This superb cabinet - with lower section fitted up as a desk or bureau, and with upper section fitted with drawers and vertical divisions for storing papers, was made in England in the first half of the eighteenth century and is decorated in a European technique imitating Japanese and Chinese lacquer decoration. Asian lacquer decoration was only possible through the use of sap from the lac tree (Toxicodendron vernicifluum) found only in Asia, and which hardened quickly, preventing its use abroad. Panels of lacquer imported into European trading ports from Japan and China were wildly popular - and until the second half of the seventeenth century - extremely expensive. Toward the end of the seventeenth century, there was a sort of almost indecent mania for all things Asian which took hold across fashionable courts and salons of European capitals, indeed the terms 'India', 'Japan' or 'Cathay' became portmanteau terms not only for bona fide objects imported from the East but also for imitation pieces made in Europe. Entire rooms were decorated with Chinese lacquer panels, wallpapers, or covered with ceramics, in some cases in massed quantities placed on small wall brackets, as in the Porzelanzimmer in Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin or at Hampton Court Palace.

There are many examples of rooms decorated in this way throughout the eighteenth century, including the ‘Lacquer Closet’ at Drayton House, Northamptonshire, several rooms at Saltram, Devon; Nostell Priory, Yorkshire; Schloss Eggenberg, Austria; the lacquer room at Schloss Schonbrunn and many others. This pan-European desire for Asian-style decoration led furniture makers in England and elsewhere to satisfy the craze for this particular style by covering native furniture forms with Asian-style decoration. Thus, familiar furniture types which had evolved in parts of Europe were covered in Asian-style decoration, which has come to be called 'japanning' (to distinguish from actual Asian technique, known today as lacquer).

Although England had developed the particular furniture form known as a 'bureau-cabinet', as in the present example, in Dresden several japanned bureau-cabinets are at Schloss Pillnitz, part of the Dresden State Art Collection (SKD). These cabinets may have been made in England and exported, or perhaps locally-made. The present cabinet is likely to have been London-made, perhaps by Giles Grendey or John Belchier - both known to have made furniture with japanned decoration of the present sort. A large quantity of furniture was made in London by Giles Grendey and exported to Spain, probably to one of the palaces of the Mendoza - Infantado family. A daybed from this extensive suite is in the Victoria & Albert Museum, and a pair of side chairs from the suite was sold at Christie's, London, 10 November 2021, lot 130 (£62,500). A red and gilt-japanned bureau-cabinet similar to the present cabinet, similar in style to furniture in the Infantado suite is in the Art Institute of Chicago. The inventory of the 'Blew Mohair Room' at Erddig, Denbighshire lists a double-domed 'Red Japan Cabinate' which is thought to have been supplied by John Belchier, based on comparable form and fitments corresponding to those of a cabinet at Penshurst, Sussex (M. Drury, 'Early Eighteenth-Century Furniture at Erddig, Apollo, July 1978, p. 52, pl. 11, and P. Macquoid, A History of Furniture, The Age of Walnut, London, 1905, p. 145, fig. 132). Other makers known to have produced japanned furniture include Henry Tombes (fl. 1718-26); John Meader (fl. 1700-24 - whose trade card noted that he ‘maketh and selleth … all sorts of Japan-Work, Indian cabinets…’); Philip Arbuthnot (fl. 1687- d. 1727 - he advertised a sale of stock in 1717 including ‘Cabinets both English and Japan’); and  John Wills (fl. c. 1740) see BIFMO.  

A comparable japanned bureau-cabinet with an arched cresting belonged to Percy Macquoid, the furniture historian and interior decorator, now in the Victoria & Albert Museum. A red and gilt-japanned cabinet with two doors in the upper section containing drawers, above a base section containing drawers with uppermost secretaire-drawer is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.  

Comparative Literature: 
O. Impey, 'Eastern Trade and the Furnishing of the British Country House', The Fashioning and Functioning of the British Country House, Studies in the History of Art, 1989, Vol. 25, pp. 177-192

A George I or George II red and gilt-japanned bureau-cabinet
First half 18th century
The decoration cleaned and restored - illustrated treatment report available on request