Maurice Adams saw himself as the natural successor to the great furniture makers of the eighteenth century and had ambitious plans for 20th-century British interior design, including a proposed 'Maurice Adams house', in which the architecture and interior furnishings would be designed entirely by Adams throughout, in a streamlined, Georgian style. All Adams's furniture was made by hand in Gloucester and displayed in Adams's showroom in Portman Square, London.

This little side cabinet, designed for the sitting room, was part of Adams's 'Grosvenor' range and could be made to fit any specification.The interior was fitted with a cupboard which Adams suggested might store books or music. 'Some form of side table or cabinet is necessary in every drawing room', Adams observed, in his treatise on furniture and interior design, Modern Decorative Art, published in 1930. Adams used such publications as a platform from which to expound the virtues of interior designers, warning readers of the dangers of undertaking decorative schemes without 'expert advice'.

The Grosvenor range was distinguished by its highly finished burr-walnut veneers. This emphasis on glossy veneers is characteristic of much of Adams's work. The designer praised the marble-like effect of veneers and their ability to exploit the 'natural beauty' of figured woods. The curvaceous shape of this cabinet displays the veneers to maximum effect.