This type of large library-table, with drawer-filled pedestals, was included by architects in their room-plans in the mid-18th Century, such as that planned by Robert Adam (d.1792) for Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire, and executed at the house in 1764 by the Derby carver James Gravernor and others (The National Trust, Kedleston Hall, L. 994, p. 30). This magnificent desk is likely to have been executed around 1790 as it is fitted with a pattern of swagged and cut-cornered handle with octagon-patterae plates that became fashionable at this period.