17TH CENTURY, RECONSTRUCTED IN THE 18TH CENTURY

Such richly inlaid chests, with tablets of Roman architecture in the Vitruvian manner, were associated with the romanticism of the 'Elizabethan' era, particularly after the publication by the antiquarian Sir Samuel Rush Meyrick of similar tablets on the Shakespeare - famed 'Great Bed of Ware' in Henry Shaw's, Specimens of Ancient Furniture, London, 1836 (pl.37). Patterns for such 16th century perspectival 'Scenographiae' or 'Architecturae', appropriate for inlayers, were issued in the mid 16th century by Hans Vredeman de Vries (d.1604). These chests are also associated with Henry VIII's fabulous 'Palace of Nonsuch' chest. One reputed to have belonged to Sir Francis Drake is displayed at Berkeley Castle, Gloucestershire; while that of Richard Sunderland (d.1634) is discussed in C. Gilbert, Furniture at Temple Newsam House and Lotherton Hall, Leeds, 1978 (no. 144).
This ancient Chirk chest is raised on a stand with serpentine-trussed pilaster legs, that is likely to have been added in the 1760s. While it was, no doubt associated with Queen Elizabeth's 'favourite', Robert Sidney, Earl of Leiceter (d.1626), who reedified the Castle from 1563 to 1588; or else with Sir Hugh Myddelton, 1st Bt. (d.1631), celebrated as the 'Engineer' of London's 'New River Company', this chest does not appear to be listed in the Castle's 1795 inventory.