A Remarkable Satin Birch, Ash And Laburnum Cross-banded Serpentine

A Remarkable Satin Birch, Ash And Laburnum Cross-banded Serpentine Shaped Open Bookcase
Almost Certainly Scottish. Circa 1845.
Measurements
Height without gallery: 38" (97 cm); With gallery 40" (101 cm); Width: 82" (209 cm); Depth: 17" (43 cm).
Research
Of Laburnum, Ash and Satinbirch with gilt brass gallery. The serpentine crossbanded top with brass rear gallery. The corpus of conforming shape and fitted with original crossbanded adjustable shelves. The whole resting on a plain plinth.

Provenance:
A North Country UK Collection

The present bookcase incorporates several native Scottish woods important to cabinetmaking in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including ash, Satin birch and laburnum (sometimes called Scotch Walnut or Pease Cod). “Amongst the native Scottish woods used in furniture making, none is more lustrous and attractive than Scottish Laburnum” and it was “perhaps the most highly prized amongst the more unusual cabinet- and chair-making woods…which have been employed in the country.”

The present bookcase belongs to the tradition in furniture making where a focus is placed on the prominent display and creative use of wood specimens. Scottish cabinetmakers such as George Sandeman of Perth (1724–1803), achieved “unique whimsical effects” in the carefully chosen veneers of his case pieces and in the nineteenth century, Edinburgh cabinetmaker William Trotter records a delivery of the material in 1814 in his correspondence. “Regarded as perhaps the most eminent of all Scottish cabinet makers,” he too enjoyed working in a variety of woods.

Little case furniture in laburnum exists today, making the present piece a notable survival.

Full research report available on request.