CIRCA 1750

This dressing chest was commissioned by either Sir John Hynde Cotton, 3rd Bt. (d.1752) or his son, John Cotton, 4th Bt., for Madingley Hall, their Cambridgeshire residence. Madingley was built from 1543-47 primarily by John Hynde, a prominent lawyer in the Tudor Court, and then completed by his son, Sir Francis Hynde, before his death in 1597. The house remained largely unchanged until Sir John Hynde Cotton, 3rd Baronet, and later his son, the 4th Baronet, made significant alterations to the interiors. The 3rd Baronet succeeded upon the death of his father in 1712 and documented furniture from Madingley dating to around this time would imply that he spent lavishly to furnish his new interiors. This includes an impressive suite of Queen Anne gilt gesso seat furniture with contemporary needlework covers of scenes after Brueghel sold from the Collection of Walter P. Chrysler, Parke Bernet, New York, 21-22 April 1960, lot 244, and a pair of Queen Anne giltwood pier mirrors with eglomisé borders, later in the Jon Gerstenfeld Collection (E. Lennox-Boyd, Masterpieces of English Furniture: The Gerstenfeld Collection, London, 1998, pp. 71 and 228). Extant invoices dating to 1756-1757 from the cabinet-makers John Cobb and John Gilbart indicate the 4th Baronet's continued improvements at Madingley (R. Edwards, Dictionary of English Furniture-Makers, Leeds, 1986, pp. 182 and 338).

The hand-written label affixed to the chest very likely refers to Edward Gilham Senior and Edward Gilham Junior (father and son) who are connected with a Cambridge warehouse in Bishopsgate in a 1765 Old Bailey transcript and almost certainly arranged for the chest's transport to Madingley. (The Old Bailey, 17 October 1765, reference t17651016-24). A listing in Kent's Trade Directory for London provides further confirmation as it contains a 'Gilham, Edward, at the Cambridge Warehouse, No. 39, Bishopsgate-Street within' in 1777 and 1787.