CIRCA 1770, ORIGINALLY PART OF A LARGER BREAKFRONT BOOKCASE AND SUBSEQUENTLY ADAPTED

This bookcase once formed part of the collection assembled by Charles E. Merrill and Hellen Ingram Merrill for 'The Orchard', the Southampton house built and decorated by McKim, Mead and White for the financier and amateur photographer, James L. Breese (1854-1934). Charles Merrill purchased much of the furniture together with the house in 1926 (see lots 34, 37-39 and 160), this Georgian bookcase reflects the elegant taste of Hellen Ingram Merrill and was almost certainly acquired on one of their buying trips to Europe in the 1920s and 30s. The bookcase, with further outer recessed wings, appears in a photograph taken at 'The Orchard' reproduced on the opposite page.