This table's drum-pedestal, with its octagonal tray top and tripod stand with serpentined, fretted and acanthus-enriched trusses, relates to a scarlet-japanned china-table at Schloss Charlottenberg, Berlin (see: W. Holzhausen, Lackkunst in Europa, Braunschweig, 1959, no. 147). The combination of oriental lacquer and European japanning evolved from the type of late 17th Century lacquer table at Ham House, Surrey. In that case a Javanese tray obtained as a diplomatic gift was mounted on an English contemporary stand. The whole dates from circa 1675 (see: P. Thornton, 'Ham House', Furniture History, Leeds, 1980, fig. 88). The scene of cranes searching for insects amidst bamboo is very similar to ones that John Stalker published for japanners in his Treatise of Japanning, published in London in 1688.