Continental School, late 18th Century

The table pattern, shaped with an elliptical bay, and with central medallion wreathed by poetic laurel-enriched acanthus, relates to that of a Roman patterned table in Messrs A. Hepplewhite & Co's, Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterers Guide, 1788 (pl.66). Intended for execution in scagliola in trompe l'oiel Egyptian porphyry with flowered marble inlay, it relates to the work of the celebrated Italian 'Inlayer in Marble and Stucco-work', Dominic Bartoli, who was much employed by the architect Robert Adam (d.1792). He was employed in the early 1780s at the Carlton House palace of George, Prince of Wales, later George IV, and as late as 1805 was petitioning the Prince for payment of £84 for related table tops described as, 'two Scagliola Tables inlaid with foliage and [antique] ornament'.