The lacquer top, portraying ducks amongst lakeside pavilions, is a fine example of the Japanese 'tables' or slabs imported by the East India Company in the early 18th Century; and no doubt it was such a slab that featured on the pier-table supplied for Blenheim Palace by the cabinet-maker James Moore (d. 1726) and noted in the 1740 inventory (see G. Beard, English Furniture Makers, Leeds, 1986). Its japanned Chinese-style frame with chamferred legs relates to that of the lacquer-topped tea-table manufactured in 1730 by the cabinet-maker George Nix (d. 1751) for Ham House, Richmond (see P. Thornton, 'The Furnishing and Decoration of Ham House', Furniture History, 1980, Leeds, fig. 148)

This is probably the ' Japan Table' recorded in the Second Chamber in the 1840 Inventory