ATTRIBUTED TO HENRY KETTLE, GILES GRENDEY OR PHILLIP BELL, CIRCA 1760

The serpentined panels of this clothes-press relate to those of a bed, with antiquarian panelled headboard and canopy, acquired for Knebworth House, Hertfordshire in the 1740s and attributed to the Clerkenwell cabinet-maker Giles Grendey (d. 1780). The same shaped panels featured on a closely related clothes-press bearing the 1760s label adopted by Philip Bell (d. 1774) of St. Paul's Churchyard. They also appear on a full-size clothes-press, with dentilled cornice, bearing the label of Henry Kettle (d. 1797), also of St. Paul's Churchyard, in the collection of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, USA (C. Gilbert, Pictorial Dictionary of Marked London Furniture, 1700-1840, Leeds, 1996, figs. 101 and 546).