A Rare Queen Anne Blue Japanned Bureau Cabinet
Height: 8'4" 254cm
Width: 40" 103cm
Depth: 24" 61cm
Decorated overall with gilt chinoiseries of figures, birds and flowers. The flattened double dome with five finials above a pair of shaped and arched panelled doors with bevelled plates enclosing a well fitted interior with small drawers, pigeon holes and folio dividers around a central cupboard enclosing further drawers above a pair of candle-slides. The lower section with a hinged fall enclosing a fitted interior with drawers and pigeon holes around a central cupboard above two short and two long graduated external drawers, above a shaped apron on bun feet.
English, Circa 1710
Margaret, Lady Orford (died 1781)
Thence to William Blundell Spence, Villa Medici, Fiesole, Italy
Lady Orford was the wife of Robert Walpole (Earl of Orford), who was a son of the first Prime Minister of England and also the eldest brother of Horace Walpole, the celebrated letter writer, novelist, collector, and amateur architect. After the death of Lord Orford and of her second husband Sewallis Shirley (d. I 765), Lady Orford moved to Italy; first to Naples and later to Florence. By coincidence, one of Horace Walpole's closest friends and correspondents, Sir Horace Mann, was British Consul in Florence ( I 740-1 786) at the time of Lady Orford's arrival there. Fortunately, the chatty Horace Mann-Horace Walpole correspondence provides a fairly detailed account of the eccentric Lady Orford's activities in Florence and Fiesole.
A letter from Mann to Walpole, dated 6th November 1776, clarifies somewhat the statements made earlier in the same year: '. . . her villa Lady Orford's, which she refitted and ornamented very elegantly. The access to it is very difficult though she has for a certain tract made a new road through the mountain.
Another letter dated 10th June 1779 written by Henry Swinburne and later published in a collection of his writings, states: 'We dined also with Lady Orford at Fiesole and a very convenient house perhaps the best furnished in Italy for neatness and propriety, but too high, too much confined and on a rock which reflects a burning heat in summer.'
This magnificent bureau cabinet belongs to a group of similar examples with identical flattened domes and fitted interiors. Another of this group was acquired by William Hesketh Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme (d.1925) and was discussed in an article by A.C. Tait in Apollo 'Furniture of the Lady Leverhulme Art Gallery' 1947.
It was also illustrated in 'The Dictionary of English Furniture' by Ralph Edwards, Volume One, page 133. Another green example of identical form was sold by Waring and Gillow in 1920 from Basildon Park, Pangbourne, Berkshire.
Although unmarked, the most likely maker of these bureau bookcases is John Belchier of St Paul's churchyard, whole label has been recorded on a similarly decorated bureau bookcase dating from the 1730's (C. Gilbert, 'Pictorial Dictionary of Marked London Furniture 1700 - 1840', Leeds 1996, fig.57). He, alongside Giles Grendey, supplied many japanned items of furniture including bookcases, chairs, mirrors, etc., many of which were exported to Italy and Spain such as the suite of furniture supplied to the Duke of Infantado's palace at Lazcano in Northern Spain.
The quality of this piece alone would be sufficient to mark it out as an exceptional example but it is also japanned in blue lacquer. It is far more typical to find red or black lacquer, occasionally one finds green lacquer and rarest of all, blue.
 "A Rare Queen Anne Blue Japanned Bureau Cabinet")
