An Irish 18th century mahogany blanket chest on stand,the moulded rectangular lift top with original carrying handles above a long drawer, the carved stand with scrolling gadrooning, flower heads and acanthus centered by a stylized lion mask bearing prominent teeth, on cabriole legs headed by acanthus and with hairy paw feet.
Note: The handles are replacements.
Irish, circa 1760
Height: 97 in; (246.4 cm)
Width: 41 in; (104.1 cm)
Depth: 23 1/2 in; (59.6 cm)
Provenance:
Lady Somerset, Belfast, Northern Ireland
Literature:
The Knight of Glin and James Peil, Irish Furniture: Woodwork and carving in Ireland from the Earliest times to the Act of Union, New Haven and London, 2007 P.120 (fig.163) for an almost identical cabinet.
Case Furniture
On 8 December 1764 Lady Elizabeth Cobbe recorded in her account book a payment of £11 17s 6d for a 'Bureau with Glass Doors'. This is undoubtedly the handsome mahogany secretaire-cabinet (fig.163), attributable again to Christopher Hearn, with a palladian scrolled pediment centered by an eagle, now in the back drawing-room at Newbridge. Probably originally made for a bedroom apartment it would have combined the uses of clothes- chest, writing-bureau, dressing-table and cabinet for books and documents, whist its mirrored doors would have served as a pier glass.
The Newbridge secretaire-cabinet is one of a known group that are all very similar in design and construction, including one formerly at Adare Manor, Co.Limerick, one at Birr Castle and three that have passed through the saleroom.
