CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA, 1790-1800

This desk and bookcase is a rare and previously unrecorded example that fits into a small group of Charleston, South Carolina case pieces made in the last decade of the 18th century. The inlaid, broken-scroll pediment recalls almost verbatim the design vocabulary of a desk and bookcase and a secretary with bookcase illustrated in Rauschenberg and Bivins, Jr., The Furniture of Charleston, 1680-1820 (Old Salem, Inc., 2003), NC-25, p. 509-510, and NC-21, p. 501-504. The line and bellflower inlay of the tympanum, the dentil molding, the inlaid fan rosettes, and the "bookend" inlay of the finial plinth are all closely related. A wardrobe from the same shop with this same cornice design but with a gothic dentil molding is illustrated as the frontispiece and as NC-24. The bookend inlay of the finial plinth also links these desk and bookcases to a group of chests (see NC-26 and NC-27). The construction is also in keeping with the Charleston group, and includes the detail of panelled backs on both upper and lower cases- a detail not typically seen in New England examples.