The rectangular top above two short and three long drawers, all with keyholes, on a plinth base on recessed castors.

Holland and Sons were among the most distinguished cabinetmakers of the 19th century, recorded as Taprell and Holland and becoming Holland & Sons in 1843. They rivalled Gillow, with whom they shared one of their most important commissions - the furnishing and decoration of the new Palace of Westminster. Other commissions included furnishings for Osborne House from 1845 until 1869, Windsor Castle, Balmoral, the British Museum and the Royal Academy. The Holland's labelled day books are now housed in the National Archive of Art and Design in London. The firm exhibited at major exhibitions in London in 1862, Vienna 1873, and Paris 1867 and 1872.

Hungarian Ash was used more often by Holland and Sons during the 1860s and 1870s than was the case for other cabinet makers and became one of their distinguishing features. A number of their documented commissions used this particularly decorative timber. A chest of drawers of Hungarian Ash was part of a suite of bedroom furniture made to an Augustus Pugin (1812-1852) design for the Duke of Marlborough, and a sofa ordered in September 1861 by the Crown Prince of Russia.

Adam Bowett writes in ‘Woods in British Furniture-Making 1400-1900 An Illustrated Historical Dictionary’ (Oblong, 2012): ‘References to this wood date from the middle of the 19th century, at which time the wood was almost certainly of Hungarian growth, and probably exported from ports on the Black Sea.’