Lot Essay
The Etruscan-black bureau with fitted bookshelves relates to an 1802 'Bureau Bookcase' pattern illustrated in Thomas Sheraton's The Cabinet Dictionary, 1803, pl. 23. It is embellished in the French antique manner with brass columnettes and inlays of ribbon-bands, enriched with arabesque foliage, while its serpentined horn-like trestles are reed-banded in the manner of another Sheraton pattern of 1802 for an Etruscan-scrolled chair (op. cit, pl. 5). This desk may have formed part of the furnishings introduced to Tullynally Castle, co. Westmeath at the time that Thomas Pakenham 2nd Earl of Lonford (d.1835) employed the architect Francis Johnston to aggrandise the house between 1803-6.