Chinese Export Cabinet on Stand of Museum Quality

Height 51” (129.5 cm ) Width 23” (58.5 cm ) Depth 12” (30 cm)

The two doors have inset shaped panels extensively decorated in lustrous gold and black lacquer, depicting phoenixes and insects among leafy foliage and enclosed by alternating borders of black lacquer and stylised budding flora and birds among leafy branches. The former, which are further decorated on the inside with birds, butterflies and foliage, open to reveal a pair of doors inset with oval panels, each depicting figures in a garden landscape, surrounded by a latticed and leafy border with a further border of finely stippled gold lacquer. These internal doors are flanked by two long drawers, above and below, with similar decoration to the exterior of the Cabinet. The sides, top and the reverse are all extensively decorated with birds, insects and leafy branches.

Exquisitely decorated in the round and on every surface this gem like cabinet is probably the finest example of this school of gold and black lacquer decoration to come on the market in recent times.

The base appears to have been constructed for this cabinet in England and shipped to China where it was decorated in the round with the auspicious dragon and cloud motifs. Unusually it bears a monogram M which presumably refers to the owner who commissioned it.

Provenance:  Acquired by the previous owner from Sotheby’s in the early 1990s