A Chinese export lacquer and bamboo tray, late 18th century

Acquired from Ronald Phillips Ltd, London, 6 January 1988

The European fascination for China and the Far East was nourished by the increasing trade possibilities opened up by the East India Company, and the Chinese production of furniture aimed for a European market began to develop in the late seventeenth century. The first wave of popularity for lacquerware crested in the reigns of Queen Anne and George I, and the closely-related interest in chinoiserie motifs continued in European Rococo design for several more decades. This Chinese export tray can be linked to the later reprisal of interest in China and the East during the late George III period and the Regency: as an alternative to the neoclassical visions of Robert Adam and James ‘Athenian’ Stuart, influential tastemakers including the Prince Regent eagerly collected Chinese lacquerware and placed them in opulently exotic interiors. The most famous example of this is the Brighton Pavilion, the construction and decoration of which stretched from the 1790s to the 1810s – a set of late-eighteenth century Chinese lacquer hall chairs, analogous to the present lot in material, geography and date, were formerly in the Great Gallery at the Royal Pavilion and are now in the Royal Collection (RCIN 2468). Other notable Chinese-influenced interiors of the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth century include the Chinese Room at Claydon House and the Chinese Room at Ombersley Court.

Trays are rather delicate and generally do not survive in as great a number as more sturdy case furniture, and the present tray is all the more notable for its surviving bamboo-work on the surrounding fret. There is a gouache from 1830 that depicts a workshop in Canton where this type of bamboo was crafted, including an array of furniture pieces in the background – this is reproduced in Carl Crossman’s book on trade with China in the decorative arts.¹ There is a magnificent comparable example of this type of finely-wrought bamboo for the export market in the V&A collection – it is an armchair from circa 1800, accession number W.453-1922.

¹ C. Crossman, The Decorative Arts of the China Trade, Woodbridge, 1991, p.256, pl.138.