Art Nouveau and Art Deco Desks
Art Nouveau and Art Deco DESKS About 1890-1940
Belgian art nouveau desk by Gustave Serrurier-Bovy, about 1910.
Art nouveau, 1890-1920: About 1898 van de Velde designs desk with kidney-shaped top mounted on pedestals with drawers and bookshelf extensions. Majorelle’s 1905 writing-tables with dished tops on heavy, semicabriole legs reinterpret rococo. Many commercially manufactured bureau-cabinets are asymmetrical, with shelving on one side of fall.
Modernist, 1920-40: Functional flat-top desks for home and office, including some asymmetrical types – pedestal of drawers on one side only – prototype for typist’s desk.
Built-in fitments often combine writing-surfaces with bookshelves.
Art Deco, 1920-40: Running concurrently with modernist functionalism, Art Deco designers frequently borrow from it – e.g. asymmetrical arrangements of drawers, but for dramatic effect rather than practical convenience. Rich materials lavished on domestic writing-tables and vast office desks for tycoons. Period also offers many unspectacular but satisfying desks of all types, simply designed and well-made.
Art nouveau: Main preferences walnut and mahogany; variety of woods for marquetry.
Modernist: Oak, ash, elm. Glass or leather for tops, tubular steel frames for desks in Le Corbusier’s style.
Art Deco: Mahogany, walnut, figured ebony, fine skins and leathers for tops. Plywood for drawer-bottoms and backs of cheaper products.
Art nouveau: Best examples almost entirely hand-made, though Majorelle uses machinery for shaping complex curves.
Modernist: Ideologically non-traditional, many makers use screws or bolts in place of
mortise-and-tenon joints. Attempts at producing inexpensive furniture often fail because capable machines not yet developed.
Art Deco: Best work, e.g. desks by Ruhlmann of Paris, hand-crafted; flashy types mass-produced by using machines for planing, dovetailing, cutting mortises, but hand-assembled.
Almost by definition, modernism avoids decoration. Good art nouveau and Art Deco use carving, marquetry, inlay in silver and semiprecious stones, ormolu mounts (Majorelle’s speciality). Cheaper art nouveau bureau-cabinets have leaded light glass doors, large bronzed metal hinges.
Art nouveau: Better examples waxed, secondary ones French polished.
Modernist: Often brightly painted.
Art Deco: Better pieces hand-finished, using thin skins (skivers) for writing surfaces. Cheap products sprayed with cellulose; writing-surfaces inset with imitation leather.
Top quality desks, if suitable for executive suites, are disproportionately expensive because they are being paid for out of company funds rather than private money. Best private buys are probably simply designed 1930s desks and bureaux using mostly solid hardwoods.
LEATHER TOPS
Never reject a basically good flat-topped desk because the leather top is shabby. Re-leathering is not unduly expensive, and transforms the appearance.
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braid antique sewing haberdashery 3
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