THE FLORAL MARQUETRY LATE 17TH CENTURY

Details

A GEORGE I IVORY-INLAID WALNUT AND FLORAL MARQUETRY BUREAU-CABINET
The Floral Marquetry Late 17th Century
The rectangular moulded cornice above a door with rectangular bevelled plate within a moulded frame and surrounded by scrolling foliage and flowers, the bureau section with writing-slope inlaid with profusely scrolling foliage including roses, acanthus sprays, parrot tulips and other flowers, enclosing a fitted interior of pigeon-holes and drawers, above a sliding recess, and later green baize-lined writing-surface, above three long drawers inlaid with conforming scrolling foliage, on shaped bracket feet, the reverse inscribed in chalk 'ALL...'
87½ in. (222 cm.) high; 37½ in. (95 cm.) wide; 25 in. (63.5 cm.) deep

Special notice

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Lot Essay

The unusual arrangement of the floral marquetry veneers on this bureau-cabinet attest to the early interest in re-using old veneers. This antiquarianism was displayed by collectors such as Brownlow (d. 1793), 9th Earl of Exeter, who was invoiced by the Golden Square cabinet-makers Mayhew and Ince on 27 August 1767 for 'Entirely new working, some old inlaid work, making good the defficiencys [sic], and making up the same, into 2 commodes' (O. Impey, Four Centuries of Decorative Arts from Burghley House, Alexandria, Virginia, 1998, p. 54, fig. 26).

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