Beschreibung:

A SPANISH WALNUT AND METAL MOUNTED VARGUENO 18TH CENTURY The fall flap decorated with metal panels backed on faded red velvet, with sides with wrought iron bell handles The interior fitted with an arrangement of drawers with bone mounts and parcel gilt decoration, the central cupboard door enclosing further drawers 74cm high, 112cm wide, 44cm deep Now on a later oak stand base with turned tapering supports joined by square stretchers 142cm high overall Provenance: Formerly the Messel family collection in the Long Drawing Room at Nymans Removed to The Staircase Landing at Holmstead Manor in 1947 after the disastrous fire and thence by descent to Oliver Messel Supplied by Oliver Messel to Frederick and Phyllis Watkins for Flaxley Abbey Illustrated: 'Nymans-II, Sussex: The Residence of Lieut.-Colonel Leonard Messel', Country Life, 17 September 1932, p323, fig.7. A Spanish Vargueno is a piece of furniture of Spanish and Oriental origins. They first appeared in Europe in the late Middle Ages and became a common article of furniture in the Spanish colonial empire from the late 16th century onward. Its major component is a chest with a drop front. The interior is divided into an intricate arrangement of drawers and recesses for holding jewels, documents, and other valuables. The drawers and recesses are often inlaid with bone, silver, or gold and are occasionally stained in bright colours. The exterior is elaborately mounted at the corners and elsewhere in iron or silver, and the front is secured by a heavy padlock or conventional lock. A virtually identical example, displaying the same locking mechanisms, escutcheons and bone and gilt decorated fitted interiors, exists in the collection at Castle Drogo, Devon. A related example, is housed at Parham House, West Sussex Condition Report: Overall scratches, knocks and abrasions consistent with age and use. The stand is 20th century, made of oak and of simple, functional design to hold the vargueno. There are losses, observations and restorations including: there is evidence of worm; the exterior with vestiges of worn dark red velvet beneath the fretwork gilt metal bindings; with a central decorative hinged overlock, two hooks to the top corners and four side bolts to hold the fall front in place; some of the side bolts do not engage with the carcass; the exterior of the fall front with shadows and old nails suggesting that some of the decorative pierced metal sections have been moved (possibly during any restoration) or amended over time; the gilding worn to the metal fretwork and other metalwork; the interior with some signs of filler and possibly later bolts the the fall front; the drawers with multiple variously sized and configured drawers with polychrome paint, bone inlay and spirally turned bone pilasters, some of which have some movement, damage and repair. Please see the additional photographs as a visual reference of condition. Condition Report Disclaimer