Lot Essay
This bureau-cabinet, with flowered pediment in the Roman or Palladian manner, belongs to a group of masterpieces of the Irish cabinet-making art of the George II period. There is a related cabinet at Newbridge House, co. Dublin, which is likely to have come from the same Dublin workshop and to have been commissioned by Charles Cobbe (d. 1752), Archbishop of Dublin, while another cabinet, acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum from Adare Manor, Limerick, is likely to have been commissioned by Valentine Quin (d. 1744) (J. Hardy, 'The Adare Bureau-Cabinet and its Origins', Irish Arts Review, vol. 12, 1996, pp. 168-169).