ENGLISH SCHOOL, CIRCA 1765

This bookcase, with its crisply-carved cornice above geometrically-glazed doors and finely-figured fielded panelled doors to the base, is a beautifully made piece of furniture. The overhanging cornice features four separate layers of decorative carving, displaying the cabinet-maker's skill to brilliant effect. A very closely related bookcase featuring the same cornice, same pattern to the astragal-glazed doors, the base section with gadrooned edge and leaf-tip carved plinth, though with its lower doors of 'landscape' fielded panels rather than 'portrait', was sold anonymously at Christie's, London, 26 June 1986, lot 169 (£16,200).