This Irish George I walnut and featherbanded, sycamore, cedar and marquetry ‘architectural’ secretaire cabinet is one of a group of four which feature in Irish Furniture, 2007, Yale University in New Haven and London by Desmond Fitzgerald, Knight of Glin and James Peill. One of these cabinets was originally owned by Dean Swift and the example housed in the Victoria & Albert Museum in London was thought to have been his, but later analysis of an inscription on the cabinet has revealed this not to be the case. This one comes up at Bonhams sale of Decorative Arts Through the Ages in London on July 13 with an estimate of £30,000-£40,000.
John Kirkhoffer was probably the son of a German Palatine called Franz Ludwig, who arrived in Ireland as a refugee in 1709 after escaping the Rhineland-Palatinate area, which had been subjected to many years of conflict. The Kirkhoffer family of Protestant immigrants made it to Counties Kerry and Limerick before ultimately settling in Dublin.