An essential feature of the early 19th Century club or restaurant dining-room was a galleried and triple-tiered 'Running Sideboard' or 'Dinner Wagon', which G. Loudon in his Encyclopaedia of Cottage, Farm and Villa Architecture and Furniture, 1833, also described as being 'a light mobile version of the 16th Century court cupboard'. George Smith provided patterns in his 'Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Guide, 1826.
This handsome sideboard, with its Grecian-black embellishments and reed-enriched pillars, reflects the antique style promoted by Thomas Hope's Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, 1807. It is likely to have been manufactured in Dublin, and was commissioned for Government House, Dublin. It bears a Government inventory brand of the 1830s, and a bolder brand 'Treasury',