A CHINESE EXPORT LACQUER COFFER ON A GEORGE II GILTWOOD STAND

Kimbolton Castle, Huntingdonshire, a medieval home, was the final residence of the Catherine of Aragon, first wife of Henry VIII and daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. She died there in 1536. In 1683, the house came into the possession of Charles Montagu, 4th Earl and later 1st Duke of Manchester, as descended from his grandfather, Sir Henry Montagu. Under the direction of Sir John Vanburgh, the house was remodelled in the current fashion of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Vanburgh, with whom Montagu appears to have had a strong friendship and active correspondence, was also responsible for the remodeling of Castle Howard and Blenheim Palace (Country Life, 23 September 1911, pp. 440-448 and 30 September 1911, pp. 474-486). A photograph of this coffer-on-stand in situ at Kimbolton Castle is published in Country Life in 1911, where the stand is shown with its previous but probably not original black and gilt decorative scheme. The shell motif carved to the center of the stand echoes the exuberant Baroque carved shell mantle-piece in the Saloon at Kimbolton, and seen repeatedly throughout the castle, carved into a suite of Venetian seat-furniture c. 1708 and adorning the staircase ceiling completed around 1711 (see: ibid., pp. 477-478).

A Japanese Export black and gilt lacquer coffer, on a very similar giltwood stand carved with vigorously carved winged griffins rather than dragons, which also rest on naturalistic rock bases, and with the same scrolled foliate back feet is in the collection at Belton House, Lincolnshire [NT 434832].