A remarkable and extremely rare William and Mary olive oyster and floral marquetry escritoire, concealing eight secret drawers, circa 1680. England.Attributed to Thomas Pistor.The cross-grain cavetto cornice sits over a cushion-moulded hidden drawer decorated with three panels of floral marquetry on a ground of ebony. The banded fall is centred by a large oval of olive oyster bookmatched veneers lined in box stringing and is beautifully decorated nearly entirely in floral marquetry on an ebony ground depicting spring flowers, birds with metal eyes, a butterfly, a tarza, and most unusually for English marquetry, a bumblebee. The fall opens on the original lock, hinges and straps to reveal a silk writing surface and an extensive arrangement of pigeon holes above holly banded oak lined olive oyster bookmatched drawers around a central cupboard, similarly veneered with the addition of box stringing. Every other division between the pigeon holes can be pulled out to reveal a secret ...