A GEORGE II SCARLET, GILT AND POLYCHROME-JAPANNED COFFER-ON-STAND

Giles Grendey (d.1780), cabinet-maker of St. John's Square, Clerkenwell, London ran a substantial business having become a freeman in 1716. He took on his own apprentices from 1726 and continued until at least the late 1760s, following his appointment as Master of the Joiners' Company in 1766. Described at the time of his wife's death in 1740 as a 'great Dealer in the Cabinet way', in 1755 at the time of his daughter's marriage to the Royal cabinet-maker John Cobb he was called an 'eminent Timber Merchant'. Grendey is probably best known for the extensive suite comprising around eighty pieces of scarlet-japanned furniture, such as seen in the current lot, supplied circa1740 to the Duke of Infantado's castle at Lazcano, Spain (a pair of chairs from this celebrated suite is in the Getty Collection, lot 568 in this sale), whilst recently discovered labelled mirrors in Norway also indicate that Grendey may also have exported goods to Scandinavia.