Cabinet-on-stand

Designed for a collector, this cabinet is fitted with two ranges of drawers in graduating sizes, intended to hold medals, coins, and other small-scale works of art. It is a rare and important example of the furniture produced by London cabinetmaker James Newton, one of the greatest exponents of neoclassicism in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Between 1800 and 1810, the period during which this cabinet was made, Newton was at the pinnacle of his career, supplying furniture to Matthew Boulton for Soho House in Birmingham, to the Earl of Jersey for Osterley and Middleton Park, and other notable clients. In its decoration, this cabinet documents the Egyptian taste in English Regency furniture and interior design, inspired by Napoleon's Campaign of the Nile (1798-1799) and by the flood of new information on Egyptian antiquities and monuments that entered Europe through illustrated publications in the first decades of the 19th century.