The ingenious trompe l'oeil marquetry, which creates the illusion that the paterae-enriched band is recessed, implies that the table was designed to stand in a window-pier to the right of a window, and may have been accompanied by a second table.
The design and quality of the table is a refined version of one that belonged to the eclectic collector and painter Prins Eugens Valdemarsudde (1865 - 1947) (see: M. Lagerquist, Georg Haupt, Ebéniste du Roi, Stockholm, 1979, p. 214, cat. 74).
This lot was probably executed in the ealy 1780s, as its medallion features on a related secrétaire, which is inscribed 'fait à Stockholm Chez Georg Haupt Ebeniste du Roy 1782' (see: M. Lagerquist, op. cit., p. 150, no. 32). It also shares a number of features with a secrétaire embellished with a poetic-trophy medallion and bearing Haupt's inscription, dated 1781 (see: M. Lagerquist, op. cit., p. 148, cat. 31).
Its general style and ornament, such as the laurel-festooned medallion, relate to Haupt's 1770 design for Queen Lovisa Ulrika's bureau-plat (see: M. Lagerquist, op. cit., p. 50, cat. 3). The profile head derives in part from that of a sibyl or priestess of Apollo, which Haupt adapted from an engraving published in Delafosse's Recueil de Meubles, 1768. Other elements, such as the trompe l'oeil tablets, relate to Rehn's design for a mineral-cabinet commissioned by Gustav III for presentation to the Prince de Condé (see: M. Lagerquist, op. cit., p. 60, cat. 4). His technique of subtle trompe l'oeil shadowing would have been learnt at the Paris workshops of Simon Oeben (d.1786)