The shell-veneered work-table, with pillar support and hollow-sided 'altar' plinth, relates to table patterns illustrated in R. Ackermann's Repository of Arts', 1810 and T. King, The Modern Style of Cabinet Work Exemplified, 1829. It bears a 'poetic' laurel-wreathed inscription dated 1818, and was presented by the authoress Lady Sydney Morgan (Mrs Owenson) to commemorate the marriage in that year of the authoress Marguerite Countess of Blessington (d.1849). In 1835, Lady Morgan and the Countess of Blessington featured together in a drawing of a literary gathering executed by Daniel Maclise, R.A., for publication in Fraser's Magazine of January 1836 under the title 'Regina's Maids of Honour'.
A work-table of the same pattern was sold anoymously, Sotheby's London, 9 November l990, lot 148; while another of closely related pattern was sold from the Estate of A. S. Miller at Sotheby's New York, 2 November l985, lot 217.