This cabinet was designed by Philip Webb and decorated by William de Morgan for Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Co. It was originally one of a pair (the other with panels showing St George & the Dragon also by William De Morgan) made for Isabel Olga Lucas, née D’avigdor (1843-1926) widow of the artist Horatio Joseph Lucas. The painted panel on the left has a scene of two figures variously described as (female on the left) Hera/Juno or Muse Erato or Maia with (male boy on right) the young Hermes/Mercury with the first lyre; the painted panel on the right with a scene of two male figures variously described as (on right ) Pan or Silenus instructing Dionysus/Bacchus (on left) to play pipes.
The cabinet was sold back to Morris & Co by Mrs Lucas’s daughter Ruth Lousada who then sold it to Mrs Lucius Gubbins. Old photographs when in the possession of Ruth Lousada, show the cabinet originally had the back covered with a stamped, embossed leather paper, however this seems to have been removed by a subsequent owner who replaced it with 12 ruby lustre animal tiles by William De Morgan; these were still in situ when the cabinet was acquired by the William Morris Gallery in 1955. The tiles were removed in 1957 (now catalogued as C85-96) when the back was filled with new waxed oak panels to match the rest of the piece.
