Lot Essay
The elliptic pier-table is wreathed with a ribboned veil festoon in the 1770s antique, or Roman, fashion popularised by architects such as Robert Adam (d. 1792) and James Wyatt (d. 1813). Its columnar legs are wreathed in laurels, en suite with the pier-glass. A late l8th century table at Osterley Park, Middlesex, is similarly festooned and decorated in white and gold in the French fashion (M. Tomlin, Catalogue of Adam Period Furniture, London, 1982, T/9). The lowering of a pier-glass to be incorporated as part of the table occurred with the pier-table of the Piccadilly Room at Apsley House, London, in the late l9th century (J. Voack, Apsley House, London, 1998, p. 40).