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A Descriptive Inventory of the Several Exquisite and Magnificent Pieces of Mechanism and Jewellery -
James Cox
1773 - for Mr. Cox, Printed by H. Hart - First Edition
A ban on Cox's shipment to China of luxury goods, led to the establishment in 1772 of the short-lived Spring Gardens Museum in London. A year later, Cox planned to dispose of the museum's contents by lottery, and in anticipation of the sale Cod published this 46 page pamphlet.
The Metropolitan Museum's miniature secretary incorporating a watch (46.184a–c) is perhaps a surviving fragment of a larger work described in the 1773 Descriptive Inventory as ‘Piece, the Seventeenth: A superb Cabinet’. If so, the Museum's miniature has lost the revolving sphere on its top described in the inventory, and it has been parted from a stand consisting of a ‘gilt rock, in front of which is a cascade and running stream of artificial water, where swans are seen swimming in contrary directions; at the corners of the rocks are Dragons with extended wings.’ This extravagant assemblage was in turn displayed on a crimson velvet pedestal with a silver-mounted glass cover to keep out the dust. The inventory goes on to describe the eighteenth object as a duplicate of the seventeenth. A comparable miniature cabinet exists in the collection of the Palace Museum in Beijing, as well as at least one other, more elaborately decorated, example in the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg. It is possible, therefore, to suggest that, like the nearly identical jewelled automaton in the Cox watch (1977.436.4) and nécessaire (57.128a–o), these delightful secretaries may have belonged to a series of items that were sold separately or inserted into a larger assemblage.
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Price HK$ 6,000
1773 - for Mr. Cox, Printed by H. Hart - First Edition
A ban on Cox's shipment to China of luxury goods, led to the establishment in 1772 of the short-lived Spring Gardens Museum in London. A year later, Cox planned to dispose of the museum's contents by lottery, and in anticipation of the sale Cod published this 46 page pamphlet.The Metropolitan Museum's miniature secretary incorporating a watch (46.184a–c) is perhaps a surviving fragment of a larger work described in the 1773 Descriptive Inventory as ‘Piece, the Seventeenth: A superb Cabinet’. If so, the Museum's miniature has lost the revolving sphere on its top described in the inventory, and it has been parted from a stand consisting of a ‘gilt rock, in front of which is a cascade and running stream of artificial water, where swans are seen swimming in contrary directions; at the corners of the rocks are Dragons with extended wings.’ This extravagant assemblage was in turn displayed on a crimson velvet pedestal with a silver-mounted glass cover to keep out the dust. The inventory goes on to describe the eighteenth object as a duplicate of the seventeenth. A comparable miniature cabinet exists in the collection of the Palace Museum in Beijing, as well as at least one other, more elaborately decorated, example in the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg. It is possible, therefore, to suggest that, like the nearly identical jewelled automaton in the Cox watch (1977.436.4) and nécessaire (57.128a–o), these delightful secretaries may have belonged to a series of items that were sold separately or inserted into a larger assemblage.
More details
Price HK$ 6,000