A SCOTTISH GEORGE IV MAHOGANY SOFA TABLE

The Grecian sofa-table with hinged 'candle' flaps is designed in the French antique fashion as featured in a 'pillar and claw table' patterns in the 1808, Collection of Designs for Household Furniture, issued by George Smith 'Upholder Extraordinary' to George, Prince of Wales, later George IV. Appropriate to the Drawing Room, its reed-banded pillar is raised on a hollow-sided 'altar' plinth that evokes the triumph of lyric poetry with palm-flowered paws of chimerical 'griffin', recalling the poetry deity Apollo.