Reference: Article 101

There is a small but distinguished group of boxes which has puzzled me for years. These boxes share certain characteristics; they were obviously painted within the same tradition, location, and even studio. They date from the second and third decades of the 19th century. 

The subjects of the decoration are in the chinoiserie or floral genre of the period, with the main scenic composition framed by accurately and finely painted flowers in vibrant colors.    

A truly magnificent  painted tea chest circa 1830. 

The possible key to the puzzle of who painted this group of boxes.

The chest is painted all around with  floral patterns.  The attention to detail is remarkable. The flower and insect  painting   is in bright confident colors, which show the strong influence of Dutch flower painting.  

The artist has painted a fly landing on one of the flowers. 

What distinguishes these boxes, apart from a similarity in the arrangement of the decoration, is the quality of the work. They are not just painted. They are painted superbly. They are the work of artists: highly skilled, talented, and professional. Who were they?

My instinct prompted me towards the north of England, where professional artists worked on applied art objects on a regular basis. Or perhaps Scotland, where until the Smiths turned Lord Gardenstone's vision into the ubiquitous Mauchline-ware, boxes were painted by artists.  

Contemplating the landscape on the top of the box, its Scottishness began to assert itself more and more strongly. The picture of a man fishing by a river, dwarfed by the landscape, with a distant castle crowning the composition, epitomizes the Scottish tradition of romantic landscape.  

Theories crowded my brain, remaining hazy and unresolved. Then serendipity showed me the way. There it was. The possible key to the puzzle. A truly magnificent tea chest.  

I recognized the genre: the excellently painted flowers on a black background, the lovely butterflies, the main picture framed by floral decoration. Only this time the central picture was NOT within the decorative tradition of the early 19th century. It was not chinoiserie, it was not neo-classical, it was not a bird or a bouquet. The picture was a landscape, painted within the mainstream tradition of fine art, of the early 19th century.  

The longer I looked at the work, the clearer the voice in my head whispered “Scottish”. It was time for serious looking, thinking, and research.  

Contemplating the landscape on the top of the box, its Scottishness began to assert itself more and more strongly. The picture of a man fishing by a river, dwarfed by the landscape, with a distant castle crowning the composition, epitomizes the Scottish tradition of romantic landscape.  

The Scottish romantic landscape does not indulge in sentimental trivia. It is a celebration of the place as the witness of the country's past, its heritage, history, heroes, and thinkers. In short the place is the sum of its experience. It is the visual manifestation of the essence of the nation. Its very soul.    

The Scottish Box with integral wooden hinge owes its distinction to a remarkable man, James Sandy and its existence to another remarkable man, Lord Gardenstone, here pictured by John Kay.

This type of hinge is found on some tea caddies and boxes but was more usually employed in snuff boxes. 
See  smallbox 144/ 

See www.hygra.co.uk/tc/tc106  for further pictures and details of  this Laurencekirk tea chest.

See also:  A Rare Polychromed tea chest with scenes of oriental life Circa 1815-20 

 

Company style painting on an English writing slope

The 18th and 19th century artists were working in harmony with the writers and philosophers of the period.  Robert Burns and Walter Scott, two of the Scottish literary giants, took the sum of human action, interwove it with the landscape and turned it into poetry and legend. The topography became the inspiration for the literary alchemy.   

Archibald Alison, the Scottish Episcopal minister and philosopher, published his Essays on the Nature and Principles of Taste in 1790. His theories of association, recognize the intellectual and historical content within an artistic creation, as the pivotal justification for its cultural validity. Scottish literature and art bear witness to such theories and they are all the richer for it.

Another Scottish philosopher whose influence is evident in Scottish art is the 18th century head of the Scottish School of Philosophy, Thomas Reid. Reid rejected skepticism in favor of intuition and collective experience. Man takes his place within the order of nature.  

This being the case, in Scottish landscape painting, man is comfortable within the landscape. He treats his surroundings with respect and sensitivity, harmonizing his skills with nature. He does not attempt to dominate, but rather blend into the spirit of the place.  

The fisherman casting his line into the river on the main picture of this particular box, is a perfect example of the shared instinct of man and his environment.  

We expect to find this type of picture painted on canvas. It is not the decorative kind of work commissioned by box makers. It is the direct and unadulterated artistic vision of the artist himself. It is the painter's imaginative response and the alchemy of his art, which has transformed this landscape from a picturesque topographical location into a celebration of the essence of the intellectual and historical life within it. 

The painting is the artist's subjective response to the objective observation of the place. Aided by his deep understanding and knowledge of events and his intuitive respect for them, he elevates the scenery to the devotional stratosphere of real art.  

Inside there are four lift out tea canisters flanking two cut crystal bowls. The canisters have  paintings of flowers on  all sides.

 

It is interesting to compare  this chest with  A Rare Polychromed tea chest with scenes of oriental life Circa 1815-20  

The flower painting is also remarkable.

 

But who was the artist? Fortunately the structure of the tea chest gave me a more or less precise decade as a starting point. Sometime around 1830.  

The picture is very well structured. The light, diffused and subtly glowing creates a central lighter part.  A castle, symbol of the past sits high up on a hill in the center. A river winds its way from center to right framed by dark trees not highlighted by the light source. Further down, a man fishes sitting near some contemporary cottages.  

