The plinth-supported desk with step-corniced pedestals is designed in the 'Grecian' style of the ealy 19th Century and its richly-figured mahogany is embellished with 'Etruscan' ebony inlay in the French manner. The inset fillets in the pilasters form trompe l'oeil recessed panels that flank the actual panels of the 'commode' doors, while fruiting buds are inlaid in the acorn-finialed spandrels of the recess. In 1816, the 'tasteful simplicity' of this type of inlaid furniture, manufactured by George Bullock (d.1818), was praised in Rudolph Ackermann's Repository of Arts. In the previous year he had earned the commission, through the Secretary of War, to provide furnishings for Napoleon Bonaparte's St. Helena residence (see: C. Wainwright, George Bullock, Exhibition Catalogue, London, 1988).
The pearled inlay, framing the top's leather panel, featured in the design for heroic 'militry-trophy' screen that Bullock supplied in 1817 to Matthew Robinson Boulton at Tew Park, Oxfordshire (ibid., p. 90-91, no. 26). The sarcophagus pedestals are reminiscent of Bullock's recurrent side cabinet pattern with a stepped top, for instance the pair of cabinets that he supplied to William Roscoe (ibid., p. 65, no. 6) an the parquetry side cabinet (ibid, p. 66, fig. 24) of which the present whereabouts is unknown.