THE STANDS POSSIBLY REGENCE, CIRCA 1720, THE CABINETS LARGELY RECONSTRUCTED, INCORPORATING SOME 17TH CENTURY LACQUER PANELS

This fine pair of Japanese cabinets, on richly carved Parisian stands, is comprised of rare panels from the seventeenth century depicting landscapes both on the exterior and on the interior. Such precious and costly Asian lacquer, prized for its delicate decoration and polished surface, was among the luxurious and fashionable works of art imported to Europe by the Portuguese and Dutch East India Companies from the late sixteenth/early seventeenth century onwards. Lacquerware appears in the collections of some European monarchs prior to this date, traded by individual missions, such as ‘divers objets façons Inde,’listed in 1560 in the inventory of the collection of François I, see A. Forray-Carlier, Les Secrets de la Lacque Française, Paris, 2014, p. 12. Japanese lacquer, an already highly-prized commodity in the first half of the 1600s, became even more of a de luxe and a scarce commodity when Japan's relations with the rest of the world were severed in 1639, and the country preserved only very limited trade relations with China and the Netherlands through the port of Nagasaki. A notable example of these early shipments is Cardinal de Mazarin’s celebrated lacquer coffer, purchased in 1658, recently acquired by the Rijksmuseum (inv. AK-RAK-2013-3-1). Mazarin’s 1661 inventory lists sixty Japanese lacquer coffers or cabinets, largely decorated with landscapes and figures. This type of decoration appears to have remained en vogue throughout the remainder of the seventeenth century, see T. Wolvesperges, Le Meuble en Laque aux XVIIIe Siècle, Paris, 2000, p. 36. In the 1700s, due to the abovementioned trade restrictions, lacquer became almost exclusive to the trade of the marchands-merciers, who paid large sums to adorn the most precious objets d'arts with them. Such objets en lacque were often used by marchands-merciers such as Lazare Duvaux, who would restore old Japanese lacquer pieces and create new confections with giltwood stands of the period. These stunning combinations were very much favored by famed patrons, such as Madame de Pompadour, who owned a large quantity of lacquer boxes and caskets commissioned by Duvaux. Intricate carved giltwood stands, designed to harmonize with the decoration of palace interiors, were conceived for these cabinets in the latter part of the reign of Louis XIV and during the Régence. Few of these rare ensembles, including the present cabinets-on-stand, have remained intact. Such is the Louis XIV example from the collection of Antoine-Rene Voyer d’Argenson, marquis de Palmy (d. 1787), now at the Bibliothèque National, Paris, see Louis XIV: Faste et Décors, exh. cat., Museée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, 1960, p. 14, no. 62. A comparable single cabinet from the same period with similarly carved stretchers and apron to the stand sold Christie’s, New York, 21 October 2014, lot 53.