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 [...]

Antique Oak Furniture Bureau and Bureau Bookcase
An antique oak bureau of c.1740, with an unusual drawer  there is a long drawer under the fall, thus ensuring that or be made, and subsequently the normal two short ones. The drawers have an ovolo lip moulding around the  surfaces of the piece are in fairly straight grained [...]

Antique English Bureau.
A William and Mary period, c.1690, antique walnut bureau ia furniture of great quality. The tapering octagonal section solid walnut legs of this antique furniture terminate in bun feet and the flat, shaped stretcher is also veneered in walnut. The arched shaping of the frieze with its small edge moulding, like a cock [...]

DESKS: OAK AND MAHOGANY BUREAUX AND BUREAUX CABINETS
About 1740 onwards
Now made in one piece, with or without an additional upper cabinet or bookcase. A piece of furniture which changed very little over the following 150 years and which has been widely reproduced for a further century.
OAK BUREAUX
Oak bureaux were made in large numbers by provincial [...]

DESKS: BUREAUX ON STANDS
About 1670-1760
A development of the medieval slope-top box which in the late 17thC was increasingly mounted on a stand, either fixed or as a separate entity. Its hinged flap slopes when closed, forming a flat writing-surface with a knee space below when open. The interior is fitted with small drawers and pigeon-holes [...]

DESKS: DAVENPORT
Regency rosewood Davenport desk with swivel top.
Antique davenport desk produced in 18th century 1795-1885 small free-standing writing-desk made in large numbers and with many variations through the 19thC. The name derives from an entry in the 1790s cost books of Gillow in Lancaster - ‘For Capt. Davenport, a desk’- alongside a design for a [...]

English Bureau Bookcase
A Queen Anne walnut bureau bookcase of the slender ’single width’ type with simple bookcase above. There is a chamfered edge period glass mirror in the door. The bureau section exhibits all the characteristics of ordinary bureaux of the period - herring-bone inlays and cross banding, drawer edge mouldings and stepped interior. The [...]

Antique English Georgian Walnut and Mahogany Pedestal Desks.
Original pedestal desks - George III mahogany desk - George III provincial kneehole pedestal desk - Victorian oak desk with mahogany veneer - 18th Century walnut desk
The pedestal desk was not made until c.1765 when it can be seen in its grandest form  very large and ornate, and [...]