Sir Lawrence Dundas, 1st Baronet Royal Bank. He purchased Leoni's grand house near London, Moor Park, for which he ordered a set of Gobelins tapestry hangings with medallions by François Boucher and a long suite of seat furniture to match, for which Robert Adam provided designs: they are among the earliest English neoclassical furniture. Other new furnishings, for Aske and for Sir Lawrence's magnificently appointed London house at 19 Arlington Street, were supplied by Thomas Chippendale (1763–66), and Chippendale's rivals, the royal cabinet-makers William Vile and John Cobb, and Samuel Norman (Gilbert). A pair of marquetry commodes in the French taste by a French cabinet-maker
Metamorphic library steps ceilings and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. The topmost shelves were difficult to reach, so movable library steps or library stairs were created as a form of domestic furniture. During the second half of the 18th century a succession of talented German-born cabinet-makers passed through the French courts. Jean-François Oeben, Jean-Henri Riesener and David Roentgen had successively introduced the courts of Louis XV and Louis XVI to a wide range of finely made and exquisitely finished mechanical furniture. The ingenuity of these cabinet-makers, especially David Roentgen who became master cabinet-maker to Marie Antoinette, led to a fascination for "meubles à surprises" ('surprise furniture').