Pair of Corner Cupboards

From the Getty Museum record

In J. Paul Getty’s diary, he notes that in September of 1950 he visited Cameron’s, an antique dealer firm in London, where he saw “a fine pair of Louis XV lacquer encoignures £3,500. Agreed to the price.” He was referring to these corner cupboards, called encoignures in French. These cupboards, made to fit into the corner of a room, follow a trend in the 1700s of furniture made for a specific use or a particular place in a home. Each corner cupboard has a bowed front and is fitted with a single lockable door that opens to reveal an open interior with a shelf across the center. The door fronts are set with leather panels of black Chinese lacquer featuring two tones of gold, brown, grey, and touches of red. The scene on one door shows an open fenced area in front of a house with a pillared porch, and that on the other door depicts a large open temple constructed of tall columns. The remaining surfaces of the cupboard fronts are decorated with black European lacquer. The Chinese lacquer has been restored and repainted so many times that little remains of its original surface.