拍品专文
This handsome cabinet and chest-of-drawers, features a bureau concealed behind a 'fall' and figured door panels, both with reed-framed and hollow-cornered tablets. With their spandrels' embellished with bas-relief patera medallions, they relate to the tablets featured by Thomas Chippendale (d.1779) in a number of his French-fashioned designs that include his 'Desk and Bookcase' pattern of 1760 for the third edition of his Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Directors, 1754-62. Chippendale also introduced pateraed medallions on a related 'Secretary' that he supplied for Paxton House, Scotland, together with a related 'Clothes Press' that featured on a list drawn up in 1774 (see C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, 1978, pp. 272 and 274, figs. 91 and 248).
On the underside of the secretaire and on the inside of the front left foot are exposed nailheads, the former with traces of twine attached. Such nailing also featured on several pieces of case-furniture at Dumfries House, Scotland, but only on pieces supplied by Chippendale and the 'Dumfries House cabinet-maker'. These nails are associated with the fastening of 'pack thread' used to secure a protective cloth cover for transport and provide further evidence for the attribution to Chippendale.
On the underside of the secretaire and on the inside of the front left foot are exposed nailheads, the former with traces of twine attached. Such nailing also featured on several pieces of case-furniture at Dumfries House, Scotland, but only on pieces supplied by Chippendale and the 'Dumfries House cabinet-maker'. These nails are associated with the fastening of 'pack thread' used to secure a protective cloth cover for transport and provide further evidence for the attribution to Chippendale.