This table with its lappeted club legs closely relates to several small mahogany side tables supplied to Sir Robert Walpole (d. 1745) for the ground and second floors at Houghton Hall, Norfolk circa 1725. In 1728, Sir Matthew Decker commented on the great quantity of mahogany used at Houghton: 'This Wood is so general used, that even the water closet is made of the same'. The present lot shares the same clean lines and elegant proportions as the Houghton tables, with the sparing use of details that raise it above more ordinary furniture. One of the Houghton tables is illustrated in situ in the Hunting Hall at Houghton in A. Moore (ed.) Houghton Hall, The Prime Minister, The Empress and The Heritage, London, 1996, pp.90 and 92, no. 8).