This elegant secretaire, painted en grisaille with neoclassical ovals emblematic of the Arts, was likely to have been commissioned for a music room in the fashionable neoclassical taste of the late 18th century. Apollo, leader of the Muses of artistic inspiration, appears on the cornice, while the Muses depicted include the scroll-bearing Clio, Muse of History, accompanied by the winged Pegasus, emblematic of Fame, before Mt. Parnassus; the lyre-bearing Terpsichore, Muse of Dancing; and Thalia and Melpomene, Muses of Comedy and Tragedy. The fall-front is painted with a poetic trophy of musical instruments. The base incorporates figures emblematic of Virtue in landscapes with temple-capped mountains: a halo-wreathed Saint Cecilia gestures to the sacred way or a matron indicates the path of virtue to a youth.

A satinwood bureau-bookcase from the collection of the Late the Hon. Mrs. Nellie Ionides, Buxted Park, Sussex (sold Sotheby & Co., London, 1 November 1963, lot 184) features the same full flowering garlands and neoclassical panels and is almost certainly produced by the same workshop as this piece. Another with similarly painted garlands is illustrated in L. Synge, Great English Furniture, 1991, p. 152, pl. 172. A satinwood marquetry bookcase fitted with convex mirrors is illustrated in R. Edwards, ed., The Shorter Dictionary of English Furniture, 1964, p. 106, fig. 45.