DESKS  roll-top
A rather fine oak roll-top desk in which something of Eastlake’s preaching on Gothic reformed furniture has taken effect. Note the panelled sides, the incised line decoration on the drawers and the carved trefoil motif on the slope frame. Undoubtedly intended for use by some professional of ‘reformed’ leanings. c. 1875
An oak roll-top pedestal desk with panelled sides shown open to reveal a generously complex fit-up of pigeon holes, small drawers and letter racks inside. There are four drawers in each pedestal and a pull-out shelf at either side. 1900-1920
An oak roll-top desk similar to the previous example but with a simpler inside fit-up, no foot rail and not panelled at the back. 1900-1920
An oak roll-top desk with a wooden top gallery intended as a bookshelf and fitted with metal drawer handles. The inside has a relatively simple fit-up of two drawers, pigeon holes and ink wells. There is a foot rail and the back is panelled. The piece is on castors. 1900-1920
A half-pedestal oak roll-top desk with metal drawer handles based on the previous model in design.
An oak roll-top desk with ring handles to the drawers. It has a solid frieze around the bottom but is mounted on castors. Quite a complex fit-up to the interior but not as desirable as the example shown in No. 334.
DESKS  Wootton Patent Office (Wells Fargo)
This form has become a category almost to itself, with a ready market in the USA, from which it originates. Usually made in American walnut with figured panels in more desirable versions, but also found in mahogany.
The genre originates from around 1870 and appears in a variety of designs of single- or double-opening typeswith more or less complicated interiors. Really complex large decorative versions are highly sought after and price is affected accordingly. Often referred to, loosely, as a `Wells Fargo’ desk by those fond of watching TV.
A good quality walnut Wootton Patent Office desk of the doubledoored type, shown closed. Note the fielded panels with ebonised moulding, the figured woods and the highly-carved top shelf. There are letter boxes
fitted in the doors so that correspondence can be delivered to the owner while he is away and the piece is locked up. c. 1870
Another Wootton desk, this time shown with the doors open to illustrate the quantity and variety of pigeon holes and drawers in the piece. The writing surface, which conceals more fitments, is shown in the `up’
position, i.e. closed. The top is not carved like the previous example and the wood is mahogany.
Another Wootton desk, this time of the single-opening door type, but with panels and drawers veneered with decorative burr walnut. Although the single-door is not always as convenient as the double-door and tends to off-balance the piece, this version has a complex and attractive interior.
A large double-door version with elaborate interior and carved top similar to 339, shown closed. A handsome piece. c. 1880

