A. Hepplewhite & Co.'s The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Guide, 1st ed., London, 1788, pl. 62, illustrates two designs for 'Pembroke Tables' with the comment that 'Pembroke Tables are the most useful of this species of furniture: they may be of various shapes'. They also provide a pattern for a bowed 'leaf' with rounded corners (pl. 64). This table evolved from the mid-18th Century 'breakfast table' which furnished bedroom apartments, and its serpentined and elegantly tapering legs terminating in scroll feet in the Louis XV manner, relate to those on a dressing-stool published by Hepplewhite (pl. 16).
A related table formerly in the Frederick Poke collection, is illustrated in C. Claxton Stevens and S. Whittington's 18th Century English Furniture, The Norman Adams Collection, Woodbridge, rev.ed., 1985, p. 320. A similar Pembroke table was sold by Mrs. M.L. Sangster in these Rooms, 15 April 1982, lot 72 and another was sold anonymously also in these Rooms, 25 February 1993, lot 68.