THE WESTPORT HOUSE SIDE CABINETS
Lots 217-219 comprise a suite of five brass-inlaid mahogany side cabinets from Westport House, County Mayo, Ireland. Westport was designed by the celebrated Palladian architect Richard Castle (or Cassels; 1690-1751) for John Browne, later created 1st Earl of Altamont (1709-1776) in the 1730s. John Denis Browne, 1st Marquess of Sligo (1756–1809) commissioned the most fashionable London architect of the time, James Wyatt (1746-1831), to update the earlier house and modify the interiors in 1781, who added neo-classical plasterwork inspired by the paintings discovered at the archaeological sites of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Wyatt's designs for the dining room survive and he was still involved at Westport as late as 1796, when he designed a conservatory for the house, which was apparently never completed and may have been his last Irish project.

Howe Peter Browne, 2nd Marquess of Sligo (1788-1845) later employed James' son Benjamin Dean Wyatt between 1805 and 1821, to build a large new library and update the interiors again. Benjamin Dean's alterations resulted in the removal of much of his father's elegant plasterwork throughout Westport House, however it survives in magnificent detail in the dining room.

THE WYATT-GILLOWS CONNECTION
The Wyatt family was closely associated with Gillows of Lancaster and sketches for furniture supplied to Westport appear in Gillows' Estimate Sketch Books. Gillows' first deliveries of furniture to Westport were in 1805. Despite James Wyatt's involvement in the design of the dining room in 1781, none of the late 18th-century furniture for that room appears to have survived as the dining room furniture - the eagle side tables, wine coolers, dining-chairs and the exceptionally long dining table (sold Christie’s, London, 19 January 2021, lot 20) was all supplied by Gillows under the direction of Benjamin Dean Wyatt to the 2nd Marquess. Similarly, several items of library furniture were supplied by the firm, including fine library bookcases, a pair of tripod tables, two mahogany bergères and a pair of rosewood library tables. It is plausible that this suite of side cabinets was intended for use in the library as well, possibly as low bookcases, as they closely relate to the design of a low bookcase from Brockelsby Park which also shares the same cast-metal paws (M. Jourdain, Regency Furniture, London, 1949, fig. 152).

By March 1821, the Westport account with Gillows stood at the large figure of £3,826 2 s. 9d. - a sum tantamount to fitting out an entire house. The brass-inlaid mahogany dining chairs from Westport and attributed to Gillows were sold by a Family Trust, Christie’s, London, 26 September 1996, lot 149. They are stylistically very similar to the present suite of side cabinets in their brass-inlaid designs and use of channeled decoration, further supporting a Gillows attribution for the cabinets. The channeled decoration is indeed characteristic of the work of Gillows, and is also seen in chairs sold by the Lord Brownlow, Belton House, Loncolnshire, Christie’s house sale, 30 April – 2 May 1984, lot 55, and again

HOWE PETER BROWNE, 2ND MARQUESS OF SLIGO
The 2nd Marquess of Sligo had an estate in Jamaica where he worked for the emancipation of West Indian slaves - in 1828 he was presented with a silver candelabrum in recognition of his role, in the form of a former slave holding up his child, beside a palm tree; he was later appointed Governor of Jamaica (1834-1837). The mahogany for the two matching dining room doors at Westport House came from the family's estate in Jamaica, as did the specimen woods contained in a games table attributed to Gillows, and it is possible that the superb mahogany of this suite of side cabinets came from the same source.