A GEORGE II GREEN AND GILT JAPANNED BUREAU-CABINET

ATTRIBUTED TO GILES GRENDEY, CIRCA 1730

Details

The upper cabinet with a molded swan-neck pediment termination in gilt flowerheads over two rectangular beveled mirrored doors opening to a fitted interior of small drawers, shelves, pigeonholes, and marbleized pilasters surrounding a central mirrored cupboard door, the insides with nashiji ground decoration, also with a secret compartment, each of the interior panels of the cabinet doors depict a magnificent ship, the lower slightly bombe section with a slope front enclosing a similarly fitted interior, the interior of the fall-front inset with a velvet writing surface, above two short and two long drawers, raised on bracket feet, decorated all over with green ground, which would have originally appeared blue, covered with exotic chinoiserie figures, mythical beasts, pavilions, flowers, and foliage; all drawers incised with 'W' and roman numerals to the reverse, and some interior drawers further numbered in red chalk, with old London shipping labels applied to the back, the hardware apparently original, one mirror plate possibly original and re-silvered, the other a well-matched replacement, with some refreshments to the japanning
94 3/4 in. (240.7 cm.) high, 42 in. (106.7 cm.) wide, 24 in. (61 cm.) deep
Provenance

The Property of a Gentleman; Christie's, New York, 20 April 1985, lot 173.
Acquired from the above sale.


Lot Essay

GILES GRENDEY
This impressive bureau-cabinet would have been a significant commission by a patron entranced by the exotic art of the East. Attributed to Giles Grendey (1693-1780), the prolific cabinetmaker of St. John's Square, Clerkenwell, London, it shares distinctive ornamentation and designs with important and lavishly japanned examples from his workshop. Grendey ran a substantial business from 1726 when he took on his first apprentices until at least the late 1760s; in 1766 he was appointed Master of the Joiners' Company. Described at his wife's death as a 'great Dealer in the Cabinet way', in 1755 at the time of his daughter's marriage to the Royal cabinet-maker, John Cobb (d. 1778), he was referred to as an 'eminent Timber Merchant'.
Grendey was also deeply involved in the timber and export business, which may have led to his production of japanned furniture for the export trade, notably for Italy and the Iberian peninsula where such work was much in demand. Accounts in the Public Record Office indicate that England exported considerable quantities of furniture to Spain and Portugal in the first half of the eighteenth century. Grendey clearly had a substantial export business as early as 1731, when a fire on his premises resulted in an enormous loss of £1,000 in furniture which he 'had pack'd for Exportation against the next Morning' (R. W. Symonds, 'Giles Grendey and the Export Trade of English Furniture to Spain', Apollo, 1935, pp. 337-342). The discovery of labeled mirrors in Norway also indicate that Grendey exported goods to Scandinavia.
His most celebrated commission was the extensive suite of more than seventy-seven scarlet-japanned items including seat furniture en suite with 'pier-set' card-tables, mirrors and secretaire-cabinets, supplied around 1740 for the Duke of Infantado's Spanish castle at Lazcano in northern Spain. This ranks among the most celebrated suites of eighteenth century English furniture with many of the pieces from this suite now in public collections.
THE DESIGN
The form of the bureau cabinet was an English invention developed in the 17th century which soon found favor in many countries in both North and South Europe, with the notable exception of France. The English influence was strengthened in Continental Europe after the Treatise on Japanning was published in England in 1668 by Messrs. Stalker and Parker, which provided a series of images appropriate for artists imitating Eastern lacquer. In Dresden, the bureau-cabinet came to be known as an Englischer Schreibschrank and soon became the most important piece in the cabinet-makers oeuvre, although it was likely that many examples were still made in England by Grendey and other cabinet-makers and transported abroad.

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