CIRCA 1770

This ingenious table illustrates the multi-purpose furniture introduced in the latter part of the 18th century. It is virtually identical to another with rising writing section formerly in the collections of Colonel Fearon Tipping and H. A. Tipping as illustrated first in P. Macquoid's The Age of Satinwood, London, 1908, p. 95, fig. 88 and later in P. Macquoid and R. Edwards, The Dictionary of English Furniture, London, 1927, vol. III, p. 247, fig. 5. According to Thomas Sheraton's The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Drawing Book, 1793 (pl. LVI), this more elaborate type of table served 'not only as a breakfast, but also as a writing-table, very suitable for a lady. It is termed a Harlequin Table, for no other reason but because, in exhibitions of that sort, there is a great deal of machinery introduced into the scenery'. This pembroke table, while lacking the elaborate machinery, serves the same purpose in a more simplified form with its cleverly fitted drawer. A small cabinet-on-stand at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London with the same oval yew panels and beaded borders was almost certainly executed by the same workshop (see M. Tomlin, Catalogue of Adam Period Furniture, London, 1972, p. 166, no. T/11).