This richly figured mahogany table has dressing-compartments concealed beneath a flap and corresponds to a 'Shaving Table' pattern engraved in 1761 by Thomas Chippendale and published in his Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, 3rd ed., 1763, pl. LIV. This dressing-table's construction, including its pilaster and chamfer-edged legs with leather castors, is also typical of Chippendale's St. Martin's Lane work of around 1770 (see: C. Gilbert, The Life and Work of Thomas Chippendale, London, 1978, vol. II, p. 218, fig. 398).
The table is likely to have formed part of the furnishings commissioned by Henry Temple, 2nd Viscount Palmerston, following the architect Lancelot 'Capability' Brown's transformation of Broadlands, Hampshire, in the late 1760s. Its wreath handles with acanthus-whorled backplate may have been added in the following decade as it corresponds to the handles of satinwood bedroom furniture commissioned for the house in the 1780s from Mayhew and Ince (see: H. Roberts, 'Towards an English Louis Seize, Furniture at Broadlands,
Hampshire-II', Country Life, 5 February 1981, p. 346, figs 1 and 2)