A GEORGE III MAHOGANY PEDESTAL DESK

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Details

A GEORGE III MAHOGANY PEDESTAL DESK
The eared rectangular top with trefoil corners and inset gilt-embossed green leather-lined writing-surface above a shaped frieze with four small central drawers flanked by two pairs of medium-sized drawers, with corresponding drawers to the reverse, the central small four drawers with fitted pen-divides, the rounded angles flanked by plain sides and raised on pedestals each with three drawers flanking a kneehole, with cupboard doors to the reverse with raised channelled mouldings and divisions for folios, lacking slides, on a moulded plinth base, the handles largely replaced, one side with some sun bleaching, one later lock stamped 'V.R.SECURE PATENT', with Norman Adams label, minor restorations
29¾ in. (75.5 cm.) high; 61½ in. (156.5 cm.) wide; 39 in. (99 cm.) deep

Provenance

Bought from Norman Adams, 1 May 1985.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis

Sale room notice

Please note that the drawer arrangement above the kneehole on the drawer side of the desk has been altered. The four small drawers replace a single central drawer.

Lot Essay

The desk is conceived in the George II romantic 'Gothic' style, such as the connoisseur Horace Walpole promoted from the 1740s at Strawberry Hill, his Thames-side villa in Richmond. Its top, displaying cluster-columned tablet corners, corresponds to the 'Library Table' pattern issued in Thomas Chippendale's Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director, 1754, pl. LV.
As Chippendale commented of such desks: 'They frequently stand in the middle of a room, which requires both sides to be made useful'.

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