Concieved as a combined pier-commode-table and bookcase, this plinth-supported rosewood cabinet displays a rich veined Breccia marble of black Saravena diversa, and is embellished with brass inlay and gilt enrichments in the early 19th Century French antique manner. Golden husks issue from Roman acanthus that wraps its voluted and Roman trussed pilasters; and also from the voluted tablet spandrels of the glazed doors. Related 'Drawing Room Commodes' and 'Dwarf Bookcases' are illustrated in George Smith's Collection of Designs for Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, London, l808.
In l820 the Wardour Street cabinet-maker John Wellsman (d. l823) supplied a boulle-inlaid drawing room cabinet of this form to Creedy Park, Devon (sold anonymously, Sotheby's London, l0 July l998, lot ll0); and its ribbons of black and gold 'buhl' or 'boulle' inlay relate to furniture supplied by George Oakley for Papworth Hall, Cambridgeshire in l8l0, (M. Jourdain and R. Fastnedge Regency Furniture l795-l830, rev. ed., l965, London, p. 69, fig. l45).