This George II oval cistern, with mahogany sides banded with brass ribbons, would have been on a tall-legged frame such as the one filled with wine-bottles and glasses that appears in J. Zoffany's 1781 portrait of the Ferguson Group (P. Macquoid and R. Edwards, The Dictionary of English Furniture, London, rev.ed., 1954, vol. III, p. 374, fig. 9). Its decorative ormolu handles, in the form of bacchic ring-bearing lion-masks, correspond to a pattern that was possibly invented by the court cabinet-maker Benjamin Goodison (d.1767) and feature on the cistern with satyr-headed lion feet at Althorp, Northamptonshire, which he is thought to have supplied in about 1730 (P. Macquoid and R. Edwards, ibid., vol. III, p. 372, fig. 2).
A related pair of wine-coolers with the same lion-mask handles, was sold by the St. Germans 1962 Settlement, in these Rooms, 19 November 1992, lot 96. Another very similar wine-cooler with the same handles was sold from the H.J. Joel Collection, in these Rooms, 17 April 1980, lot 72.