A GEORGE II BREAKFRONT SECRÉTAIRE CABINET, English, circa 1750
Width: 5 ft 3 in; 160 cm
Depth: 1 ft 11 ¼ in; 59.5 cm
Further images
This unusual cabinet belongs to a small group of three sharing a similar design: one of the others, made in walnut, was formerly in the Percival D. Griffiths Collection, and the third, made in mahogany, was formerly in the Moller Collection.
The cabinet has two dummy drawers to each side, a long centre drawer and a hinged fold-down secrétaire section below, all retaining the original ornate brass handles.
The drawer bears inside a paper label printed ‘SOLD BY ORDER OF THE EXECUTORS OF/The Late SIR ERNEST ROYDEN, BART’.
Provenance
Sir Ernest Royden, Bart., Frankby Hall, Chester, and Hillbark/Bidston Court, Merseyside, England;
Private collection, USA.
Literature
M. Harris & Sons, ‘A Catalogue and Index of Old Furniture and Works of Decorative Art’, circa 1930s, Part II 1730-1780, p. 177.
R. W. Symonds, English Furniture from Charles II to George II, 1929, pp. 102, 105 & 107, figs. 62-3.
Yvonne Hackenbroch, English Furniture with Some Furniture from Other Countries in the Irwin Untermyer Collection, 1958, pp. 244–5, figs. 285-6.
Sotheby’s, ‘The Moller Collection’, 18 November 1983, lot 84.
Illustrated:
Ronald Phillips, Fine English Antique Furniture, London 2016, pp. 150/151.
