The cistern, appropriate for a water basin, has a reed-ribboned rim and base and a reed-gadrooned bowl enriched with flutes, while its octagon baluster has a reeded and stepped pedestal that is likewise framed by reed-gadroons. Its bowl decoration, like that of a wine krater-vase, reflects the antique style promoted by the architect James Gibbs (d. 1754), who had trained under the Roman architect Carlo Fontana (d. 1714). It features for instance on an 'urne' that he designed in 1719 for Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford (d. 1741) at Wimpole Hall, Cambridgeshire and illustrated in his Book of Architecture, 1728 (pl. 138). The pattern for this pedestal-supported cistern closely relates to one illustrated by Gibbs in his Book of Architecture, alongside patterns for 'Marble cisterns for Buffets'. In reference to the former, Gibbs stated that it could also be used as a font (T. A. Strange, English Furniture, Decoration, Woodwork and Allied Arts, London, 1950, p. 48, fig. 10). The superb quality of the mahogany pedestal and its bowl, hollowed from the solid, indicates manufacture by a leading cabinet-maker such as John Hodson (d. 1785) of Frith Street, who in 1738 supplied a related reed-gadrooned 'neat mahogany cistern' for Blair Castle, Scotland (A. Coleridge, 'John Hodson nad some cabinet-makers at Blair Castle', The Connoisseur, April 1963, fig. 4).