AN EARLY VICTORIAN FIGURED-WALNUT KIDNEY-SHAPED DESK

MID-19TH CENTURY

Details

AN EARLY VICTORIAN FIGURED-WALNUT KIDNEY-SHAPED DESK
MID-19TH CENTURY
The beige leather top with foliate-embossed border, with pierced rail to the back side, above a kneehole flanked by three mahogany-lined drawers, on concealed ceramic and metal casters behind a walnut-grained plinth, some pulls replaced, with a white paper label inscribed in black ink '92/Rcvd./G.H./Prescot', restoration to shelf recess
28 in. (71 cm.) high, 51 in. (129.5 cm.) wide, 27½ in. (70 cm.) deep

Provenance

G.H. Prescot.
with Stair & Company, New York.
Ambassador Robert M. McKinney, Virginia.

Lot Essay

This model of desk is based on a design published by Thomas Sheraton in his The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Drawing-Book, London, 1802, pl. 58. It is a model that was made by Gillows of London and Lancaster from 1840 to circa 1860, and many of the Gillows examples bear the firm's stamp. The design of this desk closely relates to two sketches for 'An Oak pedestal and Kidney table' in one of Gillows' Estimate Sketch Books dated 1840. Holland and Sons supplied a similar desk in 1868 for £ 27 102 0d (see: R.W. Symonds and B.B. Whineray, Victorian Furniture, London, 1962, p.196, fig. 221).

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