This library table of exotic black West-Indian partridgewood is inset with an ancient fossil-enriched marble and fitted with book-shelves and a concealed frieze drawer. Its antique ornament, comprising an 'Etruscan'-black Grecian ribbon-fret and 'bronze' corner pilasters with draped 'sphynx' monopodia, derives from a 'Secretaire' pattern published in March 1804 by Thomas Sheraton in his Cabinet Encyclopaedia of 1804-6 (pl. 2). In November of that year Sheraton illustrated similar lion/sphynx paws supporting the pedestal of a circular library table (plate VIII of Tables). Its fretted-ribbon inlay, flanking the bookshelves, also features on the 'Egyptian' chairs, enriched with bronze in the French manner, that were commissioned around this time by Charles, 4th Duke of Richmond (d.1819) for Goodwood House, Sussex (M. Jourdain, Regency Furniture, London, 1965. fig. 35).