The attribution to the London cabinet-maker Thomas Pistor is based on a group of pieces identified and previously with W.R Harvey including two kingwood cabinets and a desk to which the cabinet offered here is clearly part of the same group.
There were in fact two cabinet-makers called Thomas Pistor, father and son, working for a period at the same time but at different premises. One or both are known to have made furniture of quality for Levens Hall although the group of kingwood pieces that correspond to the cabinet offered here do not relate directly to the Levens Hall furniture.
From the 4-18 August 1950 Country Life ran a series of articles featuring what was then the recently rebuilt Buxted Park, a house reconstructed by the architect Basil Ionides following a serious fire and in one of the illustrations a kingwood escritoire is visible. Subsequently Christopher Gilbert commented in The Dictionary of Marked London Furniture, Leeds, 1996, p.44 that a "highly important kingwood fall-front cabinet inscribed 'Thomas Pistor, Ludgate Hill, London', formerly owned by the Hon. Basil Ionides, unfortunately remains untraced. It was amongst the Buxted Park furniture at Sotheby's, 25 September 1963, lot 168 (withdrawn)...". The whereabouts of this escritoire remain unknown and further details of how the pieces was marked remain uncertain.
There was in fact no Sotheby's sale on this date. A somewhat later sale of the Ionides' property was held by Sotheby's, 1 November 1963, in which lot 168 was described as "A William and Mary olivewood secretaire cabinet in richly figured parquetry...". although no trade label is mentioned. It is nonetheless possible that this is the piece referred to by Christopher Gilbert. Gilbert was amongst the first generation of furniture historians to have begun compiling archives of stamped and labelled furniture leading to the publication of both The Dictionary of English Furniture Makers and Marked London Furniture 1660-1840 (1996). The Buxted cabinets appearance could well have meant that his attention was drawn to it by the furniture department at Sotheby's while processing the Ionides property.
The overall profile and proportions of the Buxted escritoire conforms to that of the cabinet offered here and the W.R Harvey cabinets as does the pattern of oysters visible on the frieze drawer, and there is a strikingly similar large radiating circular pattern. It is undoubtedly the same maker responsible for the cabinet offered here and for the two W.R Harvey cabinets, one of which is a near pair to the above cabinet. The two cabinets share virtually identical dimensions, profile of the mouldings at the cornice, waist and base. The size and layout of all of the drawers are identical and in both cabinets secret drawers can be found in the underside of the internal door and above the two top internal drawers and the use of veneers is near identical on both pieces. The interiors of both are furnished with two large drawers above and below the central door, three smaller drawers either side, and a small drawer immediately below the door. The veneers on the drawers are again almost identical, the chest sections have dovetails that appear to have been cut by the same hand. The internal door locks appear the same and most strikingly of all, the stylised numbers on the backs of the internal drawers and the corresponding divides were seemingly done by the same hand presumably in the same workshop.