WHEN Cardinal Mazarin felt the end approaching, he offered to give Louis XIV all that he had received in the service of the state. As he expected, the king refused, thus allowing the cardinal to dispose of his worldly goods as he thought fit. The lion's share went to the Duc de Mazarin and his wife Hortense Mancini, Duc de Nevers. The number of beneficiaries was large: the Crown received eighteen large diamonds (including le Sancy and le Miroir de Portugal) and les Fruits de la Guerre, a series of tapestries after Guilio Romano as well as other tapestries; the Queen Mother jewels, three cabinets and six gueridons from Rome; the Queen, Marie-Therese, a 'bouquet de diaments', and the King's brother, the Duc d'Orleans, a tapestry depicting Hero and Leander, jewels and one of the 'beaux cabinets de jaspe venus de Rome'.

William Gomm first interested me in 1969 when I was examining a collection of furniture designs bearing his name in the library of the Henry Francis du Pont Museum at Winterheur, U.S.A. The name was then unfamiliar to me but obituary of his son and partner, Richard, described him as an eminent London cabinet-maker, and it later became clear that the elusive 'Gern', with whom Abraham Roentgen was always said to have worked in London, never existed but was in fact William Gomm. 

IT was the cabinet-maker who executed inlay and marquetry, i.e. decorative veneering, in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century in England. The word 'inalyer' was used in the early seventeenth century but, despite claims that the inlayer was normally a specialist craftsman. Inlayers are mentioned as early as 1616 when two are included in a list of trades exercised by 'strangers' in London. 

A SET of five tapestry panels hangs in Her Majesty the Queen's private apartments at the palace of Holyroodhouse, Edinburgh. They are serene trompe l'oeil panels showing vine-wreathed pergolas leading the eye to tranquil summer landscapes beyond. On the marble floor of every pergola stands as opulent renaissance vase brimming with flowers. The tapestry borders complete the architectural illusion. Twisted columns reminiscent if those depicted at the entrance to Solomon's Temple in Raphael's cartoon The healing of the lame man support an architrave with a central oval aperture, through which another airy landscape is glimpsed. The lower border shows plants springing from the ground before the carved plinths of the pergola.

FURNITURE in Victorian history paintings often provides an interesting insight into the knowledge of furniture history in the nineteenth century. One example of this is the important architectural cabinet, now at Hatfield House, which appears in the background of Sir John Everett Millais's painting of Princess Elizabeth, who died in 1650.

BIOGRAPHICAL information about Thomas Hope is so scarce that the following extract from a letter, written in January 1790 when he was twenty years old, may be of interest. For some two years, according to his account, he had been travelling in Europe and perhaps further afield, and he was to travel again; but at the date when his letter was written he was at home in Amsterdam and, it would seem, undecided in the choice of career. The letter is from John Williams Hope in Amsterdam to Sir Francis Baring in London and describes events taking place within the family and the family firm in Amsterdam. 

AMONG the treasures housed in the Kunstkammer of the Emperor Rudolf II in his palace on the Hradschin in Prague was an extraordinary chair, which is described in the inventorary prepared during the years 1607 to 1611 under No. 1154 'Ein ganz eysener sessel mit vil aussgehawnen bildern und historien triumphen, gantz kunstliuche und sehr verwunderliche muehsame arbeit daran'. This chair, which is now the property of the Earl of Radnor at Longford Castle, must be one of the most fully documented pieces of sixteenth-century furniture; for its history, both before its arrival in Prague and after its departure, can be followed in great detail. It was bought to Prague after 1580, perhaps in 1582 since, according to an unsupported, but not unacceptable tradition , it was presented to Rudolf II by the city of Augsburg when the Emperor attended the Reichstag there in that year. 

SAROSPATAK castle, an outstanding example of high renaissance architecture, is situated in north-eastern Hungary. Among its former owners, the ones who lived longest in it were the Rakoczi family; and the castle today is the Rakoczi Museum. Among the objects in the collection is a superb cabinet, richly ornamented with Boulle marquetry. It is veneered on oak with ebony and on red paper-foil with tortoiseshell. The marquetry consists of tortoiseshell veneered on mostly red and partly on the blue paper, engraved pewter, brass, copper and some mother-of-pearl. The mounts are in lapis lazuli and bronze, chased and gilt. The rich Boulle marquetry - mostly premiere partie but in some ornamental parts contre partie - covers the cabinet almost completely.