The "Dalling cabinets," c.1786 "A NEAR PAIR OF ANGLO-INDIAN ENGRAVED IVORY BUREAU-CABINETS-ON-EBONISED AND PARCEL-GILT STANDS. The bureau-cabinets Vizagapatam, circa 1786, the stands English, early 19th century. Each inlaid overall with panels depicting buildings, trees and flowers, surrounded by borders of scrolling foliage, with triangular open pediment above a frieze drawer and three pigeon-holes and three drawers flanked by doors enclosing two pigeon-holes and three drawers, above a hinged flap enclosing a fitted interior of pigeon-holes and drawers divided by column-drawers, above a long drawer fitted with divisions, on bracket feet, the interior and carcase in satinwood, on a rounded rectangular stand with solid three-quarter gallery above a reeded frieze, on spirally-fluted tapering legs and ring-turned tapering feet, minor variations in size and decoration, the pediment now positioned at the rear edge. The cabinets: 36¾ in. (93.5 cm.) high; 25 in. (63.5 cm.) wide; 11¾ in. (30 cm.) deep. Almost certainly acquired by General Sir John Dalling, 1st Bt. (c. 1731-1798), whilst Commander-in-Chief in Madras, circa 1786 and by descent. Lot Notes: The beautifully engraved bureau-cabinets, serving as portable desk jewel-case and dressing-box, are designed as a miniature 'desk and bookcase' with Roman-temple pediment in the George II 'Modern' fashion popularised by Thomas Chippendale's, Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, 1754. Engraved tablets, wreathed by floral 'chintz' fashioned borders, portray magnificent villa landscapes that would harmonise with the Georgian reception dressing apartments that were hung with landscape prints. English Roman-style architecture from Colen Campbell's much reprinted Vitruvius Britannicus (published in several volumes from 1715) featured alongside views from the Haarlem publication, Her Zegepralent Kennemerlant, 1729, on a cabinet from the collection of a Governor of the Dutch Cape Colony; while scenes from R. and J. Dodsley's, London and Its Environs Described, 1761, appear on another related cabinet at Arundel Castle, Sussex. A cabinet on loan to the Victoria & Albert Museum features feet engraved with similar fantastical lions (A. Jaffer, Luxury Goods from India, London, 2002, pp. 80-81, no. 33). A related bureau-cabinet with tiger-decorated feet was sold by Robert H. Metzger, Sotheby's, New York, 27 October 1995, lot 184. This artistic India-flowered furniture, crafted in exotic ivory veneer, was retailed in Madras and Calcutta by the English and Dutch East India Companies; but it was primarily manufactured in Vizagapatam, on the northern Coromandel Coast. Two other related cabinets, from the estate of Alexander Wynch, a former East India Company Governor of Fort St. George, were acquired in the 1770s by George III (A. Jaffer, Furniture from British India and Ceylon, London, 2001, p. 202)." Source: http://www.christies.com/

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