The earliest documented example of block-front case furniture is a secretary bookcase signed by Job Coit of Boston, dated 1738. The fashion for furniutre with an arched or square blocked facade continued throughout the remainder of the eighteenth century primarily in the urban Massachusetts communities of Boston, Charlestown, and Salem. Cabinetmakers incorporated the decorative blocking onto secretaries, high chests and dressing tables, chests-of-drawers, knee-hole desks, and slant-front desks. Desirable because of the form's commanding presence, quality of craftsmanship, and social status, block-front furniture was owned by some of the most prestigious families in the state.

This blockfront slant-lid desk is noteworthy because it is among the few examples of the form with both a square blocked front and a corresponding lid. An idiosyncratic feature of this particular unidentified craftsman is the minute double scroll that is carved into the tip of the drop as well as on the interior prospect shell. This carved feature is reminiscent of decorative details on furniture from both Massachusetts and Rhode Island. A further link to this latter state is the presence of the soft, rolling carving evident on the shells in the desk interior. Features common to both craft communities suggest that the cabinetmaker who fashioned this desk either moved between the two states or produced the desk in a border town between Massachusetts or Rhode Island. (See Margaratta Markle Lovell, "Boston Blockfront Furniture," Boston Furniture of the Eighteenth Century, (Boston, 1974), pp. 77-133; Albert Sack, Fine Points of Furniture: Early American (New York, 1950), p. 150; American Antiques from the Israel Sack collection: vol. I, 1957, p. 8, no. 25 and 1962, p. 198, no. 504; vol. II, 1967, p. 393, no. 990; vol. VI, 1979, p. 1438, pl. 4507; vol. VII, 1983, p. 1714, pl. 875).