A REGENCY ORMOLU-MOUNTED SATINWOOD, WHITE-PAINTED AND PARCEL-GILT SIDE CABINET

The cabinet shows the marked influence of Henry Holland, architect to the Prince Regent from the late 1780s, who worked at both Carlton House and the Royal Pavilion, Brighton. He was the leading proponent of the French taste and in association with the marchand-mercier Dominique Daguerre, Holland purchased French neo-Classical furniture for the Prince Regent, and it was French designers such as Weisweiler and Jacob who were to be most influential on Holland's own work. A design for a pier table and mirror for Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire illustrated in P. Ward-Jackson, Furniture Designs of the 18th Century, London, 1958, pl.302, is of similarly restained form, while the furniture at Southill, the Bedfordshire house that Holland transformed for Samuel Whitbread and which remains his most complete surviving interior, is comparable (see F. Collard, Regency Furniture, Woodbridge, 1985, pp. 38 - 43.