The same unusual flattened scroll and block feet also appear on the three pairs of triangular-top candle-stands in the collection (lots 93-95). There are few examples of pedestal dining-tables as early as the Messer table. A six-pedestal dining-table of slightly later date, at Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire, is illustrated in P. Macquoid and R. Edwards, The Dictionary of English Furniture, rev. edn., London, 1954, vol. III, p.222, fig. 29. Another with plainer pedestals was sold Sotheby's London, 16 July 1982, lot 180

Pedestal dining-tables were only introduced in large quantities towards the end of the eighteenth century replacing the gateleg dining-tables of the early part of the century, such as that at Houghton Hall, Norfolk, and that formerly at Hamilton Palace (P. Macquoid and R. Edwards, op. cit., p.221, figs. 27 and 28). No designs for dining-tables appear in any editions of the Director but Chippendale supplied dining-tables to Sir Edward Knatchbull in June 1769 and to David Garrick in 1771