Charles II lacquered cabinet

This piece is inspired by the many lacquer cabinets from China, Japan and the Coromandel Coast of India that were imported into Europe by the English and Dutch East Indian Companies in the late 17th century. The doors of this cabinet are decorated on the inside and on the outside with blue and white vases in imitation of Asian porcelain or Delftware. The vases are filled with flowers such as carnations, tulips, and lilies. The loose flowers on the drawer’s front, which are painted fairly accurately in terms of botany, trace back to an old custom of scattering flowers and herbs on the floor. This idea came into vogue in the 16th century and continued well into the 18th century.

These cabinets were used to store rare minerals, shells, or other exotic objects. On occasion their contents were shown to interested people who studied these objects of nature. Cabinets of this type are often classified as Dutch, but there is good reason to suppose that these cabinets were also manufactured in England. A striking set of lacquer furniture, consisting of a pen table, pen mirror, and a pair of pedestal tables, decorated with similar flowers on a black background is part of the inventory of Hopetoun House near Edinburgh. That interesting set is associated with Huguenot John Guilbaud or Guilleband, a name found in Hopetoun’s bookkeeping between 1690 and 1700 and also known as one of Queen Mary’s suppliers.

As in almost all cases, the richly carved and gilt wooden frame was made for this cabinet, but in this case the gilding is more recent. The shape of this frame is English, but is reminiscent of Dutch examples from the same period. People often placed a cabinet set and sometimes also silver vases on top of pieces such as this. This explains the unadorned and somewhat bare top of this kind of show furniture. Trapezoidal black lacquered tops were also made and placed loosely on the undecorated top, so that a large amount of porcelain could be arranged artistically and greater emphasis could be placed on its exotic character.