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DESKS  Victorian, Edwardian Pedestal
A handsome burr walnut pedestal desk with superstructure including a sloping writing surface, drawers and a turned baluster gallery. A type of desk once rather despised for its superstructure, which was often
removed to convert the piece into a flat-topped pedestal desk of more Georgian appearance. Now, however, the form is coming into its own as a genuine Victorian one with its own usefulness. 1855-1885
A mahogany cylinder bureau with a kneehole. The pedestals each have three drawers and under the sliding tambour there is a writing surface with six small drawers and letter compartments. It is a type illustrated in
several catalogues of the 1870s and 1880s, although the design goes back to earlier George III forms. This is a very plain version. 1870-1890
The Victorian era was a great boom time for the pedestal desk, which was clearly much more popular for a long time than the fall-front or cylinder bureau. Not only for domestic use but also for equipping the thousands of offices which developed throughout the industrial scene, this form was adaptable to several varieties and types of wood. On the whole, oak and mahogany prevailed due to their endurance. Walnut and other woods, apart from pine, tend to be more highly valued for this reason.
The desk was made and reproduced throughout the entire period covered by this book (and still is). Where possible, approximate dates have been shown but some types such as ‘Georgian partners’ or ‘Chippendale’ can be very difficult to date precisely.
A highly decorated Reformed Gothic desk in a style which brings Burges, Seddon, Talbert and Eastlake to mind. Burges and Seddon would go for such lavish decoration; all of them would use the diagonal planking and pillared columns with central collars. It is interesting to compare this version of Gothic with that of ‘Chippendale’ shown in no. 325 in this section. 1860-1870
The designer of this pedestal desk has imbibed more than a little of the spirit of Reformed Gothic  note the panelled sides and slightly ‘revealed’ construction, with shaped feet.
A mahogany pedestal desk of a type made fairly continuously throughout Victoria’s reign and onwards to the present day. There is a tooled leather top, three drawers in the frieze and three drawers in each pedestal.
The moulded edge is a fairly bold type and so is the thumb nail moulding around the base.
A plain mahogany pedestal partners’ desk of large dimensions  three feet by six feet  with drawers in each opposing side, the concept being that the two partners involved could work at the same desk, facing each
other.
1870-1890 but a type made on into the present day
A carved oak pedestal desk with characteristic lion-mask carved handles to the drawers. The late Victorians and Edwardians were fond of carved oak  a taste for the medieval transmitted to them by the work of the
Gothic reformers, who would have hated this piece. 1895-1915
A further version of a carved oak pedestal desk with lion-mask carved handles. The ‘Elizabethan’ effect has been taken a stage further by the inclusion of reeded bulbs on the legs. More carving has been packed on in
foliage form and the top edge is also carved with leaf forms.
A mahogany partners’ pedestal desk on carved serpentine bracket feet in ‘Chippendale’ style. The canted corners are carved with leaf and foliage decoration and the top edge is gadrooned. The top is inset with tooled leather. A straightforward high quality piece which states that it is reproduction from the carved decoration.
A mahogany cylinder bureau or pedestal desk on serpentine feet with a pierced brass gallery rail around the top. The piece is inlaid with marquetry of 18th century inspiration (Adam, Hepplewhite and Sheraton all
spring to mind) including the splendid central vase in an oval panel on the cylinder front and swags, husks, leaf and floral decoration elsewhere. It has been said of other ‘Edwardian Sheraton’ pieces that the craftsmen
of this period had a tendency to over-egg the pudding and this piece is inclined towards an example of this trait. There is just a bit too much decoration, a tendency to flashiness which distinguishes the piece from its
18th century original. A handsome piece, nevertheless, requiring some first class craftmanship to execute.
1890-1910
A mahogany pedestal desk in the early Georgian manner, with clustered columns on the pedestal corners and Gothic blind fret tracery around the frieze. There are three drawers in the frieze on the viewed side, with
three drawers in each pedestal below. The out-of-view side has three drawers in the frieze and cupboards below  an arrangement normally fitted to a ‘Partners’ desk but in fact allowing the desk to be viewed
favourably from both sides. The quality of workmanship and carving is high  note the carved moulded edge to the top and the plinth around the base. 1920-1940
A walnut ‘Queen Anne’ kneehole desk, made as an accurate reproduction of a period piece. The top is quarter veneered and the drawers have a diagonal banding and lip moulding round the edges. The pierced handles
are a little late in design for the period of the desk, but otherwise the proportions and restraint of the veneers are a good copy. 1920-1930
right) A somewhat 1930s interpretation in the use of matched figures walnut veneers on the drawer fronts but without excessive over-figure or burring (’Queen Anne’ versions of pedestal desks, with feather banding,
etc., etc., were not uncommon in the 1930s). The choice of ring handles, however, if original, is odd.
An inlaid mahogany kidney-shaped pedestal desk or writing table in the Sheraton manner, with boxwood inlaid stringing lines and set on square tapering legs ending in brass castors. The top is inset with tooled leather.
The kidney-shaped desk is a perennial favourite and can often be highly decorative, with burr veneers and marquetry adding enormously to value.
A rather spindly cabriole-legged writing table-cum-pedestal desk, half way between either definition, which shows how, in Edwardian times, there was a movement towards versions of the ‘Queen Anne’ style which
heralded the outburst of burrs and cabrioles of the 1920s. In this case the decoration of the drawers is late 18th/early 19th century Sheraton in origin, whereas the legs are somewhat apologetic cabrioles, i.e. a version of an early 18th century style. The piece is in mahogany, which is not a Queen Anne wood. 1900-1910
A high quality mahogany pedestal desk, on square tapering legs, with inlaid boxwood stringing lines. There is a brass gallery rail about four inches high at the back, which has a diamond-pattern fret. By using the
stringing lines to describe panels on the drawer fronts and facings of the frame, the makers have managed to convey the impression of a restrained, quality piece. c.1900
A mahogany half-pedestal desk of Sheraton style with drawers banded in satinwood. The top is inset with tooled leather.
Figured walnut and cabriole legs  a 1920s pedestal desk of considerable quality, showing the onset of the modified Queen Anne styles which became so popular. This is a slightly more modernised approach
than the slavish copies of the style that were prevalent. 1920-1930

