Cabinet
Category
Furniture
Date
1675 - 1700
Materials
Pine, lacquer, gesso, gold leaf, brass and iron
Measurements
77.0 x 93.4 x 45.6 cm
Order this imageCollection
Chastleton House, Oxfordshire
NT 1429997
Summary
A black japanned cabinet on a carved and gilded stand, English, late seventeenth century. The cabinet decorated on the exterior of the doors in gold and various colours with flowering trees combined with figures (on the proper left-hand door) and buildings (on the proper right-hand door), partly in relief, with a gilded metal rectangular ‘phoenix-headed’ lock plate, hinges and mounts, the interior of the proper left-hand door decorated in a similar manner with a flowering and fruiting plant on undulating ground, the interior of the proper right-hand door with a deer and its kind in front of a large flowering plant, the interior with an arrangement of 11 variously sized drawers decorated in the same manner with buildings (including windmills), animals, birds, flowers and human figures. A giltwood stand, English, conforming to a design of circa 1686, probably originally silver-gilt, and re-gilded/gold-painted later. Topped by a stylised dart and acanthus-carved moulding above bold acanthus scroll-carved aprons, the front apron centred by a cabochon in a beaded surround with cherub supporters, and issuing a pendant garland centred by a flower, the side aprons centred by a cabochon within a stylised wreath. Raised on four cabriole legs with concave acanthus-carved upper sections, the knees carved with flowers, and terminating in leaf-wrapped pad feet, all joined by carved and moulded curved end stretchers and a central stretcher with small platform centre.’ Emile de Bruijn, Assistant National Curator (Decorative Art) – May/June 2024
Full description
Japanese lacquer was popular in seventeenth-century Britain, and British artisans began to develop their own versions of it (often called ‘japanning’). The European pigments and varnishes they used were different from East-Asian lacquer and the decoration was copied rather freely from Japanese lacquer and other sources, without much awareness of its original significance. In 1688 John Stalker and George Parker published A Treatise of Japanning and Varnishing, describing the materials and techniques of japanning as practised in England at that time, and some of the decoration of this cabinet (e.g. the buildings) is reminiscent of the plates in Stalker and Parker’s Treatise. The elements and disposition of the composition on the exterior of the doors, with human figures under a tree on the proper left and buildings towered over by a tree on the proper right, is seen on other English japanned cabinets, such as NT 1429931 (Chastleton House) and NT 1331881 (Snowshill Manor), indicating that these were popular motifs and compositions. The palette of the japanned decoration on this cabinet, with the use of various colours, probably inspired by Chinese incised (kuan cai, or ‘Coromandel’) lacquer, is similar to the polychrome japanning on the interior of a cabinet at Ham House, NT 1140111. Illustrated in A. Bowett, English Furniture 1660-1714 (2002), pp. 155-6 and Figure 156, where described as ‘Much [English] japanning is so inept as to be impossible to mistake for the real thing. The cabinet in 5:16 [this cabinet] is a wonderfully fresh example, executed with naïve charm by someone who had obviously never seen China or a Chinaman. Three of the drawer front depict windmills, perhaps inspired by some Dutch blue and white ware with the japanner mistook for Chinese porcelain, while several of the figures represent native North Americans.’ Adam Bowett, English Furniture 1660-1714 (2002), p. 156, describes this cabinet – which it dates to c. 1675-1700 – as ‘a wonderfully fresh example, executed with naïve charm by someone who had never seen China or a Chinaman’ and ‘the work of a not very competent japanner with a good imagination’, going on to say that the ‘carved stand is likewise rather amateurish’. Furniture conservators have judged that the ‘amateurish’ stand is in fact 19th century, made later to fit the cabinet, partly because of its later gilded (or gold-painted in places) finish. It is interesting to note that comparable cabinets, like W.29:1 to 14-1912 Cabinet | Unknown | V&A Explore The Collections (vam.ac.uk) in the collections of the V&A, were raised on silvered pine stands. A very similar stand, sold by Bonhams in 2023 Bonhams : An important late 17th / early 18th century black and gilt japanned cabinet on an associated Charles II standWith collection stamp of Archduke Ludwig Viktor to underside of cabinet, was also silvered. It is probable that the new finish on the Chastleton stand replaces an earlier silvered finish and that the stand was, in fact, made in the late 17th century. It is interesting to note that several late 17th/early 18th century portraits at Chastleton (such as NT 1430442, 1430446 and 1430481 are silvered, rather than gilt). An article of 2009/10 (‘A London Writing Cabinet for Cosimo III: A Late Seventeenth-Century Furniture Type and the Anglo-Italian Art Trade’, by Michael Bohr, Nicola Imrie and Jennifer Scanlan in Studies in the Decorative Arts, Vol. 17, No. 1 (2009/10)) sheds interesting light on the design of the Chastleton stand and its possible derivation, revealing that it conforms to a surviving (very rare) late 17th century drawing of a stand sent to Grand Duke Cosimo de’ Medici (1642-1723) following his commission in 1685-6 of an English ‘scriptor’ (a type of writing cabinet) via the Tuscan-born art dealer Francesco Terriesi (1635-1715) who ‘had good relationships with the highest circles in London court society’. Whether this is the stand designed for Grand Duke Cosimo is not clear, but the balance of probability is that it was made independent of Cosimo’s commission. Other similar stands survive in prestigious collections at Burghley House and Athelhampton House (the latter example is also silvered). Dr Megan Wheeler, Assistant National Curator (Furniture) – May 2024