A LOUIS XIV GILT-METAL-MOUNTED, PEWTER, TORTOISESHELL AND STAINED HORN-INLAID EBONY, MARQUETRY AND PARCEL-GILT AND SILVERED CABINET-ON-STAND

Profusely decorated with scrolling foliate marquetry and supported by four silvered and gilt caryatid figures, this impressive cabinet-on-stand typifies the opulent work commissioned from Parisian ébénistes in the last three decades of the 17th century. Although the maker of this cabinet remains tantalizingly unknown, the elaborate foliate marquetry of pewter, tortoiseshell and ivory, and overall arrangement relate the cabinet to the oeuvre of the foremost ébéniste of the early years of Louis XIV's reign, Dutch-born Pierre Gole (c. 1620-1685). Th. H. L. Scheurleer illustrates a related cabinet resting on comparable carytids executed circa 1680 and attributed to Gole (Th. H. L. Scheurleer, Pierre Gole, ébéniste de Louis XIV, Dijon, 2005, pp. 138-141).

Dame Agatha Christie (1890-1976), whose mystery novels have been translated into more than 70 languages, acquired Greenway House, Devon in 1938. Although the exact provenance of this lot has not been traced, it is possible that it may have originally formed part of the collection of Dame Agatha's brother-in-law James Watts at Abney Hall, Cheshire until dispersed in 1958.