The present bureau cabinet, decorated with figures in garden landscapes is inspired by East India Company lacquer imports as recommended by Messrs Stalker and Parker in their celebrated Treatise on Japanning and Varnishing, 1688, a style which was considered especially suitable for the decoration of bedroom apartments. Such was the demand for lacquer that English japanners found a ready market for imitation lacquer to satisfy the public's hunger for all things Oriental. The development of japanning in England also afforded furniture makers the opportunity to offer their customers western forms of furniture and at more advantageous cost than the imported lacquered equivalent.

BARBARA BAYNTON
Lady Headley is better known as the celebrated Australian writer, Barbara Baynton. Today she is highly regarded as writer of short stories and novels which recounted life in the Australian bush at the turn of the 19th century. She married, as her second husband, in 1890, Thomas Baynton, a prosperous retired surgeon who collected Georgian furniture and silver. She was very much bitten with collecting and after her husband's death in 1904 and her own increasing literary success, she spent the next years between Australia and London, where she lived 'in a succession of increasingly fine houses', surrounded by Chinese lacquer, Chippendale furniture, ornate porcelain and silver. She entertained lavishly and was renowned for her considerable charm, 'a devastating wit' and caustic tongue.

Lady Headley married in 1921, the 5th Lord Headley but left him soon afterwards when he refused the crown of Albania. Annoyed by his lack of energy she returned to Australia where she continued buying antiques and had several spectacular sales in the mid-1920's. More recently a George II giltwood and painted mirror from her collection was sold Christie’s, London 8 July 1993, lot 16 for £128,000.