LATE 18TH CENTURY

The pattern for the 'French Style' rococo handles on this desk, with their asymmetrical pierced and engraved back plates, appear in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's metal-work catalogue that is illustrated T. R. Crom, An Eighteenth Century English Brass Hardware Catalogue, Gainsville, 1994, p. 44. While the same back plates, but without the French drop handles can be found in two un-attributed pattern books circa 1780, in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum and are illustrated in N. Goodison, 'The Victoria & Albert Museum's Collection of Metal-Work Pattern Books', Furniture History, 1975. Fig 8 & 9.