This bureau-cabinet, with its marble-figured walnut veneer and golden brass embellishments in the French manner, is designed in the early 18th Century Roman or Antique style. Its mirrored 'triumphal-arch' facade with reed-enriched and fluted Corinthian pilasters, has a balustraded cornice surmounted by ogival corona domes in the manner of a French clock-case pattern engraved in the Second Livre d'Orlogeries, 1706, issued by William IIIs 'architect' Daniel Marot (d. 1752), and reissued in his Oeuvres, 1712 (H. Honour, Cabinet Makers and Furniture Designers, London, 1972, p. 72). It is likely that the balustrade-pedestals were capped, in the Marot fashion, with golden urns, such as feature on the walnut-cased George Graham clock in this sale (lot 299).
The bureau retains its original carrying-handles, but lacks the oval medallion escutcheons illustrated when it was sold in 1972. At this time it was also fitted with large ring-handles, which may have replaced small ring-handles, such as feature on drawings of related bureau-cabinets made in London about 1720 (N.A. Guseva, 'Fedor martynov, Russian Master Cabinet Maker', Furniture History Society Journal, 1994, p. 95. The feature of brass-reeded pilasters and balustraded cornice also appears on a bureau-cabinet labelled by Antrobus in 1730; while the ogival dome and brass enrichments also appear on a mahogany clock-case at Chatsworth, Derbyshire. Although the latter now has a movement dating from the 1770s, it is likely that this was not original to the case (C. Gilbert and T. Murdoc, 'Channon Revisited', Furniture History Society Journal, 1994, figs. 3 and 22).
A similar Queen Anne walnut bureau-cabinet with double ogival dome and brass-capped pilasters flanking a pair of glazed doors, was sold by The Property of The Showering Family in these Rooms, 21 November 1985, lot 175, (£62,640).