Footnotes

• An almost identical example of this table can be found in Amin Jaffer's Furniture from British India and Ceylon, V & A Publications, 2001, p. 373 Fig.141.
  
  Ceylonese models differ from the English prototype in the exclusion of a pouch for needlework and the introduction of an inlaid specimen wood top. A closely related table with a pouch, is illustrated in Thomas King's The Modern Style of Cabinet Work Exemplified, 1829, fig.68. The use of specimen woods as a decorative feature was distinctive to Galle District and Ceylonese specimen wood tables first occur in the second quarter of the 19th century.
  
  On this table the handling of the inlay of the top is sophisticated, suggesting that by this time the makers were experienced in the production of this form. References to the inlaying of specimen woods appear in accounts of that period. H C. Sirr writes that at Galle there 'are also manufactured those exquisite inlaid articles...ivory and various coloured native woods are inlaid upon the ebony and the designs are well defined'(Amin Jaffer's Furniture from British India and Ceylon, V & A Publications, 2001, p. 373 Fig.141).
  
  The only maker who can be linked with specimen wood furniture from this period is Andres da Costa, whose name appears on a breakfast table sold at Sotheby's Chester 8 July 1987, lot 2028. The quantity of surviving examples of these tables indicate that many were made and were made to standard specifications in specialist workshops. The table tops are generally consistent in decoration and design, with variations in pattern determined by the shape of the table top. The hexagonal and rectangular tables usually had scrolled supports and the top is typically inlaid with a central radiating roundel within triangular segments and divided by chevron borders.
  
  For other very similar comparables see Sotheby's London, 5 March 2008, lot 47, and Sotheby's, Exotica sale, 25 May 2005, lot 184.