The present cabinet is an unadorned version of the profusely decorated ebonised piece, designed by Collcutt for Collinson and Lock in c.1870 and exhibited in London in 1871. This piece is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. A second version was shown at the International Exhibition in Vienna, 1873, where it was bought the Prince of Lichtenstein, and a third was shown at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition 1877.
Writing about the piece, Charles Handley Read was of the opinion that it was ...'one of the most attractive and influential pieces of furniture ever designed by a Victorian architect'.
Cf. Charlotte Gere and Michael Whiteway. From Pugin to Mackintosh, London, 1993, p.170