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拍品專文
When this document cabinet was acquired in the 1930s by the New York dealer, Arthur S. Vernay, it was by tradition thought to be 18th century. It was described throughout the 20th century as being after an Adam design, though no such design is known. It has also been linked to Thomas Chippendale on stylistic grounds; the ram’s head mounts on a commode and a desk at Harewood House, Yorkshire; on a commode in the Lady Lever Art Gallery; and a further commode in the Sitwell collection at Renishaw Hall. The cabinet also has similarities with the furniture of one of Chippendale’s contemporaries, John Linnell (d. 1796); the shape of the lower section resembles a design for a commode in the Victoria & Albert Museum, illustrated in L. Wood, Catalogue of Commodes, London, 1994, p. 102, fig. 94.
However, more recently the cabinet has been recognised as an example of very fine Adam-revival work. Eileen Harris writes that a resurgence in Adam taste occurred from the 1860s when genuine Adam interiors and furniture were restored, and new ‘Adams Style’ interiors were created in town and country houses (E. Harris, ‘The Parent Style or the Original Sin? Adam Revived’, Architectural Heritage, vol. 4, Issue 1, 1993, p. 45). Not only were authentic Adam works reproduced but also Adam pastiche occurred. One of the earliest exponents of neo-Adam style pieces was cabinet-makers and upholsterers, Messrs. Wright and Mansfield of Great Portland Street, London. The proximity of their premises to Portland Place may be relevant as this was ‘the heart of metropolitan Adam country’, and the firm was possibly engaged to restore and refurbish genuine Adam interiors in the environs (ibid., p. 48). Around 1860, Wright & Mansfield supplied a painted ‘Adam’ piano and a sycamore china-cabinet wreathed with laurel garlands to the connoisseur of ‘Adam’s period’ decoration, Sir Dudley Coutts Marjoribanks, later 1st Baron Tweedmouth (d. 1896). The Tweedmouth pieces were exhibited by the firm at the 1862 London Exhibition (J. Meyer, Great Exhibitions, Woodbridge, 2006, pp. 122-123). Messrs. Wright & Mansfield’s most celebrated furniture in their ‘Adam’ fashion is a jasper-inlaid cabinet shown at the Paris 1867 Exhibition and now in the Victoria & Albert Museum (E. Aslin, Nineteenth Century English Furniture, 1962, fig. 42).
However, more recently the cabinet has been recognised as an example of very fine Adam-revival work. Eileen Harris writes that a resurgence in Adam taste occurred from the 1860s when genuine Adam interiors and furniture were restored, and new ‘Adams Style’ interiors were created in town and country houses (E. Harris, ‘The Parent Style or the Original Sin? Adam Revived’, Architectural Heritage, vol. 4, Issue 1, 1993, p. 45). Not only were authentic Adam works reproduced but also Adam pastiche occurred. One of the earliest exponents of neo-Adam style pieces was cabinet-makers and upholsterers, Messrs. Wright and Mansfield of Great Portland Street, London. The proximity of their premises to Portland Place may be relevant as this was ‘the heart of metropolitan Adam country’, and the firm was possibly engaged to restore and refurbish genuine Adam interiors in the environs (ibid., p. 48). Around 1860, Wright & Mansfield supplied a painted ‘Adam’ piano and a sycamore china-cabinet wreathed with laurel garlands to the connoisseur of ‘Adam’s period’ decoration, Sir Dudley Coutts Marjoribanks, later 1st Baron Tweedmouth (d. 1896). The Tweedmouth pieces were exhibited by the firm at the 1862 London Exhibition (J. Meyer, Great Exhibitions, Woodbridge, 2006, pp. 122-123). Messrs. Wright & Mansfield’s most celebrated furniture in their ‘Adam’ fashion is a jasper-inlaid cabinet shown at the Paris 1867 Exhibition and now in the Victoria & Albert Museum (E. Aslin, Nineteenth Century English Furniture, 1962, fig. 42).