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A rare English ‘Japanned’ table cabinet, circa 1624
Height: 29½in (75cm) Width: 22½in (57cm) Depth: 12in (30.5cm)
This oak cabinet is of rectangular form surmounted by a triangular pediment enclosing a small central drawer, above two doors which open to reveal four short and six longer drawers arranged around a central cupboard. The whole, as described by the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, is painted black and ‘mordant gilded, silvered and varnished’ with landscapes and figures within wide borders profusely painted with scrolling vegetation. The principal panels on the doors, top and sides, show Dutch figures and animals of the hunt in landscapes set before fortified towns with mountainous landscapes behind, all beneath a sky of stylized cloud scrolls, the interior of the drawers painted red. There are five secret compartments hidden behind the upper drawers and within the triangular pediment. Provenance: A private collection Literature: Victor Chinnery, ‘Oak Furniture: The British Tradition’ Figs. 2.238 & 2.238a
Directly related cabinets which have been used to authenticate and date the present cabinet are in the following collections: Victoria & Albert Museum, London W.9-1936, English circa1620 (see page 56) Leeds Museums & Galleries; Temple Newsam, no.1971.00 34 dated 1620 National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia, V&A, W.37-1927 c1620 Private Collection, shown at the Stuart Legacy Exhibition, Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama USA, Private Collection ex John Fardon Collection, sold Christies South Kensington 06/07/1994, lot 337 and again CSK 01/05/1996, lot 300. Ballot Box dated 1619 made for the East India Company now in the collection of The Worshipful Company of Saddlers.
