Lot Essay
Around 1690 the cabinet gradually superseded the traditional richly carved 17th century cupboard as the storage place of the family's linnen and as the principal item of furniture in the Dutch household. The Dutch William and Mary cabinet was generally fitted with two large doors above an open stand, whereas from approximately the 1710s the open stand was replaced for a base section with drawers. In England a similar development took place simultaneously.
This unusually small cabinet, which is embellished with plain walnut veneers and `English' feather-banding, is an early example of the boogkabinet, and probably dates from the 1740s, at which time the rococo had not yet fully developed in Dutch furniture. A tentative attempt was however made by the cabinet-maker to break away from the rectilinear shapes, by means of a waved cornice, canted scrolling angles and shaped drawer-fronts.
The celebrated doll's house in the collection of the Haags Gemeentemuseum (The Hague Municipal Museum) is fitted in a related cabinet, which incorporates all these features. The latter was acquired by Sara Ploos van Amstel (1699-1751) from Jan Meyer (n.d.) in 1743, for which he received the princely sum of 230 florins. (J. Pijzel-Dommisse, Het poppenhuis van het Haags Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, 1988, p. 35)
See illustration
This unusually small cabinet, which is embellished with plain walnut veneers and `English' feather-banding, is an early example of the boogkabinet, and probably dates from the 1740s, at which time the rococo had not yet fully developed in Dutch furniture. A tentative attempt was however made by the cabinet-maker to break away from the rectilinear shapes, by means of a waved cornice, canted scrolling angles and shaped drawer-fronts.
The celebrated doll's house in the collection of the Haags Gemeentemuseum (The Hague Municipal Museum) is fitted in a related cabinet, which incorporates all these features. The latter was acquired by Sara Ploos van Amstel (1699-1751) from Jan Meyer (n.d.) in 1743, for which he received the princely sum of 230 florins. (J. Pijzel-Dommisse, Het poppenhuis van het Haags Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, 1988, p. 35)
See illustration