The lappeted and dentilled cornice with egg-and-shell border above a Greek-key frieze with flowerhead border, above a pair of geometrically-glazed doors with ribbon-and-rosette carved astragals, each enclosing four adjustable shelves, flanked on each side by a conforming glazed door enclosing four adjustable shelves and a door enclosing one shelf, on a plinth base with ribbon-and-rosette carved border, later Bramah & Co. locks and later hinges, the previously projecting side returns of the top section now reduced in depth
114 in. (290 cm.) high; 163 in. (414 cm.) wide; 18½ in. (47 cm.) deep

Property from the Estate of HRH The Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, KG, KT, KP; Christie's, London, 26-27 January 2006, lot 232.

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Lot Essay

The bookcase's 'Roman mosaic' glazing patterned as cut-cornered tablets and lozenged compartments, corresponds to a pattern invented by the St. Martin’s Lane cabinet-maker Thomas Chippendale (d.1779) in his celebrated 1754 pattern-book, The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director (pl.125) and later reissued in the third edition of the Director, published in 1762 (pl. 101). The Grecian ribbon-fret cut at the cornice reflects the 'Antique' style popularized around 1760 by James 'Athenian' Stuart (d.1788), artist, architect and author of The Antiquities of Athens, 1762. See The Spencer House clothes-press illustrated, D.Watkin, James 'Athenian' Stuart, London, 1982, fig 37.