Japanned cabinet on stand, English, c. 1690

The cabinet japanned in gold and silver on a ground painted to imitate tortoiseshell, the stand and cresting carved and silvered.

The cabinet is closed by two doors with gilt stamped brass corner mounts, pierced hinge straps and lock plate escutcheon, also of gilt brass. The front and sides japanned with Chinese figures in landscapes and exotic plants in the manner of Stalker and Parker against a background painted to imitate tortoiseshell. The inside of the doors japanned with birds and flowers and the figure of the philosopher with table and birds. The interior contains a nest of drawers arranged 2-3-2-4, the front of each japanned with chinoiserie subjects. Oak drawer lining. Silvered cresting carved with a symmetrical composition centered around a basket of flowers and a baldachin from which spring two straps on each of which is perched a bird with outstretched wings. At each corner a square plinth supporting a flaming urn. The side panels are carved with a scallop shell with openwork foliate scrolls.

The stand is elaborately carved and silvered. Six baluster legs of rectangular section carved with ionic capitals and pendant trails of foliage. The spaces between the legs filled with eagles and outstretched wings, holding pendant swags of flowers. The side panels are filled with scallop shells with foliate scrolls, reflecting the cresting decoration. There are two pairs of scrolled cross-stretchers carved with acanthus foliage.

Said to have come from the collection of Lord Hill of Hardwick Grange, Hawkstone, Shropshire.

This 17th-century japanned cabinet was in the collection of Lord Hill at Hardwick Grange, Hawkstone, Shropshire in the early twentieth century. It appears to have been sold as part of a large auction of the contents of Hardwick Grange in 1930, when it was bought by one of the companies owned by the American publisher William Randolph Hearst (1863-1951). Sold by Mr Hearst to the Countess Dusautoy in 1938, the cabinet was bought by the V&A in 1959.

Assuming that the cabinet came into the Hill family in the late 17th-century, it would most likely have been bought by Richard Hill (1655-1727). Richard Hill was a diplomat and public servant who worked as an envoy to Brussels and Turin in the late 17th-century, most notably negotiating with the Dutch to bring the duke of Savoy into the War of Spanish Succession against Louis XIV. Richard Hill was extremely wealthy, leaving bequests in his will of £63.618 16s. He devoted much of his later life to consolidating the family's three large Shropshire estates, including rebuilding the house at Hawkstone to his own design. [1]

There was a sale of contents from Hawkstone by Hall, Wateridge and Owen (now Halls of Shrewsbury) in 1895, but a catalogue of the sale has not been traced. Reports on it were published in the Shrewsbury Chronicle, but these do not refer to particular pieces or to prices. Lugt does not list such a sale, so perhaps there was not catalogue. Information from the Hill family states that furniture was transported from Cleveland House London and the Trumpeter's House.Richmond, on the death of William Hill in 1727, so those houses should be considered as a possible source for the cabinet.

Notes

1. Randolph Vigne, 'Hill, Richard', entry from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Historical significance: This japanned cabinet is an excellent example of the 17th-century form. The carcase and mounts of the cabinet mirror the forms of contemporary pieces imported from China and Japan, while the heavily-carved and silvered baroque forms of its stand and cresting are typical of those made in England from around the 1660s. It is very rare for cabinets such as this to survive with their original silvered stands, making this piece of particular importance.

The cabinet is also a fascinating example of contemporary japanning technique. Its subjects are typical examples of the period, with the motifs of exotic plants, flowers and birds similar to those seen in Stalker and Parker. The genre scenes on the cabinet's drawers and doors provide a well-executed, fantasy depiction of life in Asia as imagined in late 17th century Britain, and pictured by Stalker and Parker and seen on other lacquered and japanned objects of the period. The surfaces of the cabinet are also japanned with a background of imitated tortoiseshell, a technique that adds to the perceived luxury and outlandishness of the piece, and is described in detail in Stalker and Parker's book.

In its surface decoration, carving and form, this cabinet provides an excellent surviving example of a network of local manufacture and imitative technique that developed out of the huge expansions in trade and commerce in 17th-century England.

The word ‘cabinet’ originally referred to a small, semi-portable pieces of furniture containing a number of small drawers and usually decorated with precious materials such as ebony and ivory. These personal objects were common in English noble houses of the 16th and early 17th century, where they would generally sit on top of tables or chests.

