Exemplary George I Mulberry Bureau Bookcase c. 1720

An extremely rare piece of early 18th century English furniture made in mulberry wood and with a fitted upper case retaining its original pigeon hole divisions and its full set of graduated oak lined drawers.

The well fitted interior of the bureau with mulberry faced drawers and original well with two secret oak drawers hidden within the well’s inner framework.

The upper doors with three bookmatched panels of mulberry on each, set within a beautiful and fine featherbanded border. The front of the bureau fall with four bookmatched panels again set within a fine featherbanded border. And the front of each principal drawer beneath the fall with the same mulberry bookmatched panelling within featherbanded borders.

The small drawers within the bureau have incredibly slender and fine oak linings with tiny dovetails. One drawer has a replacement lining but all others are original as are all of the oak linings to the drawers in the upper case and the to the principal drawers. Original backboards, original bun feet with some wear and old worm holes but long since dead. Both locks original and with the same working key.

Mulberry is a very rare timber. It is not taken from a Mulberry bush or tree, it is a thickly cut veneer (usually field maple or sycamore) stained and then washed in an acid which has had copper and other metals dissolved in it. This creates beautiful highlights and contrasts in the wood to make it resemble tortoiseshell.

The necessity within the British Isles in the late 1600s and early 1700s to create a tortoiseshell appearance was driven by work of the French cabinet maker Andre-Charles Boulle who used polished tortoiseshell inlaid with brass scroll work to create ‘boulle work’. Such pieces selling for huge sums and being highly favoured and collected by the British Royalty and aristocracy.

It is believed that very few British cabinet makers knew how to create this mulberry wood and that the staining process was hotly guarded. Prominent exponents were Coxed and Woster - their mulberry-wood work usually inlaid with pewter stringing and mounts.

Very few mulberry wood pieces have ever come to the market. This is a superb quality example from a private estate where it has been in the same family for many generations. The cabinet work is exceptional and the whole is in very original condition. The well developed colour and patina are glorious.

Made by hand in c. 1720 and of small elegant proportions, this is one of the finest pieces of furniture I have had the pleasure of getting to know and it is an extremely important and rare early 17th century bureau bookcase with a sound and long provenance.

The condition, colour and patination is unsurpassed.