The Doomer Cabinet
Herman Doomer (c.1595 - 1650)
Category
Furniture
Date
circa 1640 - 1650
Materials
Ebony, Mother-of-pearl [pinctada maxima], Rosewood, Silk
Measurements
229.2 x 123.2 x 55.9 cm
Place of origin
Amsterdam
Order this imageCollection
The Argory, County Armagh
NT 563765.2
Summary
Ebony cabinet with two doors, two drawers, carved pediment and cartouche, all inlaid with mother-of-pearl: a tulip on each door, lilies on the cartouche and lower drawers and scrolls on the upper drawers. The inside of the doors is adorned with marquetry of kingwood and rosewood. The interior into which a separate ebony cabinet was inserted is lined in pink silk.
Full description
Ebony cabinet with two doors, two drawers, carved pediment and cartouche, all inlaid with mother-of-pearl: a tulip on each door, lilies on the cartouche and lower drawers and scrolls on the upper drawers. The inside of the doors is adorned with marquetry of kingwood and rosewood. The interior into which a separate ebony cabinet was inserted is lined in pink silk. By tradition, the ebony cabinet, with its extraordinary auricular cresting and mother-of-pearl inlaid flowers, had been thought to have been made in India and brought to Northern Ireland in the mid-nineteenth century. As Simon Jervis has shown, however, it is actually Dutch and, based on its close resemblance to a piece at the Rijkmuseum in Amsterdam, can be dated around 1640-50. Reinier Baarsen confirmed the attribution to Herman Doomer in his 2018 exhibition catalogue, because of the high quality of the piece (see Reinier Baarsen, Kwab: Ornament as Art in the Age of Rembrandt (ex. cat.), Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam 2018, pp. 118-9). Ebony was a highly sought after material in 17th century Holland. It is both an expensive and very hard wood, which made it all the more desirable. As Baarsen recently argued, ebony ‘did not lend itself easily to rendering of auricular ornament. Indeed, this does not figure prominently in Doomer’s work, although he did tend to soften his carved motifs in the fashionable manner’ (Baarsen 2016). Simon Jervis stressed that while ebony cabinets were often decorated with ivory, silver or gilt bronze mounts or indeed pietre dure plaques, ornamentation made of mother-of-pearl was significantly rarer and reminiscent of black lacquer screens imported from Japan (Jervis 1998). They, too, combined a shiny black surface with the glowing silvery shine of mother-of-pearl. Herman Doomer came from Germany and has often be associated with Rembrandt’s frame maker, when in reality he never made carved frames. His speciality were works made of ebony with highly elaborate mother-of-pearl inlay, such as can be seen on the cabinet at The Argory. Rembrandt portrayed Doomer and his wife in 1640. The portrait of the husband, of which there is a contemporary copy at Erddig, Wrexham (NT 1151313), exits at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (29.100.1), while the portrait of the wife is kept at the Hermitage in St Petersburg (ГЭ-729).
Provenance
Probably made by Herman Doomer in Amsterdam around 1640-50. Brought to The Argory in the 19th century. The house and much of its contents were given to the National Trust in 1979 by W. A. N. MacGeough Bond.
Makers and roles
Herman Doomer (c.1595 - 1650), cabinetmaker
References
Jervis, 1998: Simon Jervis. “Ebony at The Argory: “Een Ebbenhout kabinet met parlemoer ingeleydt”.” Apollo (1998): pp.42- 44. Baarsen, R. 'Furniture in Holland's Golden Age' 2007 Rijksmuseum Baarsen, Reinier, Kwab: Ornament as Art in the Age of Rembrandt (ex. cat.), Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam 2018