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Description:
Ref: 851CAB http://hygra.com/box/851CAB

An impeccably made,  high quality and complex, William IV, fully fitted, figured rosewood,  table cabinet of architectural form, profusely  inlaid with mother of pearl depicting stylized flowers on the top,  and on the doors depiction of stylized  buildings.
The top compartment, which is all original with green silk is fitted for sewing;  it  retains its period mother of pearl topped spools and tools. 
The doors  have fielded panels framed with turned gadrooning. The Inside of the doors  have fielded gold embossed  maroon Morocco leather panels. 
The doors open to  three drawers with turned mother of pearl handles and accents.  The bottom drawer is a writing box . 
The middle drawer is fitted for jewelry and has a lift out tray.   It has a very rare secret sprung opening mechanism The silks and leather are all original.   
The top drawer is still covered in its original green silk.

The cabinet combines sewing box, jewelry box and intimate writing box. It was a locked personal space.  Circa 1835.

Origin: UK ;  Circa: 1835; Materials: rosewood mother of pearl and silk on a pine structure.

Size:  35 cm wide by 24.5 cm by 37 cm high: 13.8  inches wide by 9.7  inches by  15 inches high.

Condition: good overall; working lock and key; see images

Keywords: Compendium, table cabinet, Sewing cabinet, Writing box, Jewelry box, mother of pearl, inlay, cabinet making, architectural form, gadrooning, fielded panels, morocco leather, rosewood, mother of pearl inlay.

Request current  list of available sewing boxes with prices.
Request current  list of available writing boxes with prices.
Request current  list of available jewelry boxes with prices.
Request current  list of available tea caddies with prices.

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The compendium is  the personal space for the owner and has a fully fitted sewing tray complete with its original thread spools, drawers for jewelry, and a folding writing box  with  Sheffield-plate toped inkwell.

The doors have fielded panels inlaid with depictions of fantastic turreted castles. They have a weathervane on top.

I can imagine Rapunzel letting down her hair from one of the windows. This was an escape from classicism into a perceived old order of decoration and Architecture.  

They are framed with turned gadrooning: four solid pieces of rosewood glued together, inserted in a lath, there turned and polished.   

Corner detail:

It is so complex. 

Gadrooning , cavetto molding, gadrooning, figured rosewood inlaid with mother of pearl: a panoply of neo classical grammar taking on a local style. 

The leaves seem to be accented with their spine lines cut into the rosewood. The rosewood has evocative figure which it is possible to ignore, distracted by the mother of pearl.

The order of work has to be very controlled.

I can think  of no fast way of making this.

Mother of pearl is an inflexible brittle material. Are the pieces pre-made and the rosewood then cut out to accommodate? Or has it been cut as a sandwich  in the manner of Buhl?

When the lid is lifted, the box has to be first unlocked and the doors opened; right door first then the lid can be opened.

A green silk tray, all covered in water silk, each element edged with gold embossing.

The structural wood will be quarter sawn spruce, the same wood as the top of a violin.

Each of the supplementary lids have turned and then carved knops.   

In the center there is a waxer.

Thread when supplied still gave freedom to its fibers.  It was hard to thread it through a needle with only a kiss of the mouth. The thread was not under your control. Pulling the thread through the wax and then the fingers gave control!

A couple of thimbles to protect the fingers!

The green silk is original.

The top section is not a drawer. Behind it is the section for sewing. The knob is decorative.

The top compartment, which is all original with green silk is fitted for sewing;  it  retains its period mother of pearl topped spools and tools. 

It is fronted by a false drawer.

It has five thread spools with turned and milled mother of pearl tops. Three of the tops have reinforcement pins in the center.

There are four compartments with gold embossed silk covers and turned and carved mother of pearl knobs.

A fifth has sewing tools.  The  hook, the  tweezers and the stiletto have carved mother of pearl handles. The scissors is cut steel. 

The mother of pearl spool tops are turned and milled.

Three of the tops have reinforcement pins in the center.

Sewing tools

 The  hook, the  tweezers and the stiletto have carved mother of pearl handles. The scissors is cut steel. 

There are two thimbles and a waxer.

The mother of pearl top of the waxer matches the spools. 

Behind the silk covering of the lid there is another compartment with a paper document wallet. 

The paper covering is a repair. It was probably covered  with the same silk as used elsewhere in the cabinet.

In a center compartment there is a hand painted print depicting four young women in early 19th Century dresses in a landscape.

The print is framed with gadrooning.

The woman are depicted posing with flowers. One is making a daisy-chain; another seems to have sewing on her lap.

