Designed in the neo-classical style of Robert Adam (d. 1792), architect to George III, the table with its paired fluted columnar legs and curved stretchers enriched with ribbon guilloche, belongs to a destinctive group, which includes the large pier table that was supplied for the 'Glass Drawing Room' at Northumberland House, London, which Adam designed in 1773 (D. Owsley and W. Rieder, The Glass Drawing Room from Northumberland House, London, 1974, pl. 20). It also includes the celebrated pair designed by Robert Adam and made by Sefferin Alken for the 6th Earl of Coventry in 1768 for the Great Room of Coventry House, Piccadilly at a cost of £212.6.11d. The Coventry pair are exceptionally richly documented, including Adam's watercolour design (now in Sir John Soane's Museum, vol. 17, no. 10) and Alken's account to Lord Coventry. They were subsequently sold from the collection of Sir Charles Clore, in these Rooms, 20 November 1986, lot 194.
Another pair of side tables, closely related to the present table, and with ormolu-bordered verde antico marble tops was sold from The Barbara Piasecka Johnson Collection, Christie's New York, 9 October 1993, lot 193.