Lot 220
220
PROPERTY FROM A DESCENDANT OF THE ORIGINAL OWNER
A FEDERAL INLAID MAHOGANY DESK-AND-BOOKCASE

WINCHESTER AREA, VIRGINIA OR BALTIMORE, 1795-1805

Details
A FEDERAL INLAID MAHOGANY DESK-AND-BOOKCASE
winchester area, virginia or baltimore, 1795-1805
In three parts: the upper section, with shaped pediment centering a veneered panel and flanked by paterae inlay above a gothic arched and pendant molded frieze; the middle section, the case fitted with two glazed doors with geometric interlacing and line-inlaid mullions opening to a fitted interior with three shelves; the lower section, with molded mid-band over a rectangular top with molded edge above a conforming case fitted with a cockbeaded butler's drawer with oval and diamond veneered drawer front opening to a fall-front writing surface and interior fitted with a central section with line-inlaid prospect door opening to four short drawers pulling out with secret drawers at back; all flanked by inlaid columns flanked by short drawers and valanced pigeonholes all flanked by inlaid segmented icicles over two cupboard oval inlaid doors opening three slides above a shaped skirt, on French feet
96¾in. high, 44¼in. wide, 22¾in. deep

Lot Essay

In all likelihood, this desk-and-bookcase was made in the vicinity of the Upper Valley of Virginia extending from Maryland to Richmond. Its extensive use of yellow pine indicates a southern attribution as does the paneled and stringed inlay. Similar inlay of squared, oval panels are found on neoclassical sideboards and card tables from North and South Carolina (E. Milby Burton, Charleston Furniture, 1700-1825 (Columbia, South Carolina, 1955), pp.58, 60, 71, 106 and John Bivins, The Furniture of Coastal North Carolina, 1700-1820 (Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 1988), pp.418, 420). This desk-and-bookcase has a history of ownership in the Winchester area of Virginia; a sideboard with similar oval paneling illustrated in John Bivins and Forsyth Alexander, The Regional Arts of the Early South (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1991), p.162, fig.65 is also attributed to that region.