Conceived in the late 17th Century 'antique' manner, the table-top depicts a plinth-supported krater-vase of spring flowers accompanied by birds, and is entwined by arabesque acanthus scrolling from its base. This roman foliage entangles goat-footed satyresses and lions confronting dragons. The lion, dragon (draco), and goat were associated in antiquity as the calendar symbols for the three parts of the year. Part of the identical templates feature on a pair of contemporary panels, incorporated in a George II chest-on-stand at Holkam Hall, Norfolk. The latter, which, in place of the vase have flowers supported by confronting griffins guarding a scallop-shell, are likely to have been purchased by Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester during his Grand Tour, 1712-18. Related vases of flowers, each with a lion and hound emerging from its acanthus-wrapped plinth, decorate table-tops in the Villa della Petraia, Florence, (see A.Gonzalez-Palacios, Il Tempio del Gusto, Milan 1986, vol. II, figs. 36 & 38). These have previously been attributed to the florentine-based Dutch inlayer Leonardo van der Vinne, who supplied related flower-strewn furnishings for the Pitti Palace, Florence (see A.Gonzalez-Palacios, Il Tempio del Gusto, Milan 1986, vol. I, pp. 17-34. However, a related lion-flanked vase features on a pier-table in the Museo Civico d'Arte Antica in Turin (see G.Ferraris, Pietro Piffetti, Turin 1992, no. 8) and this, in turn, relates to that of a table with herm-pilaster legs, made in Rome by the Parisian èb©niste Pierre Daneau in 1731. It has been suggested that Pietro Piffetti (d.1777), worked with Daneau before taking up his appointment as royal cabinet-maker to Carlo Emanuele III in Turin and it is possible that this table is from the Daneau/Pittetti workshops in Rome (see A.Gonzalez-Palacios, Fasto Romano, Rome 1991, cat. 92 & 93)