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• Auction House:
  Bonhams Australia
• Sale Name:
  Important Australian Art
• Sale Date:
  29 Nov 2022 ~ 6pm (AEST)
• Lot #:
  25
• Lot Description:
  William Delafield Cook
  (1936-2015)
  Louis XV Chinoiserie Commode, 1988
  charcoal and conté crayon on paper
  108.0 x 124.0cm (42 1/2 x 48 13/16in).
  signed and dated lower right: 'W. Delafield Cook '88'
  RELATED WORK: A French Commode, 1985, charcoal and conte crayon on paper, 111.7 x 127.0cm, in the Sussan Corporation Collection, Melbourne
• Provenance:
  Joseph Brown Gallery, Melbourne; Private collection, Melbourne, acquired from the above 1989
• Notes:
  'From the mid-1980s through to the late 1990s, William Delafield Cook has undertaken a number of works around notions of transience and permanence, inspired by natural phenomena and objects in museum collections, discovered in Japan, Paris, London and Australia. Once again, there are ongoing threads of interest bringing the past into the present, creating an ever more intricate weave across the continuously migrating fabric of art and life. The range of subjects make fragmentary patterns – like thing that shift in and out of focus in our lives; things we imaging to have disappeared that return to haunt and entrance us in new ways. The revitalisation of memory and matter is made possible through Cook's cumulative photographic archive, reigniting excitement engendering further intimate discoveries in the actual process of drawing and painting them. Since 1985 the artist's visual lexicon has expanded to include such things as eighteenth-century commodes, Napoleon's hats, Elizabeth Fox Talbot's bonnets, two Japanese helmets, kimono's... Among the objects in the museum that intrigue Cook were commodes; French cabinets or chest-of-drawers, originally intended for drawing rooms, dating from the mid-seventeenth century and very popular during the eighteenth century. Cook's renditions of these pieces relate back to his earlier furniture drawings, as well as to the idea of a work of art as the subject for a work of art. 'I wanted to celebrate something which is celebrated already. It's in a museum already, spotlit, a source of wonder and delight. I tried to add a dimension to that.' The commodes are a celebration of great skill in craftsmanship... This is realised not only in the uncanny tactility of the elaborate object, but also in the way that the swirling scrolls create frames around Chinoiserie landscapes and mountain villages. The ambiguity of illusion is accentuated by the fact that the 'natural' scene in the centre is challenged by the key hole, bringing our viewpoint back to the surface.'1 1. Deborah Hart, William Delafield Cook, Craftsman House, Sydney, 1998, pp. 205-211
• Estimate:
  A$18,000 - 24,000
• Realised Price:
  *****
  

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• Category:
  Art

This Sale has been held and this item is no longer available. Details are provided for information purposes only.