Thomas Chippendale illustrated a pattern for a related 'Basin Stand' in the French 'picturesque' style in his Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, 3rd ed., 1762. This stand reflects the restrained 'antique' fashion introduced in the 1770s by architects such as Robert Adam (d.1792) and evokes a Roman tripod-altar with its Doric pillars and urn-capped nest-of-drawers.
A closely related stand, with the same patterned spherical urn and claw hollowed for the ewer, was acquired in 1910 by the Victoria and Albert Museum (D. FitzGerald, Georgian Furniture, London, 1969, no. 50).