These tables, whose elliptical tops reflect the 'antique' style promoted by the publication of Robert and James Adam's Works in Architecture, 1773, are likely to have been commissioned by John Frederick Sackville, 3rd Duke of Dorset (d. 1799), for the drawing room of his Grosvenor Square house, which he acquired and rebuilt in the most fashionable style in 1776-7. Sadly the 1925 sale catalogue gives little indication of the room in which these consoles were placed. The house, which was until recently the Indonesian Embassy, retains its painted plasterwork ceilings and has the very unusual feature of a drawing room wing at the back, which was actually added by the architect John Johnson for the Duke at the time of the decoration. This room appears to have been intended as a principal drawing room; the extensive ceiling decoration depicts Apollo in the company of Muses. It is just possible that the difference in width between these two tables indicates that they were intended to stand on the flat window piers of the curved wall of the rear drawing room. The exterior curve may have caused the difference in width between the two piers.
The two painted oval medallions are in the manner of engravings by Francesco Bartolozzi (d. 1815) and they celebrate the triumph of Love. One is inspired by Apuleius' romance The Golden Ass and portrays the union between Cupid and Psyche. The other portrays two putti in equal contention for a palm. The latter medallion must have been inspired by engravings of Annibale Carracci's frescoes in the Palazzo Farnese, Rome. The palm motif is continued by the palm-wrapped ormolu edge and the bowed leaf-carved legs. The tops themselves are intended to be viewed in accompanying pier-glasses to create the illusion of central paterae of which the sunflower rosettes are, as so often, inspired by the ceiling of Apollo's temple, known from Robert Wood's Palmyra of 1753. Pelta shields are embellished with Apollo heads and suspended by bowed ribbons from a laurel-wreathed border. This also supports flower-baskets linked by floral garlands.
This superb marquetry is characteristic of the Golden Square firm of William Ince and John Mayhew who were the authors of the Universal System of Household Furniture, 1762, and whose partnership flourished from the late 1750s until 1804. The quality and ambitious use of boldly engraved and stained marquetry has been identified as the firm's single most original contribution to furniture design in the 1770s and 1780s but in the case of these tables it is accompanied by specific details that can be related to known commissions. The central floral element of the swags in the tops corresponds to those of the pier tables which the firm supplied to Chirk Castle, Denbighshire in the early 1780s (L. Wood, Catalogue of Commodes, London, 1993, p. 221, figs. 212-213). The very rare use of carved drapery swags corresponds to the mahogany pier table and serving-table that the firm supplied to Lord Kerry in about 1770 (C. Cator, 'The Earl of Kerry and Mayhew and Ince: The Idlest Ostentation', Furniture History, 1990, pp. 27-33, figs. 1-2). The links with marquetry attributed to the firm are even stronger; a serpentine commode in the Lady Lever Art Gallery shares the Chirk-type floral garlands but they are also, as here, accompanied on the front of the commode by amaranth (purplewood) patera surmounted by ribbon-ties (Wood, op. cit., p. 222, no. 26, fig. ii).