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17th Century French, Italian and Spanish Desks about 1630
Byzantine: Desks combining flat surfaces with sloped lecterns fairly commonplace.
Romanesque: The few literate people (mainly monks) used a writing-slope – often a portable box with hinged, slanted lid, but sometimes on a fixed base. A desk dating from about  pieces of furniture designed specifically for writing have taken many different forms, the work-surface sometimes being the most important feature, sometimes little more than a hidden accessory in a prestige piece designed  to proclaim the owner’s power and cultural pretensions.
1200 at Valstena Church, Gotland, Sweden, has a simple sloping lid on a chest-like carcase and with turned corner-posts forming the legs.
Gothic: Writing-slopes sometimes supported on panelled stands with some carved decoration.
Renaissance: In Italy, scholars’ studies were fitted with desks, sometimes flat-topped and free-standing but more often fixtures with sloped tops. A painting in Venice by Carpaccio, about 1502-08, shows St Augustine seated at a table with one end attached to wall, the other on a turned support.
Desk and chair of Romanesque form, probably Swedish, from about 12 South German walnut writing-box inlaid with bone, about 1600.
Craftsmen in Augsburg, southern Germany produce elaborate writing cabinets, e.g. one made for Charles V in 1554 by Strohmeier, with numerous drawers, carved with figures symbolic of literature and history. A less grandiose German type is a free-standing table with a compartment placed below the top. Many tables used as desks in Germany, Low Countries, Scandinavia are based on designs by Vredeman de Vries published about 1588. In that year, Spanish power suffers setback, but rich decoration continues to be lavished
on the vargu&o (writing cabinet) with vertical fall- front serving as a work surface, the interior fitted with many small Spanish iron-bound walnut vargueno grouped around a central cupboard. Related type (papeleira) has drawers for papers but no writing-leaf. Both types have Portuguese equivalents.
Spanish boa.
Mainly local woods for construction. Augsburg craftsmen use great variety for intarsia work. After 1500, Spain and Portugal import ebony, rosewood, mahogany, jacaranda, silver from New World.
Writing-slopes simply constructed, using nails or coarse dovetail joints. Augsburg writing-cabinets finely constructed with mortise-and-tenon, dovetail joints. Spanish vargueno assembled with flush boards forming tops, bottoms and ends, coarsely dovetailed together; drawers crudely made; early stands on
turned legs or shaped supports with wrought-iron stretchers.
Renaissance writing-slopes often carved with strapwork; interior surface of slope in Italian examples sometimes painted naively with religious subjects. Augsburg writing  cabinets inlaid with architectural fantasies.
Drawer-fronts of Spanish varguenos faced with carved ‘Romayne’ heads in boxwood or vory, overlaid with fretted silver, inlaid with abstract patterns with strong Mudjar (Moorish) influence.
Simpler types oiled, waxed or varnished. Carvings on luxurious types often gilded. Exteriors of varguenos sometimes covered with velvet and mounted with wrought-iron.
Very few authentic examples earlier than 16thC appear on open market. Attractive writing-slopes often sell at modest prices. German writing cabinets expensive. Spanish varguenos not really dear considering the wealth of decoration and indeed their decorative value.
The vargueno continued to be made in Renaissance style until 19thC. Later examples should be regarded not so much as fakes or reproductions — more as traditional status symbols.
Louis XIV boulle bureau Mazarin
Table types: Still in late- Renaissance, mannerist style of Vredeman de Vries, brought up to date with richer carved decoration by son’s designs – Versheyden Schrynwerk– published 1630, widely used in northern Europe throughout 17thC. By about 1650, legs developed heavier, baroque turnings, very busy-looking in Portugal. In Holland, from about 1660, writing-tables on spiral legs fitted with one drawer in frieze.
