Design for a table support illustrating Aesop's fable of 'The Fox and the Stork'

Johnson was a furniture carver, who adapted Francis Barlow's (circa.1626-1704) illustrations to Aesop's Fables into furniture designs. In the 1750s he published several popular design books, largely rococo in style.
This drawing was previously in the collection of Thomas Edmond Lowinsky (1892-1947), a collector of drawings and a distinguished artist in his own right, most of his collection was sold en bloc to the Yale Center for British Art.