This form of 'spider gate-leg' table is executed in imitation of the early 18th Century form of tables with hinged flaps to each side. Around 1760 there was a revival of this form which had become outdated and unfashionable. A table of this form at The Vyne, Hampshire, was described in the 1776 inventory as a 'spider leg' table (R. Edwards,The Shorter Dictionary of English Furniture, London, 1964, p. 553, figs. 18 & 19).