From about 1680, the flat-topped bureau Mazarin– prototype pedestal desk with kneehole – appears in France, well after death in 1661 of Cardinal Mazarin. Made also in Italy, especially Piedmont.
Cabinet types: In Holland from about 1675, medieval form of desk is adapted by moving hinges of slope from top edge to bottom so that it opens out as flat writing-surface supported by lopers (sliding bearers) or, a method soon abandoned, with gates forming part of separate stand with turned legs. About Dutch slope-front bureau.
Northern ltalian bureau cabinet, about 1715.
1700, stand may still be table type (cabriole legs from about 1710), or chest of drawers type, often with cabinet above. In early 18thC bureau-cabinet develops complex features: concave drawer-fronts in Germany; double-dome tops in Holland.
Fall-front secretaire has a flat top above vertical fall, with drawers filling space below. Spanish version – vargueno– continues as obligatory status symbol, but is often mounted on chest of drawers type base which, in many examples now on market, is old but not original.
Favourite wood internationally is walnut, used in solid and veneer forms, with ebony and wide variety of woods for marquetry and banding. Veneers laid on foundation of oak or pine which, together with walnut, chestnut, elm and poplar, according to regional availability, are used for drawer linings. Some Dutch
bureau-cabinets have mirror glass doors, similar to English. Ivory and bone for inlay; brass, pewter and turtleshell for boullework. Brass handles, lockplates; locks fitted with brass screws (see below).
Bureau-Mazarin: Eight scrolled or square, tapered legs, arranged in sets of four, each set joined by X-shaped stretchers, support carcase fitted with three drawers (fronts often slightly bowed) each side, one at centre, and a recessed cupboard in kneehole. In northern Italy, the number of legs is sometimes reduced from eight to six.
Bureau-cabinet: Originally constructed in three separate sections — chest of drawers base supporting sloped desk with two-door cabinet above; about 1700, base and desk are integrated; cabinet always separate.
Desk Fall-front secretaire: Carcase in one piece, lower part fitted with drawers; large writing-leaf, in vertical position when closed, supported on iron stays when open.
Shallow ,map drawer’ in frieze, disguised as moulding.
Secret drawers, when found behind overt ones in interiors, often appear new and unused since the day they were made.
Bureaux-Mazarins: Boullework or floral marquetry in France; inlaid figures in bone or ivory in northern Italy (Turin especially).
Bureaux, bureau-cabinets, secretaires: Some provincial types in solid wood have carved decoration in baroque style, but most are veneered in walnut inlaid with geometric bandings; floral or ’seaweed’ marquetry in Holland, banded in boxwood ornamented with penwork in black ink. Heavy moulding, especially in Germany.
Solid types oiled, varnished or left natural. Veneered types varnished, waxed.
Really fine bureaux- Mazarins and bureaux-cabinets for the seriously rich. Bureaux can be bought at sensible prices. Fall-front secretaires often reasonable because large writing-leaf creates problems in small rooms.
From late-17thC onwards, screws used for fixing locks, hinges. Early screws usually brass, only slightly tapered, with irregular threads filed by hand. Lathe-turned screws with regular thread from about 1750, but still without much taper, and slot across head to receive screwdriver is rarely centred precisely. Sharply tapered, machine-made steel screws with slot usually dead centre not in general use until about 1850.
Left, before 1750; centre. 1750-1850; right, after 1850.
Cabinet base rests on the desk, which sits on the base to form a unit.