 

The very carefully arranged scene betrays the influence of Alexander Nasmyth (1758-1840), the giant of Scottish landscape. An engineer and planner, as well as an artist of great influence and repute, Nasmyth had a strong sense of structure which he bequeathed to his younger followers.  

The perspective in the picture is accurate. The trees, rocks, and plants are realistically constructed, but the detail is somewhat generalized, in the manner of 18th century painting. Scottish artists came under the influence of Sir Joshua Reynolds and also 18th century French painters. This, together with the desire of the place as a visual expression of a fundamental idea, rather than as a precise prosaic representation, which would depend on the accuracy of detail, informed  the style of Scottish landscape painting. The picture on the box has the characteristics of this particular genre.  

 

In my mind I was convinced that I had a Scottish box. However, mindful of my fallibility and the power of suggestion, I decided to keep my thoughts to myself. The next step was to try and locate the actual view. First contact was Chris of the then www.castleuk.com, who directed me to Gordon Mason www.castlesontheweb.com. 

Without any prompting as to the possible artist or location, Gordon Mason made a couple of suggestions, but reasoned that the area around Cadzow castle was the most likely candidate.  

This was exactly what I wanted, but dared not hope, to hear. A strong candidate for my picture was Horatio McCulloch, R.S.A. (1805-1867). The influence of John Knox and Alexander Nasmyth is evident in the carefully structured picture with the light values contributing both to form and atmosphere. 

The young McCulloch was influenced by these artists and also by the Reverend John Thomson of Duddington. Thomson influenced McCulloch in using rich color to suggest a subjectivity of mood, a certain strand of private vision within the general grandeur of nature. The space is expertly handled. The light and shade although carefully structured, suggest casualness within the overall scheme of nature, which is suggestive of a historical past enveloping the present within the past.     

The picture on the box could very well be the work of McCulloch.

Looking at the date of the box it seems to tie up with McCulloch’s movements. In the mid 1820s McCullock was in Edinburgh; then he returned to Glasgow in 1827. Around 1835 to 1838 he lived in Hamilton, south east of Glasgow and within easy distance of Cadzow castle and forest, which were situated further south. McCulloch painted canvasses of the area of   during the 1830s. The earlier work dates from around 1834. These landscape paintings are characterized by their atmospheric quality while retaining a freshness of composition typical of the early work of the painter.  

Looking at the box decorating tradition, we know that McCulloch painted boxes for the Scottish box makers of Cumnock. 

Cumnock was one of the early centers of Scottish  box making, adopting the “blind” hinge invented by James Sandy. However very few large boxes have this particular hinge and most of these are in the early straight rectangular form. It is very likely that by the 1820s the continuous wooden hinge created problems on larger boxes. These hinges tend to get stiff and sometimes crack under the stress of expansion. It is therefore likely that the metal hinges were used quite early on on larger boxes. I have come across boxes with the typical Scottish motifs of interlocking thistles and roses with original metal hinges. 

The particular group of boxes under discussion here, do not have overtly Scottish motifs, although there are sometimes thistles or acorns painted on them. One design which is typically Scottish, is the fine linear wavy pattern on the canisters inside a tea chest which features chinoiserie and floral decoration. This particular tea chest shares many characteristics which are shared with other boxes in this group and the pattern on the canisters  provides another link to Scottish work.        

Tea canisters with wavy line decoration. 

The black background color of this tea chest, is found on other boxes which are painted with professional skill and artistic integrity. The flower, insect, and bird painting on these boxes is in bright vibrant colors, which show the strong influence of Dutch flower painting. The outlines are confident and the details depicted with consummate skill and sensitivity. This is consistent with Scottish painting of the period.    

The chinoiserie scenes which are painted on some of these boxes, are in the fashionable Regency genre, executed with the skill of fine artists. The paint is even and professionally applied and the compositions show flair and even humor. 

There is also a similarity to “Company-style” painting, a style imported from Chinese painting by the artists who worked alongside the East India Company merchants. Professional artists would have been aware of the art which was brought to England from the East, and they would have seen the relevance of the technique to Eastern themes.  

We know that acclaimed Scottish artists including William Leighton Leitch, Daniel Macnee and of course McCulloch decorated boxes which were made in Cumnock. I think it reasonable to conclude that this group of boxes were made in Cumnock. Such boxes are few and far between and in reasonable condition pretty rare. Most Scottish box- making centers specialized in snuff boxes and large Scottish boxes are unusual. The cost of professionally decorating large boxes must have been prohibitive for most but the very rich. These boxes must have been made for special customers and although they are within the same tradition, the decoration is varied. They are small works of art in their own right and as such they must be treasured and preserved.  

Antigone

Further Reading:

Macmillan, Duncan, Painting in Scotland: The Golden Age 1707-1843. Oxford 1986. ISBN: 0714824011

Macmillan, Duncan, Scottish Art 1460-1990. Mainstream Publishing Company (Edinburgh) Ltd 1990 ISBN: 1840182555

Parris, L. Tate Gallery, Landscape in Britain, 1750-1850. 1973. Published to accompany a major exhibition at the Tate Gallery

Cummings, Frederick, & Staley, Allen, Romantic Art in Britain 1760-1860. Detroit Institute of Arts & Philadelphia Museum of Art 1968.  ASIN: B0007FBWA0

 

Detail: the matching pair of cut crystal bowls.