A. Hepplewhite & Co's Cabinet-Maker's and Upholsterer's Guide, 1788, pl. 62 illustrates this type of inlaid mahogany table with the comment 'Pembroke tables are the most useful of this species of furniture: they may be of various shapes'. They also provide a pattern for a bowed 'leaf' with rounded corners (pl. 64). This table evolved from the mid-18th century 'breakfast table' which furnished bedroom apartments and its serpentined and elegantly tapering legs terminating in scroll feet in the Louis XV manner relate to those on a dressing-stool published by Hepplewhite, plate 16. A related table also with scalloped palmette carving on the knee, formerly in the F. Poke collection, is illustrated in C. Claxton Stevens and S. Whittington's 18th Century English Furniture, Woodbridge, 1983, p. 320.