Conceived as a marble-topped sideboard-tables, their golden frames reflect the George II 'Roman' fashion promoted by Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington through his protigé, the Rome-trained architect and designer William Kent (d. 1748). The latter's contribution as 'Master Carpenter' of George II's Board of Works was celebrated by his colleague John Vardy's Some Designs of Mr Inigo Jones and Mr William Kent, 1744.
The friezes, with projecting 'architectural' corners, fretted with a Vitruvian-scrolled ribbon-guilloche; while the flowers and foliage of Roman acanthus enrich the voluted and truss-hermed pilasters. The latters imbricated libation-paterae and dolphin-scales, evoke an altar to the nature deity Venus; while its pilaster pattern relates to Kent's design for a chimneypiece, bearing the head of the huntress deity Diana, that he designed for Burlington's Chiswick villa (ibid., pl. 35). Related sideboards were supplied under Kent's direction for Houghton Hall and Raynham Hall, Norfolk (M. Jourdain, The Work of William Kent, London, 1948, figs. 138 and 65). While another sideboard table, likewise featuring architectural corners, wave-scrolled frieze and scale-imbricated pilasters, may have belonged to Lord Burlington before its removal to Devonshire House, London (ibid., fig. 247).