Designed in the early 19th Century French-Grecian fashion, the table has a cut-cornered top of black rosewood within a golden ribbon band, and is inlaid with Eutruscan black and gold chevroned ribbons, while its plinth-supported and columnar frame has a Grecian scrolled and stepped 'claw'. The table, which is en suite to a card table at Arniston, Midlothian, and was designed to accompany a Grecian sofa, was possibly commissioned by Robert Dundas (d. 1838) around the time that he inherited the elegant classical villa at Arniston, Midlothian in 1819.
In view of its Grecian style and exceptional quality, the table is likely to have been supplied by a leading Edinburgh cabinet-maker of the period and it is of interest to find that Dundas' kinsman, Sir Robert Dundas (d. 1835) was listed among the principal creditors at the time of the death, in 1833, of the celebrated Princes Street cabinet-maker and upholsterer William Trotter (F. Bamford, 'A Dictionary of Edinburgh Wrights and Furniture Makers', Furniture History Society, Leeds, 1983, p. 135). Its form corresponds to the set of 'Grecian' tables supplied in 1810 for the drawing-room at Papworth Hall, Cambridgeshire by George Oakley of Old Bond Street and St. Paul's Churchyard (M. Jourdain, Regency Furniture 1795-1830, London, rev.ed., 1965, figs. 134 and 158), while its Grecian pillar and 'claw' featured in Thomas Sheraton's The Cabinet Dictionary, London, 1803 to which Oakley subscribed.