ATTRIBUTED TO JOHN COBB, CIRCA 1800

A design for a closely related 'cylinder fall desk, with legs' is featured in Thomas Shearer's Cabinet-makers' London Book of Prices, plate 13, 1788, and described as 'A three foot desk, on plain, taper or turn'd legs, with 3 drawers in front, the top drawer to sham 3, the other 2 drawers made short to form a knee hole, a plain arch in ditto... £3 7 0'. When stringing was added, as in the present example, an extra £1 14 0 was applied. An aesthetically spare design for a 'Tambour Writing Table', 'a very convenient piece of furniture', was included in the third edition of Hepplewhite's The Cabinet-maker and Upholsterer's guide, 1794, pl. 61; an example of the latter was in the collection of Norman Adams (C. Claxton Stevens, S. Whittington, 18th Century English Furniture: the Norman Adams Collection, Woodbridge, 1983, p. 115).