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19th Century French and Italian Desks 1800-1850
Dutch mahogany secretaire-a-abattant made in Empire style.
Consulat and Empire: The brief period (1799-1804) known by Napoleon’s title of Consul, marks transition between slightly anaemic, late-Louis XVI/ Directoire style and full-blooded grandeur of Empire (1804-15), created for Napoleon by Percier and Fontaine and simplified for bourgeoisie by Mesangere’s designs, serialized from 1802 to 1835 in a women’s magazine.
Writing-tables with curved X-supports, based on Graeco-Roman type, produced by Jacob-Desmalter and others, but favourite form of desk is secretaire-a-abattant, severely

architectural but enriched with mounts. Style persists into Louis Philippe period; heavy desks with columnar supports and sphinx mounts still being produced in 1840, by which time bonheur-du-jour type with superstructure of drawers, on end supports with cabriole feet, has become fashionable.
Flat-topped desks in Empire style made throughout Europe: French craftsmen brought to Italy, where Socchi of Florence makes ingenious writing-table with concealed chair that moves into position when mechanism is operated. In Spain, flat-topped desks made with carved swan supports in Fernandino style (version of Directoire/Empire). In Sweden, secretaires by Berg of Stockholm have Egyptian caryatids flanking writing-section.
In Denmark, the bureau-cabinet (chatol is principal living-room piece, accompanied by a sofa table – originally a writing-table with drop leaves at ends but also used with sofa for meals. This grouping common in Scandinavia, Germany, Austria, Russia in Biedermeier period.
Russian walnut Empire pedestal desk with ormolu mounts.
Scandinavian mahogany table.
Biedermeier, about 1815-50: In its way, often eccentric, the fall-front secretaire is most interesting contribution of Biedermeier style to history of furniture design.
Conservative examples are rectilinear, with recessed, arched panels to exterior of fall and cupboard or drawers below; stepped superstructure above. Adventurous types about 1820-30, e.g. by Brandt and Beissner of Thuringia, are like nothing seen before or since: outline of whole structure inspired by lyre form – U-shape with rounded base resting on platform, and overhanging scrolled pediment. Sofa tables much nearer to English Regency type.
Much mahogany, but growing preference for pale woods – maple, birch, poplar – used in solid form for supports and as veneers on flush surfaces. Beech used for carved supports (e.g. swans) meant for gilding.
Bronze and brass for mounts, leather for insets of writing-surfaces.
Usually very strong and sound, using traditional joints (mortise-and-tenon, dovetail), in spite of disbandment of guilds in Paris, where work force in furniture trade numbers about 10,000. Factories in Paris, Vienna, Berlin use machines to assist hand work. secretaires either single carcase or desk section resting on stand with pillar supports; backs of carcases panelled. Biedermeier sofa tables were mounted on centre columns with platform bases, or on end supports.
Empire: Little marquetry, some carving but heavy reliance on gilt mounts (bronze or brass) using typical Empire motifs – anthemion, sphinx, caryatid, bee, imperial eagle, swan, trophy of arms, lyre. In some areas, carved and gilt wood was substituted for cast metal.
Biedermeier: Some Empire motifs, e.g. swan, sphinx, lyre, persist to mid-century. Architectural emphasis on columns and pilasters. Marquetry used discreetly in neatly confined patterns. Country-made versions of secretaire, especially in Alpine regions, have rural scenes on exterior of fall, inlaid into solid wood (as distinct from marquetry inlaying into veneer).
Veneers used extensively throughout period in cities, very seldom in country districts.
Empire; French polishing.
Biedermeier: Varnishing, waxing.
Simpler Empire or Biedermeier secretaires good value for money. Sofa tables on end supports usually command higher prices than centre column types.
Many secretaires made in late-19thC revival of Empire style; quality often poor – very thin veneers, poorly constructed drawers, tinny mounts, backs made of matchboard (tongue-and-grooved) instead of being panelled as in Napoleon I period.
DESKS About 1850-1890
Mahogany secretaire-a-abattant about 1860.
Chiefly remarkable for revivals, pastiches and direct copies, especially of Louis XIV bureau Mazarin, Louis XV/XVI bureau plat. English pedestal desk widely adopted as model for study and grand office; modest businessman more likely to have imported American roll-top (see NEW WORLD, p.317). For bourgeois homes, many variations of sloped bureau and bureau-cabinet.
Preponderance of mahogany, but walnut also popular, both used in solid form and as veneer. More prosaic types in oak.
Ever increasing use of machinery, but decline in quality, where it occurs, due more to price-
Bureau de dame in Louis XV style, about 1870.
cuttiing. Many desks still well-made with hand-cut dovetails for drawers. Copies of bureau plat, though stylistically lifeless, can be technically superior to 18thC originals.
Too much in many cases, e.g. boullework bureau plat with poor quality gilt metal mounts; ‘late Biedermeier’ bureau-cabinet with fretted pediment; machine-carved linen-fold panels for ‘Gothic’ partners’ desks.
Passion for high gloss finish, achieved by French polishing, reaches fever pitch.
Good copies of 18thC types expensive. Many opportunities in better quality, less ornate bureaux and bureau-cabinets.
VICTORIAN COPIES
Some 19thC copies of Louis XV bureau plat so good that expert advice is necessary. In general, quality high but decoration, especially marquetry, too fussy and lacking verve. Difference only becomes evident when eye has been trained by looking closely at numerous examples of both originals and copies.

