Distinctively Italian in origin, this stately and highly architectural side table is most probably the product of a Roman workshop. The pronounced legs composed of a numerous differing elements and the male masks accentuating the corners of the apron all point to Rome as a place of manufacture. Although elaborately carved legs in a variety of shapes were much used throughout the Italian peninsula, they were particularly favored in Rome and Tuscany, with Roman examples being especially robust and imaginative in design, such as in the case of this table. For a Roman armchair and a table conceived in the same spirit and now in the Galleria Borghese, Rome, see G. Morazzoni, Il Mobile Neoclassico Italiano, Milan, 1955, tav. VI. The bearded masks at the corners of the frieze are late Neoclassical features that evolved from earlier human and animal heads seamlessly integrated into the legs and which were typical to Roman furniture making and can be seen on numerous tables, such as a pair sold Christie’s, New York, 14 October 2009, lot 40, a console table in the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (inv. no. 64.70), and one in the Musei Capitolini, Rome, see A. Gonzáles-Palacios, Il Tempio del Gusto, vol. II, Milan, 1984, p. 79, fig. 152. The apron of the Roman table in the Capitoline Museum is also hung with multiple garlands, similarly to this lot. All of the above decorative features can also be found in the oeuvre, and more particularly in his 1768 Diverse maniere d’adornare i camini, of the most well-known and admired Roman designer, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, see Morazzoni, op. cit., tav. II.