{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O52982"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O52982/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2006AD0443/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2006AD0443/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2006AD0443","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O52982/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O52982","accessionNumber":"W.6:1-1972","objectType":"Bureau cabinet","titles":[],"summaryDescription":"This secretaire-cabinets is not marked or labelled, but has been attributed to the Dublin cabinet-maker Christopher Hearn because of its similarity to another cabinet at Newbridge House, Co. Dublin.  On 8 December 1764 Lady Elizabeth Cobbe recorded that she paid £11.17.6 (approximately £11.87p) for a cabinet of this overall form, and this entry has been linked to the surviving cabinet at Newbridge.  Although the maker is not recorded in the account book, we know that 'Mr Hearn' supplied more than £200 worth of furniture to Newbridge in the early 1760s.  The payment may have been to Christopher Hearn, who was a cabinet-maker and joiner, or to Charles Hearn, and 'upholder' (an upholsterer, and possibly a relation) and it is possible that they collaborated in furnishing the house.\r\n\r\nSeveral other cabinets of the same pattern are known.  They are all made in the rich, dark mahogany which was typically used for furniture in Ireland in the mid-eighteenth century.  Irish makers absorbed design ideas from England and elsewhere in Europe but used them inventively to create a strongly recognizable Irish style.","physicalDescription":"Partial description only:\r\n\r\nA two-tier bureau-cabinet of mahogany, with brass handles and keyhole escutcheons, the lower section in the form of a kneehole desk, with a single drawer across the top fitted for writing, the front falling on quadrant stays to reveal a bank of drawers and pigeonholes behind a writing surface, the upper secions with double doors (now of wood but originally mirrored) above a pair of drawers, the top with a scrolled cornice, with a central figure of a carved eagle (replaced)\r\n\r\n<u>Upper tier</u>.\r\nThe backboard is oak, laterally grained, and nailed to rebates in the mahogany sides and to the back edge of the pine top. The bottom board is of oak lipped in mahogany, but the back half has broken off and is missing.\r\nThe cornice is built up in pine, with applied pine mouldings veneered in mahogany.\r\n\r\nThe dustboard above the two drawers at the bottom of the upper tier is pine lipped in mahogany. One of the two sliding shelves -- pine lipped in mahogany -- is original. The other (all pine) is modern. \r\n\r\nThe drawers are oak with mahogany fronts -- made of a single piece of mahogany but rebated at the top and sides to give the look of an applied front. The side linings, which are dovetailed to the rebated surface of the front, have rounded top edges.\r\n\r\n<u>Upper and lower sections</u>.\r\nThe drawer-locks have been stripped, and the handles on all the smaller drawers are modern. The large escutcheon/handle in the long middle drawer is original, however, as is the upper sliding bolt in the left door of the upper tier (wheras the lower bolt is missing).\r\n\r\n<u>Lower section</u>\r\nThe backboard is vertically grained and fixed with brads, with no sign of any earlier fixings -- so probably a replacement.\r\n\r\nThe eagle was carved in 1973 and was copied from the one on a similar cabinet.","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Hearn, Christopher","id":"A39124"},"association":{"text":"maker","id":"x40240"},"note":"attributed"}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"mahogany","id":"AAT12221"}],"techniques":[{"text":"carving","id":"AAT53149"},{"text":"veneering","id":"AAT53878"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"","categories":[{"text":"Furniture","id":"THES48948"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"FWK","id":"THES48597"},"images":["2006AD0443"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"001","id":"THES340973"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"001","id":"THES341883"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"001","id":"THES341883"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"001","id":"THES341883"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"001","id":"THES341883"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"001","id":"THES341883"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"001","id":"THES341883"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"001","id":"THES341883"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"001","id":"THES341883"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"001","id":"THES341883"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"001","id":"THES341883"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"001","id":"THES341883"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"001","id":"THES341883"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