Ebony, gilt metal, porcelain with Wedgwood plaques; designed by Gottfried Semper, made by Holland & Son, the porcelain panel painted by George Gray, English, 1855

The cabinet consists of two sections, a cupboard and a stand. The cupboard has a cornice set with porcelain plaques, above a carved frieze and below that the front of the cupboard has a door with a large square porcelain plaque, showing a woman being carried across a stream by two men, within a moulded and gilt frame, surrounded by rectangular grisaille panels with moulded edges. The rectangular base of the cupboard, with mouldings running along the top and bottom, has on the centre front an oval porcelain plaque, of a landscape, in a moulded gilt frame, and has four gilt metal tortoises forming the feet at the four corners. The stand is of table form, with a frieze drawer, the front of which has two grisaille oval panels in gilt frames either side of a ormolu handle in the form of a Bacchus head with ring below. At each corner of the stand are shaped legs with leopard heads and claws, joined by curved stretchers at the bottom which run along the sides and across the middle, with a central roundel, and small turned feet.

This cabinet on stand was designed by the German architect and designer, Gottfried Semper. In September 1852 he had been appointed by Henry Cole as a lecturer in the Department of Practical Art, later the Department of Science and Art. Semper had responsibility for teaching metalwork, and subsequently ‘Practical Construction, Architecture, and Plastic Decoration’, at the School of Design in Marlborough House, London.

Semper believed in the importance of practical as well as theoretical education and encouraged his students to work with him on architectural and design commissions, as he had done when head of the school of architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden, 1834-49. The design and decoration of this cabinet by Semper and a group of students was part of the Department's commission for the organisation of the British section at the Exposition Universelle, held in Paris in 1855. The central ceramic panel by George Gray, a painter of figure subjects on porcelain, was taken from the painting, ‘Crossing the Brook’, 1849, by William Mulready (1786-1863), now in the Tate Gallery. Mulready was a friend of Henry Cole and it may have been Cole, closely involved in the planning and development of the British display in Paris in 1855, who suggested the painting as a suitable subject for a ceramic panel.

The cabinet, designed in a Renaissance revival style not then fashionable in Britain, was made by Holland & Son, who supplied furniture for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, as well as for numerous government and private commissions. The firm’s Day Book (AAD13/39-1983, 1855-56 E – I, pp. 363, 149) records a total cost of £237 for making the cabinet, including payments of £25 to Professor Semper for the design, £15 15s [£15.75p] to Gray for the central panel, smaller sums for the students responsible for the other panels, and £75 to the Parisian firm of C.S. Matifat for the ormolu mounts.

Although the cabinet was offered for sale at the Paris exhibition in 1855, it was not bought by the South Kensington Museum until 1860 when it was purchased from Holland & Son for £200 (Day Book AAD 13/56-1983, 1859-60 K-Q p. 861).

In 1968 the cabinet was on display in Gallery 120.

In 1852 Gottfried Semper (1803-79), the German architect and designer, was appointed by Henry Cole as a lecturer in the Government School of Design in Marlborough House, London. Semper encouraged his students to work with him on commissions, including preparations for the British display at the Exposition Universelle held in Paris in 1855. This cabinet was designed by Semper for the British stand in Paris and decorated with ceramic and grisaillepanels by some of his students. Semper's design was in a Renaissance revival style not then fashionable in Britain although the central panel is a copy of 'Crossing the Brook', a genre painting by the British artist William Mulready (1786-1863). Mulready’s painting may have been suggested as a suitable subject for a ceramic panel by his friend, Cole, who was closely involved in the planning and development of the British display in Paris as part of his responsibility for the School of Design.

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