Side table
attributed to Gerrit Jensen (fl.c.1680 – London 1715)
Category
Furniture
Date
circa 1680
Materials
Ebony, holly, deal, oak, amboyna, bone
Measurements
71 x 96 x 65 cm
Place of origin
London
Order this imageCollection
Belton House, Lincolnshire
NT 434812
Summary
A floral marquetry inlaid and ebony side table, attributed to Gerrit Jensen (fl.1667-1715), London, circa 1680. Incorporating ebony, bone, holly, amboyna and ebonised deal, the rectangular top inlaid with a central panel with a vase of flowers on a shelf and with further scroll and floral decoration within a cross banded slip and further floral inlaid border. With a single frieze drawer also inlaid with conforming decoration, raised on turned ebonised legs and an inlaid X stretcher, bun feet.
Full description
Although there are no records at Belton for this table, the attribution to Jensen derives from a group of floral marquetry furniture attributed to the cabinet maker. Jensen was almost certainly of Dutch origin and was known to be working in London from 1677 and at premises in St. Martin's Lane by 1680 where he was described as a pre-eminent 'Cabbinet maker and Glasse seller'. Jensen was able to buy his way into the Joiners Company in 1667, probably at significant expense, and thus proving his belief in his work and his establishment in London. From the early 1680s he was the accredited cabinet maker to the Royal Household where several of his pieces remain, including a cushion frame mirror (RCIN 1383) which bears strong similarities to the marquetry seen on the table at Belton. A very similar mirror, almost certainly by Jensen, hangs at Ham House, Richmond in the collection of the National Trust (NT1139551). It is here that three side tables, a strong box on stand and a cabinet are attributed on the basis of numerous non specific accounts from Jensen dating from May 1672 - October 1683. One table in particular (NT1139569) which may have been supplied with the afore mentioned mirror, demonstrates very similar marquetry techniques and designs to the Belton table. In 1670s London, floral marquetry was a novelty, Reinier Baarsen suggests that it was this specialty work with which Jensen conquered the London clientele a few years later. Assuming his Dutch roots are accurate Jensen would have brought the art of floral marquetry with him from Holland to London, possibly via Paris after studing the work of the Frenchman Cornelius Gole, following Pierre Gole (c.1620-1685) in Paris and Leonardo van der Vinne (active c.1659-1713) in Florence. James Weedon (September 2018)
Provenance
Purchased with a grant from the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF) from Edward John Peregrine Cust, 7th Baron Brownlow (b.1936) in 1984.
Makers and roles
attributed to Gerrit Jensen (fl.c.1680 – London 1715), cabinetmaker
References
Bowett 2002: Adam Bowett, English Furniture 1660-1714, 2002 Baarsen 2013: Reinier Baarsen, 'Seventeenth-Century European Cabinet-Making at Ham House' in Christopher Rowell (ed.), Ham House 400 Years of Collecting and Patronage, Yale, 2013, pp.194-203 Baarsen, 1988: Reinier Baarsen, “Mix and match marquetry.” Country Life 13 Oct. 1988: pp.224-7.