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, 176 cm total height, 124 cm wide, 55 cm 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)