The 'Pembroke' breakfast-table is appropriately decorated for a George III bedroom apartment with a Roman 'Venus-shell' medallion, in a fashion popularised by the Italian architect G. B. Piranesi, who drew attention to the beauty of testaceous forms in Etruscan homes in his Diverse Manieri d'Adornari i Cammini, Rome, 1769, pl.1. Related shell-medallions featured on furniture at Newby Hall, Yorkshire, and possibly supplied by Thomas Chippendale (d. 1779) (C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, London, 1978, vol. I, p. 267, vol. II, figs. 408 & 496). A Pembroke table with serpentine top with matching inlay of a central shell surrounded by husks and floral sprays was sold by Henry Vyner, Esq., in these Rooms, 5 July 1990, lot 143 (£12,100). Other tables with related inlay were supplied by Gillow of London and Lancaster in 1788 (L. Boynton, Gillow Furniture Designs, Royston, 1995, figs. 12 and 24 and pl.12).

A closely related table, featuring the shell medallion, as well as flowered and laurel-festooned taper hermed legs, was sold anonymously, in these Rooms 1 November 1990, lot 84. Related conch-centred shell medallions also feature on the doors of a clothes-press (F. Lewis Hinckley, The More Significant Georgian Furniture, New York, 1990, fig. 148).