A George III Satinwood, Palm Wood and Partridgewood Banded Secretaire Breakfront Bookcase, Circa 1780

This elegant neoclassical bookcase, with its refined inlaid fluting and oval medallion panelled doors, can be related to a group of satinwood case furniture supplied to Henry Temple, 2nd Viscount Palmerston (1739–1802) at Broadlands, Hampshire attributed to the Golden Square firm of John Mayhew (d.1811) and William Ince (d.1804). 

Mayhew and Ince's partnership is described in The Dictionary of English Furniture Makers 1660-1840 as 'one of the most significant, probably the longest lived but, as far as identified furniture is concerned, the least well documented of any of the major London cabinetmakers of the 18^th century' (Geoffrey Beard and Christopher Gilbert, The Dictionary of English Furniture Makers 1660-1840, Leeds 1986, pp. 589-590). 

They are first recorded as partners in December 1758, advertising from an address at Broad Street in January 1759. Earlier Mayhew had been apprenticed to William Bradshaw, and Ince to John West, before forming a brief partnership after West`s death in 1758 with Samuel Norman and James Whittle. In 1763 they were described as 'cabinet-makers, carvers and upholders’, and in 1778 'manufacturers of plate glass’ appeared on their bill heading.

One of their early ventures was to publish The Universal System of Household Furniture in 1762 which included eighty-nine numbered plates and six smaller ones dedicated to their great patron the 4th Duke of Marlborough. The relative failure of this work, which was issued in only one edition, was probably caused by the distinctly Rococo manner of the designs which became rapidly unfashionable in the years which followed due to the rise of the neo-classical taste reflected in the present bookcase. The partnership was quick to embrace these new forms as is shown by their own work and their involvement with Robert Adam himself in making furniture to his own designs for many of his important clients. Mayhew and Ince worked for many notable patrons who included the Prince of Wales, the 5^th Duke of Devonshire, the 5^th Duke of Bedford, the 1^st Duke of Northumberland and the 4^th Duke of Marlborough.