A CHINESE EXPORT CANTON ENAMEL FAMILLE ROSE AND BLACK-AND-GOLD LACQUER BUREAU-ON-STAND

This remarkable Canton enamel and black and gold lacquered bureau or dressing table dates from the mid-18th century and is likely to have been commissioned by the East India merchant Thomas Leche as a gift for his wife. The bureau is enameled with birds and insects in brilliantly-colored flowered landscapes after the fashion popularized by Messrs. Stalker and Parker's, Treatise of Japanning, Varnishing and Guilding, 1688; while its fall-front displays a flower-framed vignette of Chinese figures in a pavilioned pleasure garden. The drawers are nicely constructed with bamboo pegs and the backs are signed with Chinese characters designating their correct positions; the sides of the bureau are further fitted with carrying handles, all of which indicates a Chinese manufacture intended for export. The bureau is now supported on a serpentine frame with japanned palm-flowers and foliage, which was likely executed around 1800 and is in keeping with the its original fretted and flowered base. A pair of related stand supported bureaux, with fitted dressing-glasses, were described as 'Union suits', when repaired in 1739 for the Duke of Atholl by cabinet-maker John Hodson of Frith Street (see: A. Coleridge, 'John Hodson and Some Cabinet-makers at Blair Castle', The Connoisseur, April, 1963, p. 230, fig.15).

It is very rare to find examples of Canton enamel-decorated furniture, and even rarer to find one of such large proportions. The production would have been very costly, and given the fragile nature of the material and treacherous sea-voyage from China, it must have been incredibly risky to transport. The only other known example is in the Anastácio Gonçalves Casa-Museu, in Lisbon, Portugal (inv.SIC-558). The house-museum is perhaps best known for its phenomenal collection of Chinese porcelain amassed by Dr. António Anastácio Gonçalves (1888-1965) in the early 19th century, and gifted to the country of Portugal after his death. The subject matter of the enamel decoration is of a similar variety to the present lot, and suggests they originated in the same Chinese workshop.