Description
Heading : Tunbridge Ware – An Early Single Compartment Tea Caddy With Eridge Castle Marquetry – almost certainly by Burrows – c1840
Date : 1835 – 1850
Period : Victorian
Origin : Tunbridge Wells; England – attributed to Burrows – see below
Decoration : A European Plane box with thick Rosewood veneers; a low-curved and square ended lid; four of the sides bounded by seven or nine square geometric bands within single (banded) or double (banded and plain) keyline stringing; to the top surface. a small marquetry arabesque pattern; to the front face. a marquetry image of Eridge Castle. Internally. a lift-off lid with a turned handle and a seven square geometric band within banded keyline stringing; this sits on four corner inserts to close the lead-lined interior.
Size : 13.3 cm wide x 10.5 cm high x 10.3 cm deep
Condition : Excellent; mosaic tiles almost entirely complete; box is solid and virtually unmarked; compartment lid has patches where the lacquer has worn away; only real negative is inside the well where something like 10-15% of the lining has been lost.
Restoration : None
Weight : 398 grams
Note : this one had us flummoxed for a while. as the caddy looks – at first glance – to be much later than turned out to be the case. as it is – externally – in such very good condition; however. the composition of the castle image. particularly the use of larger parquetry pieces for the foreground. make it look very similar to examples produced by the Burrows family in and around 1840 – although the angled edges to the frames around the marquetry are very unusual indeed. It also matches the size of an image used on two other pieces attributed elsewhere to Burrows; this supposition was endorsed by the Tunbridge Wells museum.
References : Tunbridge Ware (M A V Gill – 1985) page 19; Bracketts Sale Catalogue 16.05.1997 – lot 11
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