Lot Essay
The French work-table, with trompe l'oeil fluted columnar corners, has a hinged and china-railed top concealing a compartment, (table en chiffoniere or table a ouvrage en coffret). Its flowered lozenge mosaics, recalling Rome's Venus temple, correspond to those adopted for a similarly fluted desk-topped table bearing the maitre ebeniste's stamp of Pierre Roussel (d.1782). The table can be seen in a photograph of The State Dressing Room, in Guide to Capesthorne, 1982, p.26. Pierre Roussel, maitre 1745.