These small, moveable cabinets were gradually replaced during the first half of the 17th-century with lavish large-scale cabinets on stands, such as this example. Forming the focus of a house’s public rooms, cabinets on stands were essential furnishing for a fashionable apartment by the 1660s, becoming important signs for the wealth and status of the household.

Highly-ornate cabinets were imported into English collections from European workshops throughout the 17th century. They also became the specialist trade of a number of English craftsmen, with the term cabinet-maker adopted in increasing numbers by joiners working from the 1660s onwards.

The market for this kind of cabinet was boosted by a rise in the English economy during the latter half of the 17th century. During a post-Restoration period of urbanisation and rapidly-growing trade with Asia, a booming economy enabled larger numbers of people from the ‘middling’ rank of society to buy luxury commodities. In this growing market for luxury furniture, cabinets moved from being an emblem of wealth and status reserved purely for the super-rich into a common feature of many houses of the gentry and wealthy middling sorts.

In the history of the 17th-century cabinet, the lacquer cabinet is of particular significance. Lacquer cabinets made in China and Japan were imported into 17th-century England by the Dutch East India Company. From the earliest imports of the late 16th-century, a huge demand for Asian lacquered objects grew throughout England and across Europe. This demand, fuelled by the newness and perceived exoticism of the technique, saw lacquered cabinets become among the most prized furnishings of the fashionable English Restoration interior.

European and English imitation techniques quickly developed in an attempt to locally fill the market for lacquered furniture. Known in England as ‘japanning’, European imitation lacquer used varnishes and paint to achieve a similar finish to that found in Asian work. Craftsmen who specialised in japanning grew very quickly in numbers, and guides to the technique, such as Stalker and Parker’s A Treatise of Japanning and Varnishing, were published. [1]

Over the course of the 17th century, japanned furniture was increasingly implicated in local debate over the value of luxury imported goods to English economy and society. By the early 18th-century, craftsmen practising japanning had started a lobby to try to limit the import of lacquer into England in favour of locally-produced work. Japanning was also increasingly recommended to women as a suitable leisured pursuit, thus folding it into highly-politicised 18th-century associations between women, luxury and the Orient.

Notes

1. John Stalker and George Parker, A Treatise of Japanning and Varnishing, being a compleat discovery of those arts [...]. Oxford: Printed for John Stalker and George Parker, 1688.

Comparable cabinets:
- Cabinet at Cold Overton Hall, see Country Life (12/07/1930)
-Christopher Gilbert: Furniture at Temple Newsam House and Lotherton Hall. Vol. I (London, 1978), no. 35 [Formerly V&A W.26-1947]
-The National Trust, at Saltram (Devon), c.1700-20, in Adam Bowett, English Furniture 1660-1714, (Woodbridge, 2002), pl.5:33
-A similar japanned cabinet on stand was sold at Christie's South Kensington, 3 July 2012, lot 115.
-Japanned cabinet on silvered stand with silvered crest dimensions: 84 in. (213.5 cm.) high, 41 in. (104 cm.) wide, 21 in. (54 cm.) deep. Advertised by Kenneth Neame Ltd., London (6/2015)
-Bonhams, London, 29/6/2004, lot 85
-Christie's, London (King St.), Property from an important collection formed by R.W.Symonds for Mr and Mrs Jack Steinberg, lot 7
-Christie's, London, 19/11/2009, lot 20

After 1660, cabinets on stands were considered particularly prestigious pieces of furniture. They were highly decorated and contained many drawers for valuable and unusual objects. They were also objects of display in their own right. This cabinet has been 'japanned'. Japanning was a decoration that imitated lacquer made in East Asia. Professional craftsmen carried it out, and it also became a popular pastime for wealthy women. The taste for silvered, wooden furniture in England derived from furniture actually made in silver for the French court of Louis XIV (ruled 1643-1715). Very little of this survives, because Louis had it melted down to pay for his military campaigns. It is rare for such ornate crestings to remain complete. This cabinet belonged to Sir Richard Hill (1655-1727), who became Deputy Paymaster to William III's forces in Flanders.

W.20:1 to 16-1959