Beschreibung:

A WILLIAM & MARY OAK GLAZED 'PEPYS' BOOKCASE OR CABINET LATE 17TH CENTURY The interior with adjustable shelves 213cm high, 107.5cm wide, 40cm deep Literature: O.F. Morshead, 'The Colleges of Oxford and Cambridge: Magdalene College, Cambridge. II - The Pepys Library', Country Life, 3 March 1928, pp. 300-308. A. Oswald, 'Ludstone Hall, Shropshire - III: The home of Mr. and Mrs. M.H. Rollason', Country Life, 25 January 1952, pp. 222-225. K-M Walton, 'An Inventory of 1710 from Dyrham Park', Furniture History, 1986, pp. 25-80. K. Loveman, 'Books and Sociability: the case of Samuel Pepys's Library', The Review of English Studies, April 2010, pp. 214-233. This bookcase or cabinet is part of a select group of late 17th century tall glaze-fronted case-furniture, the most important of which is twelve, carved and stained oak bookcases (book-presses) with glass panes, supplied in August 1666 by the London joiner, Thomas Sympson (Simpson, fl. 1662-92), to the celebrated diarist and naval administrator, Samuel Pepys (1633-1703), for his house at York Buildings, Buckingham Street, London (BIFMO). On 23 July 1666, Pepys first records the engagement of Sympson the 'joyner' in his diary: 'Up and to my chamber doing several things there of moment, and then comes Sympson the joyner; and he and I with great pains contriving presses to put my books up in, they now growing numerous and lying one upon another upon my chairs' (Morshead, p. 302). The design, with its architectural features, is geometrically based and the glazing was inspired by the sash window which was introduced in England and Holland around this time. Pepys later bequeathed the bookcases and his important collection of 3,000 books to the library of Magdalene college, Cambridge. The library building was begun in about 1640 but not completed until the end of the century. Funds were raised through subscription with Pepys contributing £60, and other subscribers included the Masters of six of the Cambridge colleges including the mathematician, physicist and astronomer, Sir Isaac Newton FRS (1643-1727). The Pepys bookcases are still in situ; eight line the walls of the library, and four stand back-to-back in the centre of the room. Another pair of related carved oak bookcases was made for the library at Dyrham Park, Gloucestershire, commissioned by William Blathwayt (1649-1717), and described in the 1710 house inventory as: '2 Glass Presses wth Books' (BIFMO). Blathwayt was a friend and colleague of Pepys, as was his uncle, Thomas Povey, whose closet Pepys had admired in the 1660s. Blathwayt probably paid visits to York Buildings and subsequently had glazed bookcases similar to Pepys' made, possibly also by Sympson (Loveman, p. 222). Another possible maker of the Dyrham Park bookcases might be the London joiner, Thomas Hunter of the Angel, Piccadilly, who supplied much of the fine interior woodwork at Dyrham. One of the Dyrham bookcases survives in the Great Hall at Dyrham and its pair is in the Victoria and Albert Museum (NT 452939; Walton, p. 42; W.12:1 to 11-1927). A further carved oak bookcase, formerly at Cuckfield Park, Sussex, was illustrated in Country Life in 1931 (21 November 1931). Charles Sergison purchased Cuckfield Park in 1691. He knew Pepys and his younger brother John through his service to the crown as a dockyard clerk in 1671, and four years later, as clerk to the Clerk of the Acts, whose office was then held jointly by Thomas Hayles and John Pepys (ibid.). Other examples include one formerly at Kingston Lisle, Berkshire (later at Ludstone Hall, Shropshire), photographed by Country Life in 1952 (Oswald, p. 225, fig. 10); and another by repute at Penshurst Place, Kent (ibid., p. 224). While the bookcase offered here is plainer than the preceding examples, it too has been applied with a timber stain presumably to make the oak resemble what was then more expensive walnut or mahogany. Please note: the contents of the cabinet are not included in the sale of this lot