Pair of model bureau cabinets

Pair of model bureau cabinets. Imitating full-sized English or Dutch cabinets of the early eighteenth century, and decorated as a matching pair, the second having the same designs executed in reverse. An unusually deep bureau, with sloping drop-front having compartments inside, a pair of drawers below, and then a full-length drawer, standing on four spreading corner feet linked by a shaped apron. The cabinet set on top housing 16 small drawers, with three somewhat larger below, fronted by a pair of hinged doors and surmounted by a scrolling, swan-necked pediment with wavy top and overhanging eaves. The decoration employing common export lacquer techniques, such as takamakie, but consisting predominantly of painting in tones of gold lacquer on an overall ground of black. The drop-front decorated with a landscape of pavilions and huts by the waterside, with a peasant leading an ox. The drawers below showing similar rustic scenes, with a figure carrying bundles on a pole, and silver-topped mountains. On the doors of the cabinet above, river landscapes with buildings, figures and a waterfall. Painted on their inside faces, in gold, chrysanthemum sprays, and on the cupboard drawers, small landscapes, one featuring a pagoda. Grasses painted on the pediment and also on the back. The sides painted with landscapes. With engraved brass lock-plates on the cupboard, drop-front and lower drawers, the lower three drawers with rectangular loop handles. With four prominent hinges on the doors, and two on the drop-front.
Text adapted from Chinese and Japanese Works of Art in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen: Volume III.