The bureau-cabinet, featuring the union in a single body of a chest of drawers, surmounted by a flap, and a two-door riser that could conceal a series of simple open compartments or rows of drawers and secret compartments, emerged in England in the latter years of the 17th century.
Its diffusion in the Gorizia region, in the first half of the 18th century, could be linked to the success that this type of cabinet had had in the German area, where the Schreibschrank, as it was called, had acquired a wide variety of forms and designs. As the specimen in question confirms, these were furniture pieces with a compact structure, a smooth, rounded surface, characterised by an upper body usually divided into three parts, with a door in the centre and rows of small drawers at the sides.
The crowning could follow the tripartition of the riser, or slide into a single harmonious curve, while the inside of the flap presented the usual rows of drawers flanked by compartments and secret compartments.
