The colourful Roman mosaic marble slabs are displayed on brass-enriched 'chiffonier' cabinets, whose pilasters of beribboned reeds recall the Roman fasces, symbolic of good government. This antique ornament reflects the influence of the architect Charles Heathcote Tatham, whose Etchings of Ancient Ornamental Architecture, 1799 featured the 'Antique Roman fasces from Basso Relievos at Rome in the Palace of Massimi'. Similar pilasters also appear on a marble-topped chiffonier that is likely to have been designed around 1805 for Belton, Lincolnshire, by the Wardour Street cabinet-maker James Newton (d. 1829) (G. Ellwood, 'James Newton', Furniture History, 1995, pp. 140 & 151, fig. 1).