A pair of mixing cabinets have been associated with the art and furnishings collection accumulated by the Shipley and Bringhurst families over their 120-year occupation of Rockwood. This rare set bares a strong resemblance to another example signed by a member of prestigious Wilmington cabinetmaking family, Hamilton Noblit (sic Noblet, w. 1845), and may have been commissioned for the house by its builder, Joseph Shipley (1795–1867). Shipley spent much of his career in Liverpool, England, as a merchant and banker of goods harvested by enslaved populations of the Deep South. Upon his 1850 retirement and before he returned home to Wilmington to build the Rockwood Estate, he took the Grand Tour of continental Europe. It is tempting to consider whether these cabinets may have been built to feature their rare Portoro marble tops. This marble is mined in Northwest Italy and would have been a fashionable purchase for collectors like Shipley on the Grand Tour. It is possible that the Noblet and Shipley families were both Quaker. Shipley’s close relatives, the Bringhursts, who took over Rockwood in 1892 were patrons of other Wilmington artists, like portraitist Bass Otis, near to the Noblet family cabinetmaking studios.