 It is an idyllic view of domestic bliss. 

In the top drawer there is a small associated period gold embossed leather box for "Needles".

The needle box is lined with its original paper.

The  sides of the drawers are mahogany. The mitered construction is reinforced.

The front of the drawers is veneered with rosewood inlaid with mother of pearl . A bead has been cut in around the edges.

The Inside of the doors  have fielded gold embossed  maroon Morocco leather panels. 

The lids of the sewing section have turned and carved mother of pearl knobs.

The bottom drawer is a small  but exquisite writing slope. The writing surfaces have their original embossed green velvet writing surfaces. In the top section there is a covered pen tray.

In the right hand side section there is a contemporary traveling inkwell with a screw secured  top.

The embossed green velvet writing surface is framed by a cross banding of tulip-wood.

This type of inkwell became available from the beginning of the 19th century. The screw mechanism which presses the cork onto the lip of the bottle and helps to avoid leaks.  

Under the flap there is the conventional compartment for stationery. 

The middle drawer above the writing box has a rare secret opening.

It is a sprung leaver. 

The photo reveals where fingers before have gone.

At some time the hole has had its edges chamfered.

I have used a mirror to reveal/ see the catch. 

It is a sprung leaver. 

I have flipped the image  to help make sense.

Each of these catches is one off engineering. 

To open the drawer insert hand and feel for the button which needs to be pressed.

And out comes the jewelry drawer.

Rosewood facings including the sides.

The silk lining is luxury.

There are particular places for  watch, earrings and chains.

 

I think I have put the lift out tray  the wrong way round!

The circle in the middle, all silk covered, is for a pocket watch. It would be upside down. But easier for winding the watch!

The gap in the circle is for the fob, which also has the winder

Under the tray there is another silk lined space divided into three, perhaps for necklaces and chains. 

This is the underside of the jewelry drawer. The brass plate is at the back and engages with the catch. 

The plate engages with catch.

The feet are turned solid rosewood

There are two pewter lines let in. The pewter looks like brass because of the vanish.

The rosewood is inlaid with mother of pearl which in turn is inlaid with rosewood.

Each of the drawers has a turned and  finely hand carved daisy/ marigold/. Every petal is slightly different.

The handle has been filed to shape.

The wood has been inlaid with a fine pierced element. which has been sawn out. some of the marks are still visible. the saw was moving in an anticlockwise direction. The thickness of the saw blade is of a fret or piercing blade.

When the lid is closed, it has a pin which engages in one of the doors. 

The spools are the early form. The thread has to be wound onto them.

The shank and the lower plate are turned bone. Screw joins connect the parts. 

Later spools had metal shanks which came apart to accommodate the newly available thread which was supplied on reels. 

The scissors is cut carbon hardened steel. All the facets will have been ground.

The carbon leaves marks on the steel. 

It always astonishes me how much work is needed to fabricate something which looks so simple.

Cut steel is  is a story in itself. The objects are jewel-like.

The compartments under the lids are lined with the same green water silk.

Side view.

The craftsmanship is amazing. 

The inlay of flat pieces of mother of pearl into a curved surface must have been extremely difficult. 

Each element would have been prepared and then glued in place in a defined order.

The surfaces will be polished before final assembly.    

There are turned solid rosewood drop ring handles to the sides. 

They are particularly complex in having pewter lines inlaid.

The rings being polished on the lathe are amazing.

The ring is fitted to the shank by splitting the shank, fitting the ring and then re-gluing.

I can't see the glue line.

 It is jewelry in wood.

 

Even the rosewood of the back is well figured.

Often the best wood is kept for the front, but here no expense was spared.

The mother of pearl inlay contrasts with the rich dark of the rosewood. Although the motif has total control of technique it has the fluidity of the natural flowers it depicts. It is a time consuming job inlaying such elements to this fineness.
The inlay is stylized and symmetrical according to the neoclassical tradition and the grace of naturalism.

The rosewood is incised to give a three dimensional quality.

In the middle there is an exquisite depiction of a bird. 

The wing feathers have been incised. 

 

Gadrooning , cavetto molding, gadrooning, figured rosewood inlaid with mother of pearl: a panoply of neo classical grammar taking on a local style. 

The leaves seem to be accented with their spine lines cut into the rosewood. The rosewood has evocative figure which it is possible to ignore, distracted by the mother of pearl.

 

Even the facings at bottom, which can only be seen when the cabinet is upturned as here have good figure with dramatic striations of dark and light colour.

The cabinet is a magnificence of the period.