Queen Anne Style Chinoserie Lacquer Bureau Bookase
Queen Anne Style Chinoserie Lacquer Bureau Bookase
The double-domed top with three turned giltwood urn finials above a pair of arched panel doors, the exterior decorated overall in gilt chinoiserie japanning on a black ground with figures at leisure within a continuous landscape of pagodas, willow trees, rockwork, cranes and pleasure boats, opening to reveal a vivid red lacquer interior fitted with a stepped arrangement of pigeonholes, the upper tier of seven tall compartments above a further tier centred by a small cupboard door painted with a mountainous river landscape, all above four further small drawers decorated with floral and avian motifs and fitted with brass ball pulls, the door interiors similarly decorated in gilt with rocky river landscapes and pavilions on a red ground; the lower section with a fall front decorated en suite, opening to a further fitted interior of valanced pigeonholes and small drawers above a band of drawers painted with stylised flowerheads, the whole raised on a base of two short and two long graduated drawers each decorated with figures in landscape, with brass swan-neck handles, on later turned bun feet.
The combination of a black-ground exterior with a contrasting scarlet lacquer interior is a feature found on better-quality japanned furniture of this type, the maker reserving the more costly and labour-intensive red lacquer ground for the fitted interior, visible only when the piece is in use.
The double-dome cresting and broken pediment, together with the stepped pigeonhole arrangement, follow the standard Queen Anne/George I bureau bookcase form.
China, around 1980
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