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DESKS: BONHEURS DU OURS AN CHEVERETS
About 1770-1915
Lion’s mask handles on 19thC pedestal desk.
A satinwood bonheur du jour with simple inlaid decoration.
Handles: Generally very simple brass swan-neck in 18thC, turned wooden knobs in 19th, joined by a variety of metal ring, bail or drop handles around 1870, and horizontal wooden pulls around 1900.
Generally skeleton escutcheons; sometimes surface-mounted in late 19thC.
Stain or varnish followed by wax polish. French polish from about 1820. Dark  almost black  stain on ‘Elizabethan’ oak. Various brown stains and varnishes to simulate mahogany used on cheap quality pine.
Very few genuine 18thC pedestal desks about; those that are fetch enormous sums. Any example pre-dating 1900 invariably in four figures; only the cheapest type of post-1900 examples can be found for less. On
pieces of all dates, any decorative feature  even the use of a wood other than oak or mahogany  may seem to raise the price disproportionately.
Note: Original leather is rare; replacement (if done properly) does not affect value.
Sometimes simply described as writing cabinets on stands, these are small lady’s writing-tables, with a superstructure of drawers, pigeonholes and cupboards. Those with a long bookshelf above
drawers and a lifting handle at the back are called cheverets (sometimes spelt sheverets). Both types were introduced from France (as their name suggests).
Another popular subject for Edwardian reproductions. Manufacture restricted at all times to high quality makers.
The base was a small rectangular-topped table with one, sometimes two, shallow frieze drawer(s), occasionally opening to the side. Narrow, tapering legs (in 18thC tapering on inside edge only), usually ending in spade feet, sometimes with applied ankle mouldings; not infrequently in socket castors. Turned legs not unknown, but rare. Sometimes top folds out to form larger writing-surface, supported on small lopers in frieze, or occasionally on (opened) drawer.
Conformation of superstructure varies considerably. Most pieces bordered by low brass or wood gallery.
Can have tray shelf below, with shaped front to accommodate feet. Sometimes narrow stretchers on back and sides, or of X-plan.
Some burr walnut pieces in so-called ‘Louis’ style with cabriole legs, ormolu mounts etc. made from about 1860.
Principally satinwood; also mahogany and rosewood. Occasionally walnut from 1860 onwards.
Pine or mahogany for carcases (with oak or mahogany for drawer linings). Kingwood, harewood, tulipwood etc. for inlay and for small panels of contrasting veneer.
Standard methods employed.
Many good reproductions about: check drawer construction carefully for indications of date (see CHESTS OF DRAWERS, P. 103). Look particularly for 19thC machine-cut dovetails and quarter mouldings around inside
edges. Being good quality, inner surfaces may be lightly polished.
Principally figuring and arrangement of veneers; often inlay, mostly of stringing lines and simple ovals.
Some pieces painted with neo-classical motifs and/or flowers, wreaths etc. particularly from 1860 onwards. Late decoration tends to be less delicate than previously and covers greater surface area. Panels of classical
figures also popular.
Occasionally Wedgewood plaques or imitation Sevres porcelain panels set in doors.
Handles: Standard for day (for details see page 93).
Principally varnish, sometimes stain, followed by wax polish. French polish after 1820.VALUES
Even 19th/early 20thC reproductions command substantial sums; in fact there isn’t always a lot between them and the originals. Prices well into the thousands. Inlay a bonus.

