Botanical Cabinet

For exotic plants collected during an expedition to the Cape of Good Hope.

This mahogany, walnut and kingswood cabinet was made for Mary Eleanor Lyon Bowes (1749-1800), John’s grandmother. Mary Eleanor had a great interest in botany caring for specimens in  hothouses at her homes in Gibside, Northumberl and Stanley House, Chelsea (London), close to the Chelsea Physick Garden.

Mary Eleanor commissioned Scottish botanist William Paterson to collect exotic plants during his expedition to the Cape of Good Hope. The specimens he brought back she kept in this cabinet. There are two remarkable features about the cabinet. First, it only opens at the side making long drawers for dried botanical specimens on paper. Secondly, its broad legs are hollow and each contains a long lead tube with a tap, presumably to release liquid onto a shelf.

Experts believe the cabinet to have been made by British furniture maker James Wyatt. There is a miniature version of the cabinet displayed in the Museum’s Silver Gallery. Without any evidence of its purpose, it is assumed that such a small intricate version of The Cabinet for Botanical Specimens was a prototype.

[The cabinet was not inherited directly by John Bowes but given to him by his Aunt Mary (Mary Eleanor’s daughter) in 1854. In a letter he wrote: “There is an old walnut wood cabinet containing a collection of dried Cape plants which belonged to the old Lady Strathmore (my Grandmother). It had better also go to Streatlam but moved with care and kept upright if possible.”]