This plinth-supported and stepped-top bookcase, with silk-panelled doors and galleried marble-slab for porcelain display, is designed in the 'antique' style after the French manner, and relates to a popular form of cabinet manufactured in the early 19th Century by George Bullock (d. 1818, see: C. Wainwright, George Bullock, London, 1988, nos. 6, 40 and 41). Grecian palmettes, inlaid on the doors and accompanying the boulle 'arabesque' tablets of the frieze, are echoed in the fretted ormolu banding the gold-flecked 'portor' slab. This type of rosewood-inlaid furniture was a speciality of a number of early 19th Century cabinet-makers, such as Messrs. John McLean and Son, manufacturer of 'Elegant Parisian Furniture'.