The cistern or cellaret, of Roman bath or sarcophagus form, is rimmed with a triumphal palm-wreath in the robust antique manner popularised by George Smith's The Cabinet-Maker's Guide, 1826. Its pedestal feet relate to those of a cistern designed in the early 1770s by Robert Adam for Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn, Bt. (sold by The Trustees of the 1987 Williams-Wynn Settlement, in these Rooms, 16 November 1989, lot 96).

Thomas Hope published a related design for a 'Wine cooler, in the shape of an antique bath or lavacrum' in his Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, London, 1807, pl. XXIV, fig. 4.