The oval wine-cistern is embellished in the Grecian or Pompeian manner with reeded columnettes. Gillows' earliest sketch for an oval lead-lined cistern features in their 1787 Estimate Sketch Book (see L. Boynton, Gillow Furniture Designs 1760-1800, Royston, 1995, fig. 178).
A similar wine-cooler with fluted cover was formerly in the collection of the Earls of Stradbroke, Henham Hall, Suffolk, a houset designed by James Wyatt in the 1790s (The Wyatt family were closely associated with the Gillow family).
A wine-cooler of this model, again with a fluted cover, was sold anonymously Christie's, London, 27 November 2003, lot 141 (£11,352.50 including premium). Another is illustrated in R. Edwards and P. Macquoid, The Dictionary of English Furniture, London, rev. ed., 1954, vol. I, p. 223, fig. 9.