This cabinet is conceived in the full-blown version of the Dutch Louis XVI style and was probably executed between 1780 and 1790, at the end of the reign of Stadholder Prince William V. Dutch cabinet-makers prior to that period had mainly made these cabinets with a waved cornice and a bombé base section, generally called a boog-kabinet, with their ormolu mounts and ornamental carving as the most important expressions of the 'Antique' manner. (R.J. Baarsen, Meubelen en zilver op de tentoonstelling 'Edele Eenvoud, Neo-classicisme in Nederland 1765-1800', Frans Halsmuseum, Haarlem 1989, p. 118) This cabinet is, however, an example of a purer, later fase of Neoclassical cabinet-making and may have been similar to a cabinet mentioned in the advertisement of a furniture lottery held by the Amsterdam furniture-maker Albert Fokke in 1783, which is described as: 'Mahogany furniture, invented and executed by Fokke, such as a royal antique cabinet, never seen or made in Amsterdam before, as in Architecture, with round columns in the Corinthean order, with gilt Copper capitals'. (R.J. Baarsen, De Amsterdamse meubelloterijen, Zwolle, 1992, p. 118)
With its broken triangular pediment, this cabinet also relates to a corner cabinet with a similar cresting, made by the Haarlem furniture-maker Johan Gottfried Fremming (1753-1832) for one of the Regents' Chambers of Teylers Hofje, which was designed by the Amsterdam architect Leendert Viervant (1752-1801) and was built between 1785 and 1788. Most of the furniture was supplied in 1789 and 1790, such as the celebrated set of 'Antique' chairs by Petrus Josephus Honoré (1760-after 1825) and the console table supplied by Jan Woortman (1755-1797). Fremming's corner-cabinet, which he supplied on 2 January 1790, is listed as : 'Een hoek buvet van gebloemt mahonihout met een open vronte spies', for which he was paid 86 florins. (J.R. ter Molen, 'De regentenvertrekken van Teylers Hofje te Haarlem', Antiek 15 (1980-'81), pp. 314, 320-321, 339)
It is interesting that Fremming specifically mentions the 'open vronte spies' of this corner cabinet. This type of cresting was probably only executed by Dutch cabinet-makers between circa 1780 and 1790, whereas in Britain the broken triangular pediment was employed throughout the 18th century. An early example is a scarlet and gold japanned cabinet, executed around 1735 and stamped by John Belchier, which is already surmounted by this kind of top. (C. Gilbert, Marked London Furniture, Leeds, 1996, p.86, plate 68) In the following years a considerable number of furniture-designs was published in Britain, which included designs for bureau-bookcases, bookcases and cabinets, with a number of variations for this kind of architectural pediment. Batty Langley, for instance, illustrated a design for a 'Tuscan Bookcase' with such a pediment in his City and Country Builder's and Workman's Treasury of Designs of 1740 and in Thomas Chippendale's 1st edition of his Director of 1754, there are four designs for bookcases with this type of cresting illustrated on plates LXIX, LXI, LXII and LXIII. (E. White, Pictorial Dictionary of British Furniture Designs in the 18th Century, Woodbridge, 1990, p.233 and p.235)
Whether or not Dutch cabinet-makers frequently made use of foreign furniture-designs is still unclear. Reinier Baarsen has however established that the marquetry decoration of a commode in the Rijksmuseum is based on an engraving of a vase after Maurice Jacques (1712-1784), from his series 'Vases Nouveaux...'. English designs were also imported to Holland, probably mainly towards the end of the 18th century, when Dutch cabinet-making gradually absorbed more inluences from England than from France. Hepplewhite's The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Guide (1788) and Sheraton's The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Drawing-Book (1794) undoubtably became an important source of inspiration for furniture-makers in Holland and were even copied in Dutch prints, such as in the Kabinet van Mode en Smaak, published in Haarlem between 1791 and 1794, which included engravings of items of furniture which were clearly copied from English prototypes. (Baarsen, ibid (1989), p.119)
See illustration and front cover