A George III Mahogany Breakfront Display Cabinet-on-Stand - Apter-Fredericks Antique Furniture, Chests / Cabinets Dealer

This pagoda-pedimented cabinet, for the display of china, is a particularly elegant example of a mid-18th Century 'Chinese Cabinet.' It reflects the picturesque combination of styles popularised by the 1754 publication of Thomas Chippendale's Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director. The present piece also relates to a drawing of a "Design for a Gothick Bookcase" attributed to William Gomm, now in the collection of the Winterthur Museum.

While its triumphal-tripartite form, 'mosaic' glazed doors and trellised-fret cresting, as well as the 'Doric' dentil-ribboned frieze and columned legs, all derive from the 'antique' style appropriate for the Palladian-style interior, the "hollow-swept' pediment and 'Chinese' ribbon-fret frieze provide suitable ornament to accompany colourful porcelain, which would be displayed in, on and under the cabinet. For instance, flower-filled vases feature in a closely related 'Chinese' cabinet design of 1761, attributed to Messrs. William and Richard Gomm, the celebrated cabinet-makers and upholsterers of St. John's Square (see L. Boynton, 'William and Richard Gomm,' Burlington Magazine, June 1980, fig. 32.

Chippendale's pattern, Plate CXXVI, for related 'China Case on Stand with Glass Doors" evolved in part from a bookcase engraving of 1740, illustrated in Batty Langley's City and Country Builder's Treasury of Designs pl. CLXI. While the ribbon-fret of the frieze incorporates 'hollow-sided' lozenges, as featured on the doors, and relates to an engraved pattern published by Robert Manwaring as being in the 'Gothic' taste in the Cabinet and Chair-Maker's Real Friend and Companion, 1765, pl. 131. The concealed columnar leg relates to those of contemporary 'architect' or 'library' tables, while the pilasters are fretted with a central roundel in the 'French' manner.