A CARVED AUSTRALIAN BLACKWOOD CHEST OF DRAWERS BY ROBERT PRENZEL Circa 1908 With two small cupboards flanking an open compartment and a small drawer above three long drawers, on a plinth base, the top with a low Art Nouveau-style pediment back finely carved with a spray of fruiting eucalyptus and surmounted with a figure of an alighting cockatoo, the cupboard doors carved in relief with, respectively, a flying rosella and a standing ibis beneath a eucalyptus sapling, the front corners carved in relief with stylised waratah decoration 176cm total height, 124cm wide, 55cm deep PROVENANCE: Part of a suite of bedroom furniture commissioned from Robert Prenzel circa 1908 by Margaret Laidlaw as a gift for her husband, Thomas Haliburton Laidlaw, and installed at Kilora , Hamilton, Victoria Thence by descent in the Laidlaw family, Western District, Victoria LITERATURE: Terence Lane, Robert Prenzel, 1866-1941: His Life and Work, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 1994, p. 18 (referring to the suite generally) and relatedly p. 20, fig. 34 (illustrating the wardrobe from the suite - lot 86 in the present auction)