The drawing-room centre table is conceived in the early l9th Century Louis XIV manner and its beautiful octagonal top is displayed on a tripod 'altar' pedestal with scrolled 'claw'. The top's fine-figured veneer has its golden reed-gadrooned border wrapped by Roman acanthus and is inlaid with flowered ebony marquetry. The latter comprises an insect-seeking bird accompanying the central bouquet that is displayed in a flowered compartment, while the outer cartouched ribbon-band displays varied floral sprays. A 'Marqueterie Center Table' of this form was included by the architect Richard Bridgens in his Furniture with Candelabra, 1838. The fashion is particularly associated with the celebrated Hanway Street dealer or marchand mercier Edward Holmes Baldock (d. 1854), who held an appointment as 'Chinaman' to Queen Victoria. In 1840, Baldock invoiced The Duke of Buccleuch and Queensbury for a related table described as 'A beautiful Octagon Table... flowers in centre' (C. Gilbert, Furniture at Temple Newsam House and Lotherton Hall, Leeds, 1978, vol.II no. 395, pp. 318-321). The border marquetry relates to that executed in the early 19th Century by Robert Blake, who established premises of the Tottenham Court Road, in the 1820s and was patronised by Edward Holmes Baldock, (C. Gilbert, Pictorial Dictionary of Marked London Furniture 1700-1840, Leeds, 1996, p. 18).