Jewel cabinet with watch

François Boucher · 1765-01-01T00:00:00Z

Probably made for the domestic market, the cabinet has doors that consist of enameled personifications of Winter and Summer after paintings of the Four Seasons by the British portraitist and genre painter Robert Pyle, who had a brief vogue in London between about 1760 and 1768. The anonymous enameler may have worked directly from the paintings or from contemporaneous mezzotints. The enamels on the side of the cabinet were adapted from prints of paintings by Antoine Watteau (1684–1721) and François Boucher (1703–1770). With characteristic inventiveness, Cox included a secret drawer above the more obvious drawers that is released by means of a jeweled button on the back of the cabinet. The watch is supported by two playful cherubs of cast and painted brass and surmounted by a bust of a lady.