This sarcophagus wine-bottle cistern of tapering 'herm' form, on bacchic lion-paw feet, typifies the 'antique' style of the early 19th Century and relates to a pattern published by P. and M.A. Nicholson in their Practical Cabinet-Maker, Upholsterer and Complete Decorator, 1826. A cistern of this form attributed to Gillows was sold on behalf of the Executors of the late Mrs. Helen Langford-Brooke, Mere Hall, Knutsford, Cheshire, Christie's house sale, 23 May 1994, lot 96.