A fine and rare Regency brass-mounted rosewood porphyry-specimen marble top circular pedestal table circa 1815

In the Greek Style, the form of this elegant table owes its origins to the classical ornament and designs as illustrated in such publications as the architect Charles Heathcote Tatham's Etchings, Representing the Best Examples of Ancient Ornamental Architecture, lamps and ornaments, published in 1778. The fluted column support may be compared with those found on Antique Vases, the triangular platform base with its paw feet being derived from the supports of Candelabrum and Tripods. It forms a sympathetic and fitting base for the Roman porphyry top with its border inlaid with various rare specimen marbles, some of which might have been acquired as antique fragments. This was probably acquired in Italy by a patron who would then have commissioned the table on his return to England.  A 'handsome circular mahogany cistern neatly carved. . . '  made by Gillows in 1813 and purchased by Stephen Tempest for the dining room at Broughton Hall, North Yorkshire, has a similar fluted flaring column; see Susan E. Stuart, Gillows of Lancaster and London 1730-1840, Woodbridge: Antique Collectors' Club, 2008, vol. II, p. 94, pl. 640.