Designed in the French taste promoted by leading English cabinet-makers such as John Cobb (d.1778) and Thomas Chippendale (d.1778), who supplied a writing-table of similar character to Sir Rowland Winn for Nostell Priory as early as 1766 (illustrated in A. Coleridge, Chippendale Furniture, London, 1968, pl. 354), this form with  a serpentine hinged table-top concealing dressing compartments and a mirror subsequently featured as a 'Lady's Dressing Table' pattern in Messrs. A. Hepplewhite & Co.'s The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Guide, pl. 2. It also featured on the trade card for 'Jno Macklane Cabient Maker and UPHOLDER in Little Newport Street near Leicester Square London', and this is almost certainly the same cabinet-maker as the more famous John McLean of Upper Marylebone Street (ref: S. Redburn, 'John McLean & Son', Furniture History Society Journal, 1978, pl. 31a).
 

Connoisseur, June 1966 - Phillips of Hitchin advertisement