CIRCA 1745, THE TOP DRAWER OF BASE NOW FIXED SHUT TO EXTEND HANGING AREA OF UPPER SECTION

This handsome architectural cabinet is designed in the Roman manner derived from Sebastiano Serlio's 16th Century treatise on architecture, and made fashionable by Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington and 4th Earl of Cork (d.1753), who served as George II's Lord Lieutenant and Treasurer of Ireland. Executed for a bedroom apartment, it serves as clothes-press and chest of-drawers. Its triumphal-arched panels of richly-figured mahogany are framed by antique-fluted and reed-enriched Composite pilasters. These same features appear on a closely related clothes-press cabinet, with swan's neck pediment and lion paw feet, that is likely to have been commissioned by Valentine Richard Quin around the time of his inheritance in 1744 of Adare Manor, Co. Limerick (sold by the Earl and Countess of Dunraven, Adare Manor, Christie's house sale, 9 June 1982, lot 329). Another cabinet of this form incorporating a drawer fitted for dressing/writing was sold the Property of a Lady of Title, Christie's London, 30 November 2000, lot 103 (£27,000). Another was sold Sotheby's New York, 25 January 1997, lot 205 ($57,500). A further example, previously at Elveden Hall, Norfolk, was sold by The Earl of Iveagh, Elveden Hall, Thetford, Norfolk, Christie's house sale, 21-24 May 1984, lot 424.