Buffet of walnut, carved, incised and gilded, with painted porcelain panels; designed by F. Moody, ceramic panels by Amy E. Black, and made by Gillow & Co, British 1871.

Buffet of two sections, the upper with moulded cornice above foliate carved frieze, below which are three painted porcelain panels of a May Day procession, separated by pilasters with carved cornices and set within moulded frame with incised inscription at the base: 'MAY-DAY MAY-DAY THE BLITHE MAY-DAY THE MERRIE MERRIE MONTH OF MAY. The open lower section is formed of a plinth carved with Renaissance ornament and square bosses above four gadrooned front legs and a solid panelled back with four pilasters.

In 1868 Henry Cole had recommended that the Department of Science and Art buy a watercolour entitled May Day in the Olden Time from the artist, Henry Stacy Marks. Marks gave Cole permission to use the watercolour in any way he wished for the decoration of the Museum interiors. The design was enlarged and painted on porcelain panels by Amy E. Black of the South Kensington Art School and these panels incorporated into a buffet in Renaissance Revival style, designed by F.W, Moody and made by Gillow & Co. The buffet was intended for the window bay facing the door from the Green Dining Room into the gallery.

Before installation in the Green Dining Room the cabinet was displayed in the International Exhibition held in London in 1871. It was placed in Room VII, West Gallery, on the left of the door, looking north, and is illustrated there in Scheme of Annual International Exhibitions of Selected Works of Fine Art (including Music) Industrial Art and Recent Scientific Inventions and Discoveries To be Held under the Direction of Her Majesty's Commissioners for the Exhibition of 1851, London n.d, Photograph V.

This buffet was originally designed and made for the Green Dining Room in the Victoria and Albert Museum, one of the first public refreshment rooms in any museum. The buffet was not functional but was designed as a piece of decorative furniture, with a May Day theme, echoing the painted panels showing the months, which decorated the walls of the Dining Room. In 1868 Henry Stacy Marks, an artist, offered his watercolour of a 16th-century May Day procession for use in decorating the interiors of the Museum, and Henry Cole, the Director, chose it as the design for the three porcelain panels on the buffet. These were painted by a female student in the porcelain class of the South Kensington Art School, now the Royal College of Art, and incorporated into the buffet, made by Gillow & Co., a prominent firm of cabinet-makers..

W.1-1974