The elegant serpentine-topped table, with straight legs terminating in scrolled feet, corresponds to the form of seat furniture in Messrs. A. Hepplewhite & Co.'s, The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Guide, 1788 (pls. 7 and 16). The latter featured a stool appropriate for japanning and for use either in drawing-rooms or dressing-rooms. The dressing-table's hinged top conceals fitted dressing-compartments and a mirror fitted to the inside. It is decorated in the fashionable Oriental manner with figures and landscapes on an exotic 'tortoiseshell' ground in the fashion long considered appropriate for bedroom apartments, and described in Messrs. Stalker and Parker's, Treatise on Japanning, 1688.