084/06
6 June 2006
Culture Minister Defers Export Of A George II Gothic Painted Cabinet, Attributed To William Hallett, C. 1752
Culture Minister, David Lammy, has placed a temporary export bar on a George II Gothic painted cabinet from Easton Neston, Northamptonshire. This will provide a last chance to raise the money to keep the cabinet in the United Kingdom.
The Minister's ruling follows a recommendation by the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest, run by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council. The Committee recommended that the export decision be deferred on the grounds that the cabinet is of outstanding aesthetic importance and of outstanding significance for the study of art history. The Committee awarded a starred rating to the cabinet meaning that every possible effort should be made to raise enough money to keep it in the country.
The cabinet encapsulates the taste of the mid-eighteenth-century Gothic revivalists and appears to be contemporary with or even to pre-date Horace Walpole's earliest activities at Strawberry Hill. The recent recovery of its original paint surface places it at the very beginning of the fashion for painted furniture that became more widespread in the 1770s and 1780s, and of a more enduring tradition of painted decoration for furniture in the Gothic style.
The decision on the export licence application for the George II Gothic painted cabinet will be deferred for a period ending on 5 August inclusive. This period may be extended until 5 December inclusive if a serious intention to raise funds with a view to making an offer to purchase the cabinet at the recommended price of £1,200,000 (excluding VAT) is expressed.
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Anyone interested in making an offer to purchase the cabinet should contact the owner's agent through:
The Secretary
The Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest
Museums, Libraries and Archives Council,
Victoria House,
Southampton Row
London WC1B 4EA
Notes to Editors
1. From April 2005, responsibility for administering the work of the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest (RCEWA) was passed by DCMS to the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA). Media enquiries on the operation and casework arising from RCEWA and from the Acceptance in Lieu and Government Indemnity Schemes and the export licence system should go to Sharene Chatfield on 020 7273 1459, email Sharene.chatfield@mla.gov.uk
2. The Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest is an independent body, run by MLA, which advises the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport on whether a cultural object, intended for export, is of national importance under specified criteria. Where the Committee finds that an object meets one or more of the criteria, it will normally recommend that the decision on the export licence application should be deferred for a specified period. An offer may then be made from within the United Kingdom at or above the fair market price.
3. Pictures of these items can be downloaded free of charge from the MLA site on Pixmedia. Please go to: http://www.pixmedia.co.uk/25/folder/618
4. The cabinet appears to have been created as a combined bookcase (in the plinth and the glazed centre section) and cabinet to display works of art or curiosities (in the two canted turrets). It was undoubtedly created for Henrietta, wife of the 1st Earl of Pomfret, who was one of the principal Gothic enthusiasts of the 18th century; and it has latterly been assumed – on the basis of its history at Easton Neston – that it was made originally for 'Pomfret Castle', the extraordinary Gothic house at 18 Arlington Street that she built during her widowhood, between 1756 and 1759. This seems highly unlikely, however, since the Countess fell out with her son and left him entirely out of her will, and she never returned to Easton Neston after her husband's death in 1753. The cabinet therefore was almost certainly made for Easton Neston itself, before 1753. The original heraldry, depicted on the four front doors of the bottom section, comprises the initials H P, presumably for Henrietta, Countess of Pomfret, together with the arms of Fermor (on the inner left door), for her husband, and Jeffreys of Wem for Henrietta herself, who was the heiress of her father the 2nd Lord Jeffreys.
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5. The evidence that the cabinet was made before 1753 makes it tempting to associate it with Lady Pomfret's visit to the cabinet-maker William Hallett, noted in her diary on 6 April 1752. Hallett was later employed by Horace Walpole to supply the ebonized Gothic chairs for his parlour at Strawberry Hill, and it may be that this commission was secured on the strength of an established record of working in the Gothic style. The cabinet, though superficially very different from any other furniture known or thought to be by Hallett – or indeed by any 18th-century maker – is in fact of a high quality of manufacture, well worthy of a major London workshop.
6. After the 1st Lord Pomfret's death in 1753, Easton Neston passed to Henrietta Pomfret's estranged and deeply indebted son, who sold most of the contents of the house. The survival of the cabinet, however, can only indicate that this piece was retained – whether because it failed to sell, or because the new Lord Pomfret deliberately withheld it. Its subsequent history at the house remains uncertain until the late 20th century, when it was published in Country Life. By 2005 the cabinet had been repainted at least four times, and it is not entirely clear whether the intermediate schemes all matched the last one. In heraldic terms, however, it seems almost certain that they did, for in 2005 the arms represented the 2nd Earl and his Countess, Anna Maria Draycott: the change was effected by substituting 'A' for 'H' on the outer left door, and the Draycott arms for those of Jeffreys on the inner right door. So the first repainting presumably occurred between 1764 (when the 2nd Earl and Countess were married) and 1785 (when he died). The later decorative schemes have been recently dry-stripped, to reveal what appears to be the original decoration. Inside the cupboards, however, a pale blue paint, which also appears to be from a later scheme, has been left in place.
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