Lot Essay
This richly-ribboned lady's secretaire-bookcase adopts the role of a bedroom apartment's Oriental cabinet since its tray-top or garden-railed cornice with bell-hung pagoda or 'umbrello'd ting' is intended for the display of flowered porcelain and Chinese figures, in the manner that earlier generations had arranged Chinese porcelain on top of Oriental lacquer cabinets. With its urn-decked balustrade and lozenged finial rising from a Gothic plume of Roman foliage, it reflects the 'modern' style as popularised by Thomas Chippendale's Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, 1754. Its picturesque fusion of Classical, Chinese and Gothic elements epitomises the beauty of 'variety' discussed in William Hogarth's Analysis of Beauty, 1753.
This cabinet is identifiable in the inventory taken on the death of the 2nd Marquess of Rockingham in 1782. As such, it is certain that it was supplied for Wentworth Woodhouse rather than being moved there in the 19th Century. A number of characteristics suggest that this is the masterpiece of Wright and Elwick, the Wakefield cabinet-makers who supplied so much to the house in the 1760s. As with so much furniture in the house that is now attributed to them, this cabinet has large foliate rococo handles, in this case mounted on elongated quatrefoils, a shape also associated with the firm's work at Wentworth Woodhouse (cf. the door panels of lot 69, the panels at the top of the legs on lot 62 and the panels at either end of the gallery on this lot).
The contents of the room in which this cabinet stood in 1782 were similar to those in most of the main bed- and dressing-rooms at Wentworth Woodhouse and do not display any particularly chinoiserie characteristics. The chimneypiece-overmantel was fitted with a 'Painting of a Flower piece with the Holy Family in the Middle of it' which is not particularly Chinese in inspiration. The other furniture was comparable to other bedrooms at that date. It is of course possible that a Chinoiserie bed- or dressing-room had been dispersed by this date. 'Lady Rockingham's Little Dressing Room' also contained 'A Mahogany Book Case ....with Fret work Doors and Drawers in the bottom part and Brass Wire Doors in the Top', part of a group of fretwork furniture well represented in this sale but not dominant in any room in 1782.
A mahogany cabinet-on-stand with similarly exotic combination of chinoiserie fretwork and lustrous mahogany-veneered drawers was sold from the Leidesdorf Collection, Sotheby's London, 28 June 1974, lot 35.
This cabinet is identifiable in the inventory taken on the death of the 2nd Marquess of Rockingham in 1782. As such, it is certain that it was supplied for Wentworth Woodhouse rather than being moved there in the 19th Century. A number of characteristics suggest that this is the masterpiece of Wright and Elwick, the Wakefield cabinet-makers who supplied so much to the house in the 1760s. As with so much furniture in the house that is now attributed to them, this cabinet has large foliate rococo handles, in this case mounted on elongated quatrefoils, a shape also associated with the firm's work at Wentworth Woodhouse (cf. the door panels of lot 69, the panels at the top of the legs on lot 62 and the panels at either end of the gallery on this lot).
The contents of the room in which this cabinet stood in 1782 were similar to those in most of the main bed- and dressing-rooms at Wentworth Woodhouse and do not display any particularly chinoiserie characteristics. The chimneypiece-overmantel was fitted with a 'Painting of a Flower piece with the Holy Family in the Middle of it' which is not particularly Chinese in inspiration. The other furniture was comparable to other bedrooms at that date. It is of course possible that a Chinoiserie bed- or dressing-room had been dispersed by this date. 'Lady Rockingham's Little Dressing Room' also contained 'A Mahogany Book Case ....with Fret work Doors and Drawers in the bottom part and Brass Wire Doors in the Top', part of a group of fretwork furniture well represented in this sale but not dominant in any room in 1782.
A mahogany cabinet-on-stand with similarly exotic combination of chinoiserie fretwork and lustrous mahogany-veneered drawers was sold from the Leidesdorf Collection, Sotheby's London, 28 June 1974, lot 35.