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Antique English Pedestal Desks

mahogany library or writing table - mahogany pedestal desk - kidney-shaped writing table or desk - burr yew pedestal desk on paw feet - nineteenth century mahogany pedestal desk - kidney-shaped desk of Sheraton design

Pedestal desks for study, library and office use do not really stem from the same origin as the kneehole dressing table. They come from another branch of the furniture tree  those grand library and writing tables of the mid-eighteenth century which the great cabinet makers, including Chippendale, made for wealthy clients. This has some bearing on style, for these grand tables did not have bracket feet, like kneeholes, but had a flat plinth base right around. Antique pedestal desks tend to follow this design, with a solid base, rather than bracket, splay or later forms of turned foot.  As a broad rule ‘the higher the leg the lower the price’.
A fairly grand mahogany library or writing table, with a leather inlaid top, blind-fretted frieze and carved decoration on the angled corners and kneehole section.
A mahogany pedestal desk with leather top and a typical arrangement of cock-beaded drawers. A type illustrated by Hepplewhite.
1770-1800
The kidney-shaped writing table or desk was very popular in the nineteenth century but is originally an eighteenth century form, being illustrated by Sheraton in his design books (and in his early nineteenth century books on paw feet). This is a mahogany example with cross-banded drawers and leather top.
Made in Britain 1800-1820 (early 19th Century)
A burr yew pedestal desk on paw feet in the early nineteenth century manner. Being large and with drawers both sides, it is termed a partners’ desk. There is a possibility that this could be early eighteenth century, with later feet and top, in which case the price would be much greater.
Early 19th century
A nineteenth century mahogany pedestal desk of a type made throughout the century for office use. This has a bit of extra quality in the fluting on the front carcase edges and features a lip moulding to the drawers.
A burr walnut pedestal desk with ring handles which gives the piece an attractive appearance. 1840-1860
A typical nineteenth century standard quality pedestal desk. Made in mahogany, oak and pine throughout the period and understandably popular due to its utilitarian value.
Any small feature of interest adds to its value almost disproportionately.
Late 19th /early 20th century
An almost exhibition desk in the Talbert-Eastlake-SeddonBurges manner. All these mid-nineteenth century designers reverted to ‘medieval’ designs and revealed construction in some degree. This piece is made of oak and is considerably decorated with inlays. No longer underestimated.
A kidney-shaped desk of Sheraton design, made by Edwards and Roberts, a nineteenth century firm who specialised in reproductions of eighteenth century designs. This is a Sheraton design, made in plum-pudding mahogany with inlaid satinwood banding and with stringing.

More examples of antique pedestal desks -

Late 19th Century oak pedestal desk of nine drawers with turned wood handles.

A Victorian stripped pine inverted break-front kneehole desk with brass handles.

Victorian mahogany pedestal desk of nine drawers with turned wood knobs.

Late 19th century oak roll-top desk.

Late 19th century mahogany cilinder top pedestal desk.

A 19th century inlaid desk with brass loop handles and bracket feet.

19th century mahogany kneehole desk with pressed brass handles.

19th century secretaire kneehole desk in mahogany.

A George III mahogany inlaid pedestal writing table with one long drawer in the frieze.

