A very similar specimen-marble top in the Galleria Borghese, Rome, is illustrated in A. M. Giusti, Pietre Dure, London, 1992, p. 32, fig. 17.

This type of lozenge-arranged specimen-marble table top has always been the most popular display of the art of the marmisti (marble-workers). Interestingly, 18th Century marmisti such as Antonio Minelli were described as using up to 170 different kinds of marbles for their table tops. Roman workshops had the supremacy in this field until the 19th Century, probably due to the good supply of archaeological marbles and also because of the ancient tradition of commesso. Other large centres in Italy included Florence and Naples. There was a clear revival in intarsia during the Neoclassical 18th Century, and the vogue for the Grand Tour certainly brought to Rome a quantity of wealthy and cultivated foreigners who acquired tops as this.