Lot Essay
This desk is a remarkable survival of one of the earliest examples of the slant-front desk made in America. Its dovetailed construction, veneered facades and ball feet all herald the innovations in construction and decoration of the William and Mary Style. Along with these modernizations, the William and Mary style introduced new forms and just as the changes in construction and decoration grew out of established practices, the slant-front desk evolved from earlier forms. In 17th-century England, slant-front boxes were frequently placed on tables and chests. These separate items were combined into one by English and Dutch cabinetmakers during the 1680s and soon after by immigrant craftsman in America (Robert F. Trent, "The Early Baroque in Colonial America: The William and Mary Style," American Furniture with Related Decorative Arts 1660-1830: The Milwaukee Art Museum and the Layton Art Collection, Gerald W. R. Ward, ed. (New York, 1991), p. 65). The earliest examples in America, like the desk offered here, feature a recessed well above the top drawer that is accessible through a sliding board in the base of the writing surface. By the Queen Anne era, this well had largely been supplanted by an additional long drawer. Supported by a bracket, ogee bracket or a splayed French foot, the form remained popular throughout the eighteenth century and well into the nineteenth.
Only about nine American examples of this veneered form in the William and Mary style survive (see below). With variations of the interior arrangement, decoration of the interior drawers, valances, and prospect door, and pattern of herringbone inlay on the lids and drawers, all the desks barring one example feature burled walnut veneers on similarly arranged cases. The desk in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art is a unique example of veneered olivewood furniture in America. In addition, the Winterthur and Henry Ford examples both have inlaid stars on the lids. Few have survived without considerable alterations; those in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Winterthur Museum and Bayou Bend all bear replaced feet and, due to fire damage, the veneers on the desk formerly in the Dallas Museum of Art have been reinstalled face down.
The related desks are in the following collections: Formerly in the Dallas Museum of Art and offered as lot 417, to be sold in these Rooms, 16 January 1998; the Henry Ford Museum, illustrated in Helen Comstock, American Furniture: Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Styles (Exton, Pennsylvania, 1962), no. 95; The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, illustrated in Richard H. Randall, Jr., American Furniture in the Museum of Fine Arts Boston (Boston, 1965), no. 55, pp. 70-71; Winterthur Museum, illustrated in Oscar Fitzgerald, Three Centuries of American Furniture (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1982), fig. II-21; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, illustrated in Marshall B. Davidson and Elizabeth Stillinger, The American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, 1985), fig. 136, p. 105; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, illustrated in David B. Warren, Bayou Bend (Houston, Houston, 1975), cat. 35, p. 18. Another desk is illustrated in Albert Sack, The New Fine Points of Furniture (New York, Inc., 1993), p. 153 and one sold at Sotheby's New York, 28, 30 and 31 January 1994, lot 1140.
Only about nine American examples of this veneered form in the William and Mary style survive (see below). With variations of the interior arrangement, decoration of the interior drawers, valances, and prospect door, and pattern of herringbone inlay on the lids and drawers, all the desks barring one example feature burled walnut veneers on similarly arranged cases. The desk in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art is a unique example of veneered olivewood furniture in America. In addition, the Winterthur and Henry Ford examples both have inlaid stars on the lids. Few have survived without considerable alterations; those in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Winterthur Museum and Bayou Bend all bear replaced feet and, due to fire damage, the veneers on the desk formerly in the Dallas Museum of Art have been reinstalled face down.
The related desks are in the following collections: Formerly in the Dallas Museum of Art and offered as lot 417, to be sold in these Rooms, 16 January 1998; the Henry Ford Museum, illustrated in Helen Comstock, American Furniture: Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Styles (Exton, Pennsylvania, 1962), no. 95; The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, illustrated in Richard H. Randall, Jr., American Furniture in the Museum of Fine Arts Boston (Boston, 1965), no. 55, pp. 70-71; Winterthur Museum, illustrated in Oscar Fitzgerald, Three Centuries of American Furniture (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1982), fig. II-21; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, illustrated in Marshall B. Davidson and Elizabeth Stillinger, The American Wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, 1985), fig. 136, p. 105; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, illustrated in David B. Warren, Bayou Bend (Houston, Houston, 1975), cat. 35, p. 18. Another desk is illustrated in Albert Sack, The New Fine Points of Furniture (New York, Inc., 1993), p. 153 and one sold at Sotheby's New York, 28, 30 and 31 January 1994, lot 1140.