"001","id":"THES340973"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"001","id":"THES340973"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"001","id":"THES340973"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"001","id":"THES340973"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"001","id":"THES340973"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"001","id":"THES340973"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"001","id":"THES340973"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"001","id":"THES340973"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"001","id":"THES340973"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"001","id":"THES340973"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"001","id":"THES340973"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"019","id":"THES302822"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"Bureau 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1760-ca.1765","earliest":"1755-01-01","latest":"1769-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"226","unit":"cm","qualifier":"aproximate","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Depth","value":"62","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"104","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[{"content":"Rinar Lodge [?]\r\nAmong ......","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"This largely illegible inscription is found on top of the cabinet"}],"objectHistory":"Formerly at Adare Manor, Co. Limerick, Ireland.","historicalContext":"This writing cabinet is part of a family of very similar pieces which have been attributed to Christopher Hearn of Dublin.  A closely similar secretaire-cabinet was supplied to Lady Elizabeth Cobbe at Newbridge House in 1764, for which she paid £11.17.6. This is thought to have been made by Christopher Hearn, who supplied considerable amounts of furniture to Newbridge House at that time. The writing cabinet still remains at Newbridge.\r\n\r\nClosely similar secretaire-cabinets include one at Birr Castle and three which have passed through the salerooms (Sotheby's, London, 19 April 1974, lot 67, from the collections of the Rev. G. R. Dampier-Bennett; Christie's, London, 4 July 1985, lot 93, from an anonymous collection; Hamilton, Osborne & King Fine Art Auctioneers, 2003). See The Knight of Glin and James Peil, <i>Irish Furniture</i>, London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007, pp. 117-8, 121, fig. 163, cat. 195.  Cat. 193 shows a secretaire-cabinet of similar form but enriched with elaborate carved decoration. Cat.199 shows one with greater decoration of Chinese fret on the pigeonholes within, which would seem to support the dating to 1760s.\r\n\r\nVersions of the model were offered for sale by English Heritage Antiques, New Canaan, Conn. in 1987 and by  Millington Adams, Knutsford, at the Harrogage Antiques and Fine Art Fair in 2011 and was illustrated in <i>The Antiques Trade Gazette</i>,23 April 2011, p. 16. This may have been one of the pieces sold at auction, as listed above.","briefDescription":"Bureau cabinet of solid mahogany with brass handles and key escutchions, in two sections, with a double-doored upper section on a lower section in the form of a kneehole desk with secretaire drawer. Irish, probably ca. 1760","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"John Hardy, 'The Adare Bureau-Cabinet and its Orgins', <u>Irish Arts Review</u>, vol. 12 (1996), pp. 168-9"}],"production":"Attributed to Christopher Hearn as a result of its close similarity to one at Newbridge House, possibly supplied in 1764 by Christopher Hearn. See The Knight of Glin [Desmond Fitzgerald], and James Peill. <u>Irish Furniture: woodwork and carving in Ireland from the earliest times to the Act of Union</u>. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007, ISBN 0300117159, pp. 117-121, 252-3.","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[{"text":"BUREAU CABINET\r\nIRISH; about 1760\r\nMahogany\r\n\r\nFrom Adare Manor, Co. Limerick, Ireland.","date":{"text":"pre October 2000","earliest":null,"latest":"2000-09-30"}}],"partNumbers":["W.6:1-1972","W.6:2-1972","W.6:3-1972","W.6:4-1972","W.6:5-1972","W.6:6-1972","W.6:7-1972","W.6:8-1972","W.6:9-1972","W.6:10-1972","W.6:11-1972","W.6:12-1972","W.6:13-1972","W.6:14-1972","W.6:15-1972","W.6:16-1972","W.6:17-1972","W.6:18-1972","W.6:19-1972","W.6:20-1972","W.6:21-1972","W.6:22-1972","W.6:23-1972","W.6:24-1972","W.6:25-1972"],"accessionNumberNum":"6","accessionNumberPrefix":"W","accessionYear":1972,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE","Bureau cabinet [1]","Bureau cabinet [2]","Drawer [1]","Drawer [2]","Drawer [3]","Drawer [4]","Drawer [5]","Drawer [6]","Drawer [7]","Drawer [8]","Drawer [9]","Drawer [10]","Drawer [11]","Drawer [12]","Drawer [13]","Shelf [1]","Shelf [2]","Shelf [3]","Drawer [14]","Drawer [15]","Drawer [16]","Drawer [17]","Drawer [18]","Drawer [19]","Keys"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2025-12-08","recordCreationDate":"2001-01-24","availableToBook":true}}