- Apter-Fredericks Antique Regency Furniture Dealer

The cabinet supporting a mirror-backed super-structure with arched top above two shelves supported by ormolu columns and pierced ormolu gallery. Below, is a single drawer to the frieze, divided to imitate two drawers and retaining its original handles. The drawer opens to reveal a writing surface in front of a series of small drawers and pigeon-holes.

Below are two cupboard doors, inset with oval panels defined by ormolu mounts, and opening to reveal adjustable shelving. To each side are three-quarter reeded and tapering gilded columns capped by an ormolu mounted moulding and united by a carved giltwood running guilloche moulding to the base before terminating in giltwood tapering peg feet.

J. MCLEAN

This cabinet, with its fine quality cabinet work and distinctive mounts, resembles the cabinet work of John McLean, see Simon Redburn, 'John McLean and Son', Furniture History, (Vol. XIV 1978, pp. 31-7). Redburn illustrates a number of secretaire pieces by McLean that illustrate their development from the simpler more elegant examples, of which this is one, to the over embellished later pieces.

The firm of John McLean and Son advertised that it specialised in 'Elegant Parisian Furniture' and although the 6 surviving pieces that bear his trade label are undoubtedly English, they do owe much to Gallic influence not only in their design, but also in their lavish use of metal mounts, (see Redburn, ibid., p.33). Rich, solid, well figured mahogany has been chosen on the side cabinet very much in the Empire style and although McLean seems to have worked primarily in rosewood, Redburn states that he certainly worked in other mediums. He comments that, 'perhaps the most dominant feature of McLean's decoration is his lavish use of metalwork in cast and chased brass, which is gilded and lacquered. The actual cabinet work is of high order, the pieces being meticulously finished, both externally and internally, in the English manner'.

The firm supplied furniture for the Earl of Jersey for Middleton Park, Oxford and fine recorded labelled pieces of furniture would indicate that McLean had a considerable business of some importance at a highly competitive time in English cabinet-making. The reputation of firms such as Gillows of Lancaster and
Chippendale are well known due the preservation of their detailed drawing and estimate books. However, the Directories of the period contain many entries for cabinet-makers whose importance has been obscured due to the lack of documentation and the dispersal of important collections. Thomas Sheraton's 'Cabinet Dictionary' in 1803 mentions, in reference to a 'Pouch Table', a 'Mr. M'Lean in Mary-le-bone street, near Tottenham court road, who finishes these small articles in the neatest manner'. This acknowledgement is accompanied by McLean's name in the list of Master Cabinet-Makers.

The origins of the McLean firm is somewhat confused by the many variations in spelling the name 'McLean'. A 'Jn. McLeae' is listed as a 'Cabinet, Chairmaker and Upholder' in Little Newport Street, Leicester Square from 1770. The rent was valued at £36 and Redburn states that, since the rent payable was considerable and the fact that the premises were new would indicate that McLean was already established in business before 1770.

Trade Directories from 1809 give 'John McLean & Son, upholders' as from 58 Upper Marylebone Street with his son William McLean at the same address. The business was in serious decline from 1825 as the Marylebone Rate Books reveal rate arrears and bankruptcy. A final entry in the same year states, 'Died so poor that his body was sent in a box by wagon into the country to relations'. The causes for the decline are not clear, although the notoriously slow payments by clients for completed work caused financial embarrassment to many tradesmen in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.