ATTRIBUTED TO GEORGE BROOKSHAW, CIRCA 1780

This table is attributed to the acclaimed peintre ébéniste George Brookshaw (1751-1823) and was most likely designed to harmonize with a room's ceiling and mantelpiece. Brookshaw touted this aesthetic in a 1788 advertisement of 'a variety of the most elegant articles; consisting of pier tables, cabinets, commodes, quines [quoins], book-cases, candilabriums, girandoles, glass frames, together with a great variety of new-fashioned chimney-pieces, to correspond with his furniture, which are all made in a style peculiar to himself, in copper and marble, and painted and burnt-in, in a manner which gives them peculiar elegance.' (L. Wood, 'George Brookshaw "Peintre Ebeniste par Extraordinaire", The case of the vanishing cabinet-maker: Part 2', Apollo, June 1991, p. 384). Other Brookshaw furniture with related decoration includes a commode that may have been supplied for the Albermarle Street house of John, 3rd Baron Monson (d.1806) (ibid., 1991, fig. 4). Another closely related table was sold anonymously, Christie's, New York, 28 January 1989, lot 110.