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 [...]

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 ENGLISH BUREAUX
Before antique bureaux in the Middle Ages many small portable oak desks were made consisting of a simple box with sloping hinged lid on which the owner could write and keep his papers inside. Towards the end of the 17th century this form of desk appears to have been also made on a [...]

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 [...]