'anglaise
In contrast with the shape of the cabinet, its marquetry is more English than Dutch in style, and no immediate parallels for it are recorded on other late 17th Century furniture from Holland. The doors and sides show a pattern composed of oval and shaped reserves on a burr walnut ground, filled with small-scale scrollwork. Many late 17th Century English cabinets and other pieces of furniture have marquetry that is similarly disposed and includes comparable ornament. The scrollwork is close to the so-called seaweed marquetry generally associated with the Royal cabinet-maker Gerrit Jensen who, incidentally, may have been of Dutch origin (see for example Adam Bowett, English furniture 1660-1714, From Charles II to Queen Anne, Woodbridge 2002, figs. 7:9-12, 7:20-21, 7:35, 7:39-40 and 7:48-49). Clearly, the maker of this cabinet was consciously following English fashion. This is not surprising: during the period of William and Mary, the links between Dutch and English furniture-making were exceptionally close. Even the famous Jan van Mekeren mentioned above, who was born in the Dutch town of Tiel in 1658, worked in London from 1683, probably as a journeyman, before becoming a master with the Amsterdam guild in 1687 (Adriana Turpin, 'Floral marquetry in late seventeenth-century England and Holland', in: Dutch and Flemish artists in Britain 1550-1800, (Leids Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 13, 2003), p. 214). His was not an isolated case: there was a constant flow of furniture makers between London, Amsterdam, The Hague and other Dutch cities. A Dutch cabinet that is quite close in feeling to the present piece is in the collection of the National Trust at Kingston Lacy in Dorset. It is inscribed with the names of two Dutchmen, Jan Roohals and I. Hoogeboom, presumably journeymen in the workshop where it was made. Decorated with an overall scroll pattern, it shares with the offered piece the legs formed as broken scrolls, a shape that is encountered more often on English furniture of the period than on Dutch pieces (Reinier Baarsen, 'Mix and match marquetry', Country Life 182 (1988), pp. 226-227, fig. 8). Finally, a unique cabinet decorated with Japanese lacquer panels in the Rijksmuseum, is veneered with borders and strips of seaweed marquetry (Baarsen, Dutch furniture, no. 29).
A table en suite?
When sold from Cornbury Park in 1967, the cabinet was accompanied by a similarly decorated table (Christie's, Cornbury Park, 22 May 1967, Lot 143; again sold in these rooms from the collection of Humphrey Whitbread, 5 April 2001, Lot 411) that to the unsuspecting eye looks totally English, although the shape of the legs may be thought to be somewhat stiff. Without inspecting this piece, it is impossible to establish if it is Dutch as well, as the shared provenance with the cabinet suggests. This would provide an even more striking demonstration of the influence exerted by the London cabinet-makers of the William and Mary period on their Dutch contemporaries.