The dressing-table, conceived in the George II Roman or antique manner with a triumphal-arched façade, incorporates drawer pedestals within a tablet-cornered frame that is buttressed by sarcophagus-scrolled trusses. Its arched and recessed niche of drawers has rusticated pilasters enriched with a ribbon-guilloche and a keystone wrapped by Roman foliage. While its architectural elements harmonised with that of the mid-18th Century Palladian mansion, its ornament recalls French fashions. Combining the sarcophagus commode form popularised by the engraved work of Jean Bérain (d. 1711), together with ormolu carrying-handles that are scalloped and serpentined in the picturesque manner, the desk reflects the French commode fashion popularised by Thomas Chippendale's The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director of 1754.
A similar George II padouk and sabicu desk, possibly by John Channon, was sold anonymously in these Rooms, 19 November 1992, lot 54. It had bombé sides such as the present lot would have had before it was altered to its present appearance in the early 19th Century. A George II commode with very similar pierced foliate and rockwork handles and probably made for Captain The Hon. George Townshend, Raynham Hall, Norfolk was sold anonymously, in these Rooms, 7 July 1988, lot 146.