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Table

Table

  • Place of origin:

    Antwerp, Belgium (made)
    England, Great Britain (As noted in the inscription inside the left-hand drawer recess. The table may have been altered at , repaired)

  • Date:

    1766 (repaired)

  • Artist/Maker:

    Unknown (production)

  • Materials and Techniques:

    Carcase of pine and oak, veneered in ebony, turtle shell and ivory, the ebony ornamented with 'inlaid lacquer', a resinous compound which is coloured and set with chips of marble and mother-of-pearl

  • Museum number:

    W.7:1 to 4-1965

  • Gallery location:

    In Storage

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Furniture makers in Antwerp produced cabinets in a variety of qualities in the later 17th century, and often made tables en suite with them. This table was made as part of a set with a cabinet that is also in the V&A (W.8-1965). Occasionally, mirrors and pairs of candlestands were also supplied. The most luxurious pieces were made to order for rich clients, both aristocrats and well-to-do merchants. The exuberant decoration of this table, and its matching cabinet, was known as laque incrusté (inlaid lacquer). It was a technique for which Antwerp makers were famous, an attempt to imitate Asian lacquer, reflecting the fact that Antwerp had close links with both Japan and China from the very beginning of the 16th century. The Portuguese, who had been the first to develop trade with East Asia, gave Antwerp a monopoly for the storage of spices and other goods brought from Asia.

Place of Origin

Antwerp, Belgium (made)
England, Great Britain (As noted in the inscription inside the left-hand drawer recess. The table may have been altered at , repaired)

Date

1766 (repaired)

Artist/maker

Unknown (production)

Materials and Techniques

Carcase of pine and oak, veneered in ebony, turtle shell and ivory, the ebony ornamented with 'inlaid lacquer', a resinous compound which is coloured and set with chips of marble and mother-of-pearl

Marks and inscriptions

Daniell
Ogden is
a Whoring
Dog
and has
Got the
Crankhams
1766
Dam the
Liers

Dimensions

[Table] Height: 770 mm, Width: 1285 mm, Depth: 805 mm

Object history note

Probably bought by William Craven, 1st Earl of Craven (1608-1697), who left England after the execution of Charles I in 1649 to join the court of Elizabeth of Bohemia (1596-1662), sister of Charles II and widow of Frederick V, Elector Palatine and King of Bohemia (1596-1632). He returned to Britain after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 and planned to build a large palace at Hamstead Marshall, Berkshire, for Queen Elizabeth. After she died in 1662 he continued to build the house as a memorial to her. This table and its matching cabinet (W.8-1965) may well have been intended for that house, which was designed by the Dutch-born architect Sir Balthasar Gerbier (1592-1663) as a miniature version of her old home at Heidelburg Castle in Germany and took thirty years to construct. The house was burnt to the ground in 1718. The cabinet and table would have been highly fashionable objects at the time that plans for Hamstead Marshall were laid.

The pieces were later at Coombe Abbey, Warwickshire, which the family owned until 1923 but it is not clear when they were moved there.

Purchased by the Museum from Sotheby's, New Bond Street, London, 20 November 1964, lot 147, for £400. (Registered File 64/3176).

The table required considerable conservation after its acqusition by the Museum.

Descriptive line

A table with two drawers in the frieze, raised on four facetted legs joined by an angled stretcher panel, the table veneered in turtle shell set over a red ground, with imitation lacquer decoration, including fragments of mother-of-pearl, the table and stretcher panel outlined with mouldings chequered in ebony and ivory. The drawers are lined with geometric marquetry in purplewood veneer with ivory stringing.

Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)

Kopplin, Monika. European Lacquer. Selected Works from the Museum für Lakkunst, Münster. Munich: Hirmer Verlag, 2010. ISBN 9783777489308, p. 160, fig.2
Top only of table shown, in chapter on Belgian lacquer
De Kesel, Wilfried and Dhont, Greet. 'Flemish 17th Century Lacquer Cabinets'. Oostkamp, Stichting Kunstboek bvba, 2012. 96 pp. illus. ISBN 978-90-5856-373-6, pp. 76-77.
Mercer, Eric. The Social History of the Decorative Arts. Furniture 700-1700. London, 1969
Kesel, Wilfried de. 'Laques Flamandes du XVIIe Siècle', in Estampille, No. 223, March 1989, pp. 28-39, illustrated on pp. 36-37, its companion cabinet illustrated on p. 33.
Simon Jervis, 'A tortoiseshell cabinet and its precursors'. V&A Bulletin No. 4, October 1968, pp. 133-143, illustrated as fig. 2
Wolvesperges, Thibault. Le Meuble en Belgique. 1500-1800. Brussels: Racine, 2000,p. 41
Refers to this table and its matching cabinet were referred to 'the most extraordinary example can be seen at the Victoria and Albert Museum'.

Labels and date

Label draft

TABLE
En suite with the cabinet (W.8-1965)
Tables with elaborate tops were clearly intended for show and were not meant to be covered with tablecloths of 'table carpets'. Tables with decorated tops began to appear in the 16th century, but were still comparatively uncommon when this table was made in the middle of the 17th century. The present example, with its pattern exectured in colour composition, may have been made in imitation of tables with scagliola tops. The black-and-white bordering is a common feature on tables made in the Netherlands during the second half of the 17th century.

[1968]
TABLE (EN SUITE WITH ADJACENT CABINET)
FLEMISH (Antwerp); about 1650

Ebony veneered on oak with composition of [sic], tortoiseshell, ivory and mother-of-pearl ornament, and gilt-bronze mounts

The floral ornament in composition on these two pieces was probably intended as a cheap imitation of scagliola. Similar cabinets were exported all over Europe by the firm of Forschoudt of Antwerp. The cabinet and table were in the collection of the Earl of Craven and may have been purchased by the 1st Earl when on the continent in the mid-17th century in the service of Queen Elizabeth of Bohemia. An alteration to the table bears a pencil scribble "Daniel Ogden is a Whoring Dog and has got the Crankhams 1766", to which Ogden has replied "Dam the Liers".

W.7-1965 [1994]

Materials

Ivory; Ebony; Purpleheart; Turtle shell

Techniques

Laque incrusté (inlaid lacquer)

Categories

Furniture

Collection code

FWK

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Qr_O299313
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