A SPANISH WALNUT AND METAL MOUNTED VARGUENO18TH CENTURYThe fall flap decorated with metal panels backed on faded red velvet, with sides with wrought iron bell handlesThe interior fitted with an arrangement of drawers with bone mounts and parcel gilt decoration, the central cupboard door enclosing further drawers74cm high, 112cm wide, 44cm deepNow on a later oak stand base with turned tapering supports joined by square stretchers142cm high overall Provenance: Formerly the Messel family collection in the Long Drawing Room at Nymans Removed to The Staircase Landing at Holmstead Manor in 1947 after the disastrous fire and thence by descent to Oliver Messel Supplied by Oliver Messel to Frederick and Phyllis Watkins for Flaxley AbbeyIllustrated:'Nymans-II, Sussex: The Residence of Lieut.-Colonel Leonard Messel', Country Life, 17 September 1932, p323, fig.7.A Spanish Vargueno is a piece of furniture of Spanish and Oriental origins. They first appeared in Europe in the late Middle Ages and became a common article of furniture in the Spanish colonial empire from the late 16th century onward. Its major component is a chest with a drop front. The interior is divided into an intricate arrangement of drawers and recesses for holding jewels, documents, and other valuables. The drawers and recesses are often inlaid with bone, silver, or gold and are occasionally stained in bright colours. The exterior is elaborately mounted at the corners and elsewhere in iron or silver, and the front is secured by a heavy padlock or conventional lock.A virtually identical example, displaying the same locking mechanisms, escutcheons and bone and gilt decorated fitted interiors, exists in the collection at Castle Drogo, Devon. A related example, is housed at Parham House, West Sussex品相报告: (Later Stand)