The 4ft 4in (1.32m) wide cabinet, decorated with kingfishers, prunus blossom and water lilies, bore a printed and hand written label for Leeds cabinet makers Hummerston Brothers who received commissions for Temple Newsam House and Harewood House.
The specialists at Bristol-based Clevedon Salerooms, where the cabinet was offered on September 5, were unable to pin the cabinet down to a designer but this didn’t deter bidders ranging from a Parisian dealer to a Leeds insitution.
A Midlands dealer posted the winning bid of £4600 (plus 15% buyer’s premium).
Ebonised Japanesque cabinet
A 19th century Aesthetic movement ebonised Japanesque cabinet was orginally housed in the Yorkshire home of a Mr Mossman, a wealthy Leeds wool merchant. When he moved from his house in Menston, near Ilkley, the cabinet passed into the hands of the new owner, the well-known music critic Ernest Bradbury and has passed by descent ever since.
