AN ITALIAN PARCEL-GILT AND RED-JAPANNED BUREAU-CABINET

The earliest European lacquered wares are known to have been produced in Venice and until recently was thought to have been the centre of production for the majority of japanned furniture throughout Italy. This was a natural assumption given its longstanding trading links with the Orient and the fact that its lacquer craftsmen were famed throughout Europe for their imitations of Chinese and Japanese wares. However, recent research has acknowledged that almost every region in Italy had its own distinctive tradition of japanning. Although Europeans were rarely able to precisely imitate Asian lacquer-work, the Western pieces, with their ground colours of black and red such as the present lot, were almost as highly prized as the originals.

The fashion reached such a peak that in Northern Italy entire rooms in numerous palaces were dedicated to japanned decoration with chinoiserie rooms featuring lacquer decorated walls or ceilings. These include the Chinese Apartment on the first floor of the Palazzo Racconigi, the Sala Cinese at Stupinigi, a chinoiserie room designed by the architect Randone for the Duke of Aosta in the Castello di Rivoli, and various rooms of the Castello Cavour in Santena (see L. Caterina, C. Mossetti, Villa della Regina Il Riflesso dell'Oriente nel Piemonte del Settecento, Turin, 2005).

Effendi Hill, Mill Neck in Long Island was designed in the colonial revival style in 1905 for publishing magnate Frank Nelson Doubleday. His wife Florence inherited the estate in 1934, which is likely when the inventory label was attached to this bureau-cabinet, although sadly it does not appear in the recorded interior photographs of the house, it would have sat comfortably within Mr and Mrs Doubleday's collection of English and Continental furniture.