LATE 18TH CENTURY

細節

A GEORGE III CEDAR AND MARQUETRY CABINET-ON-STAND
LATE 18TH CENTURY
The rectangular moulded top above a pair of doors banded and inlaid with ribbon-tied paterae banded in lacewood, enclosing a fitted interior of eight rosewood crossbanded cedar-lined and veneered drawers on each side, around a recess with an arched mirror back and chequer-inlaid hinged panel floor, the sides with carrying-handles, the stand with a waved frieze centred by a patera draped with oak leaves and acorns, on square tapering legs and block feet
57¼ in. (145.5 cm.) high; 30¼ in.(77 cm.) wide; 18 in. (45.5 cm.) deep

注意事項

This lot will be sold under the Alpha scheme. If you are an EU Purchaser, there is effectively no change: VAT is charged at 17.5% on the buyer''s premium ONLY on a VAT inclusive basis. VAT is accounted for under the auctioneer''s margin scheme. If you are a non-EU Purchaser: VAT, at 17.5%, will be payable on both the hammer price and the buyer''s premium. VAT on the hammer will be refunded upon receipt of export documentation by the VAT department. Non-EU trading businesses can receive a further VAT refund on the buyer''s premium directly from HM Revenue and Customs.

拍品專文

The richly inlaid cabinet is conceived for a bedroom apartment dressed in the 1770s George III 'French/antique manner'. Intended for china vase garniture on its cornice and beneath its table-frame; its interior is dressed with novel 'variety' in the romantic British fashion promoted by the antiquarian Horace Walpole at his Strawberry Hill villa. Here a triumphal gothic arch, overgrown by foliage and flowered by cusp-fretted roses, screens a mirrored 'tabernacle' recess; while the beautiful marbled and rose-tinted parquetry of its drawer-nests presents trompe l'oeil' ribbon-guilloches pearled by lily-white buttons.
The cabinet facade's lacewood-wreathed golden tablets are labelled by trophies in celebration of lyric poetry's triumph, and Apollo's power as sun god and Mt. Parnassus leader of the Muses of Artistic Inspiration. Sun-rays issue from the deity's sacred sunflower-emblazoned escutcheons, that are wrapped by palm-flowered acanthus and hang from French flounced ribbons; while water-scalloped enrichments evoke the Roman concept 'Collegit ut Spargat' in reference to his ability to gather clouds around the sun for their better dispersal. Likewise the stand's cupid-bowed frieze is labelled with a sunflowered libation-patera, whose festive ribbon-tied garland comprises Jupiter-the-Thunderer's sacred oak, and this also festoons the herm-tapered and sunflowered pilasters .

This cabinet, like a related fine-inlaid one at Saltram, Devon might possibly be the work of the celebrated Golden Square firm of John Mayhew and William Ince (G. Wills, English Furniture 1760-1900, London, 1971, fig. 87).