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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 designed by Thomas Chippendale. It developed from bedroom or dressing-room furniture. The kneehole dressing table, a small, extremely decorative piece of furniture, is contemporary with the lowboy of the Queen Anne period.
There was a cupboard in the kneehole for shoes, often a pullout writing or ‘brushing’ slide, and two sets of three small drawers either side of the kneehole. A single drawer ran the length of the piece above the kneehole. Rare to find are those with drawers which pull out, their fronts hinged, to disclose a fitted writing compartment.
In simple and ornate versions, pedestal desks have remained part of library furniture in England down to the present day. Although the name `pedestal’ implies that these desks were always without shaping to the bases, from c.1765 to c.1785 many were made with curving arch-shaped brackets beneath the two pedestals, running,  a solid line down the inside of the kneehole to be repeated decoratively at the back.
Signs of authenticity of desks
1. Three-piece construction should sit solidly.
2. Backs finished and veneered.
3. Carcase of Honduras mahogany, baywood or red pine.
4. Rich, dark veneer.
5. Lip-moulding overhang to writing surface.
6. Drawers oak sided. Bottom timbers running front to back until c.1780. No corner mouldings inside.
7. Inside of pedestal of same wood as rest of piece.
8. Small line of moulding at join of pedestal and top.
9. Veneer and timber grain on sides of top run vertically.
10. No cross-cut veneer round drawers.
11. Locks with rimmed brass keyholes rather than escutcheons. Steel levers to locks, brass casing.
12. Three top drawers, outside pair equal width to drawers in pedestal. Undersurface of central drawer in unveneered carcase wood.
Likely restoration and repair
13. Cut down from larger size. Central top drawer will have had veneer lifted and replaced. New handles may have been added and the holes of the old ones may still be visible inside the drawer.
14. New thin veneer on coarse-grained oak carcase.
15. New tops of solid wood with no frame of cross-cut veneer around stuck-down (rather than stud-fixed) leather panel.
16. Made-up from damaged kneehole desk with one long top drawer. New timber and veneer on inside and either side of pedestals.
17. Cut-down depth. A ’split’ can be felt under the lip-moulding where original top has been cut and veneer replaced after lifting.
Construction and materials
Original pedestal desks had three elements: two pedestals and a top section of writing surface with three integral drawers. The carcase of early desks was of cheap Honduras mahogany or baywood covered with a rich, dark veneer. Later desks had a carcase of Scandinavian, close-grained red pine. Early examples had, in each pedestal, a door concealing a flight of drawers, but by c.1790 the doors were often omitted and the drawers, with locks, became the more familiar pattern. As pedestal desks were free-standing, the desk back was well-finished and veneered.
There was no projecting decoration, such as carved feet or applied fretwork. Canted corners and pilaster mouldings were only incised where there were no doors to the pedestals. Except on very grand versions, there was little ornament unless it was flush with the surface  perhaps a small inset medallion or, from c.1790, brass stringing.
Although some desks had a solid top rather than an inset leather panel, larger versions may be found with three leather panels: one large central piece and two smaller flanking pieces. An overlap of lip-moulding ran round all four sides of the top.
Variations
Below: Twin-pedestal desk in mahogany veneer, c.1850.
Above: George III provincial kneehole pedestal desk with solid back and moulded edge to top. Note the brass carrying handles.
Pedestal desks were essentially `town’ pieces but they were made in less grand designs, usually of oak on plain pedestals, by most of the leading provincial manufacturers: Gillows of Lancaster, Morgan and Sanders, Thomas Butler, John Mayhew, George Seddon. These same manufacturers would have also made grander versions for more fashionable households. In country estate offices, pedestal desks and partners’ desks, as well as rent tables, were part of the estate manager’s general equipment. Kneehole desks, either with plain backs or with the back of the kneehole filled in, were more common in country houses. They were not necessarily free-standing and were often made with lip-moulding on three sides only, unlike their smarter town counterparts.
Reproductions of antique desks:
As with the classic bureau, pedestal desks have been made continuously down to the present day. Care should be taken when `period’ pieces are offered at high prices because there are far more poorly designed, mass-produced versions around than there are high-quality craftsman-made pieces. Originals were solidly made and, with care, were durable, but many have lost one of their original three elements and have had to be made-up of pieces cannibalized from other desks. Often, this marriage produces something less than the rock-solidness of the original.
The Victorians often made them in plain, coarse-grained `bleached oak’ and the Edwardians favoured inlaid bands of light veneer outlining the drawers. Recently, standard mass-produced desks have been veneered to resemble eighteenth-or nineteenth-century pieces and sold extensively on the Continent. The veneer is likely to lift because it has been applied to the wrong carcase wood. Their tooled leather writing panels are an obvious giveaway.
Price bands
George III mahogany desk with doors concealing pedestal drawers, $10,000-12,500.
George III pedestal desk with less detail than above, mahogany veneer, $6,000–7,500.
Plain, twin pedestal desk, early nineteenth century, $1,700-2,200.
Victorian oak desk with mahogany veneer, $800-1,200.

How to identify antique desks?  See some more examples and pictures:

George III kneehole mahogany desk.

18th Century walnut desk with crossbanded top.

Late 18th Century mahogany kneehole desk with a fall front secretaire drawer.

An early 18th century walnut kneehole desk, the top moulded and inlaid with feather stringing on bracket feet.

Georgian Mahogany rolltop desk, with finely fitted interior.

One-piece mahogany pedestal writing desk.

19th Century walnut and kingwood, kidney-shaped kneehole desk, the top lined with tooled leather.

Walnut kneehole writing desk with a recessed cupboard and pierced brass handles.

Mid 19th Century Anglo-Indian ivory inlaid kneehole desk.

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