ANTIQUE WRITING DESKS - History and
Fashions
A
writing desk is one of the most appealing items of furniture. Whether highly
polished or ink-stained and well-used, it is often more evocative of its owner
than a hairbrush or a monogrammed dinner napkin. Consider the side-by-side
intimacy of Queen Victoria’s and Prince Albert’s in Osborne House or the
solidity of Vita Sackville-West’s in her Tower room at Sissinghurst Castle, her
“inner sanctum where nobody dared to disturb her while she worked.” And yet the
writing desk only materialized in the 17th century. Before then a
desk had merely been a box with a sloping lid, somewhere a scribe could store
all the paraphernalia of writing. This sloping box metamorphosed into the
escritoire.
Charles Dickens' Writing
Desk and Chair
“The escritoire was rare in England
before the middle of the 17th century. Basically formed as a desk
with a space to accommodate the knees of the writer and in some instances with a
flap that could be raised to form a larger surface, a small drawer was often
incorporated in the frieze of the stand,” says furniture expert, John Bly. A
further development was when the stand for the escritoire was replaced by
a chest of drawers and the bureau was born. Today we are more likely to
have a work station or, in the very least, a cupboard designed or adapted for a
PC than to sit at a traditional desk.
The first piece of furniture produced as a recognizable
desk was the secretaire. The writing surface was a front flap (or false
drawer) that was hinged to fold back against a chest of drawers when not in
use. By the the 18th century this had developed into the kneehole
desk – a popular design with Georgian ladies - with its traditional cupboard at
the back of the kneehole cavity, providing extra storage space. Meanwhile in
France, the bonheur-du-jour, often referred to as ‘a lady’s writing
cabinet’, became the fashionable Frenchwoman’s must have: a small side table
with a single frieze drawer and a shallow superstructure of small drawers and
pigeonholes. It was much imitated in Victorian Britain.
Another much imitated style of desk is the
Davenport. It is believed that the first was made by Gillows of Lancaster near
the end of the 18th century for a Captain Davenport, who wanted a
desk of small proportion suited to the confined space aboard ship. It is a
narrow, upright cabinet with a sloping top that slides forward, and with a
series of drawers in the base. Early Davenports were made of mahogany or
rosewood (a name for several richly-hued timbers which have a sweet smell,
explaining the name ‘rosewood’.)
“Davenports remain popular,” says Lynda
Lawrence of www.antiquedesks.net “They are able to
accommodate a laptop which can also be stored under the writing
slope.”
An attractive but less practical desk is the Carlton
House, the first having been made for the Prince Regent and which originally
stood in his bedroom at Carlton House. A U-shaped desk, its writing surface is
surrounded by a bank of shaped narrow drawers. Such desks are often very ornate,
with a great deal of decoration and brass galleries around the top. Today, they
can command high prices and are bought mainly as decorative pieces.
Was there a ‘golden age’ of the
desk?
“The Victorians were the administrators of
the Empire. They needed clerical staff, people working in offices to get the
work done and orders sorted, and desks were needed. The earlier Georgians’ desks
were more of a gentleman’s affair, from which to run his estate or for a lady to
do her correspondence,” says Lawrence.
As the Empire grew, craftsmanship was
superseded by mass-production. Limited quantities of finely crafted desks were
still being produced by cabinetmakers, but the vast majority of desks in the
late Victorian period and the early 20th century were assembled
rapidly from component parts by relatively unskilled labour. Therefore, age
alone does not always guarantee quality.
According to Lynda Lawrence, some of the
most popular desks today are pedestal desks with leather writing surfaces. “The
pedestal desk usually comes in three parts – two pedestals and a top. This
makes for easy moving up and down staircases. They were usually made of
mahogany or oak. We try to keep the leather if it is sound, and have restorers
who can refurbish or even dye the colour to match your curtains if you wish.
Antique desks are excellent value right now. Much of the detailing such as
panelling, cock-beading around the drawers, and turned or brass handles would be
prohibitively expensive to produce today.”
For people who value quality and
craftsmanship the choice of desk comes down to personal taste. A partners’ desk
for a couple running a business from home; a bureau/bookcase which combines a
writing surface with storage space for a small apartment; a writing table which
can double as a sofa table. There really is something for
everyone.
Added value
The Louis XV style desk made of rosewood
and tulipwood by Edward Holmes Baldock (1777-1845) owned by the 7th
Earl of Lucan, who disappeared in July 1974 after the murder of nanny Sandra
Rivett at the family home, was sold at Bonhams in 2009 for £13,200, nearly twice
the amount it was expected to fetch. Charles Dickens’ writing desk and chair,
sold by Christie’s in 2008, fetched a jaw-dropping £433,250 (with proceeds
benefiting Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity.) The cricket
commentator, Brian Johnston’s desk, was sold by Bonhams in 2006 for £54,000.
Ownership - with provenance - by the famous and the infamous, adds value.
Top makers
The highest prices are fetched by good
18th century makers such as Thomas Chippendale (1718-1779) London
cabinet maker and furniture designer; William Marsh (1775-1810) and Thomas
Tatham (1763-1818) cabinet makers in Mount Street, London; and William Hallett
(c1707-1781) cabinet maker of St Martin’s Lane.
Further reading
Portable Writing Desks by David Harris
(Shire Books)
English Furniture by John Bly (Shire
Books).
