A library-table of this form, with revolving altar-drum on commode-pedestal, has been identified with Thomas Chippendale's furnishing of either the library at Melbourne House, Piccadilly or Brocket Hall, Hertfordshire in the early 1770s (sold anonymously, in these Rooms, 9 July l998, lot 80). The pedestal is also enriched with French-fashioned moulded and hollow-cornered tablets in a manner popularised by Thomas Chippendale's The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, 1754. The London and Lancaster firm of Gillows inlaid alphabetical medallions on some of their tables in the 1770s, and a sketch for a related well-centred 'library-table' features in their l792 Estimate Sketch Book (L. Boynton (ed.), Gillow Furniture Designs 1760-1800, Royston, 1995, fig. 26). The swagged handle pattern features in an 18th Century Birmingham metal trade catalogue (T. Crom, An Eighteenth Century English Brass Hardware Catalogue, Hawthorne, Florida, 1994, no. 256).

A similar table is likely to have been introduced for the Library at Saltram House, Devon around 1770 (illustrated in Saltram House, Devon, National Trust Guidebook, 1988, p. 33 and H. Avray Tipping, English Homes, Period VI - Vol. I, Late Georgian, 1760-1820, London, 1926, p. 170, fig. 256). A pedestal of this same pattern appears on a library table illustrated in H. Cesckinsky, Engish Furniture from Gothic to Sheraton, New York, 1937, p. 357. Another drum table with similar alphabet-inlaid medallions and hinged well, was sold from the Moller Collection, Thorncombe Park, Surrey, Sotheby's London, 18 November 1993, lot 128.