Overview
The front of the desk stands on thick legs or pillars which are often highly carved, somewhat exaggerated, thick cabriole legs, but these are not essential. Davenport desks of the 19th century had a variety of different leg designs. [2]
The desk shape is distinctive; its top part resembles an antique school desk while the bottom is like one of the two drawer-pedestals of a pedestal desk turned sideways. The addition of the two legs in front completes the odd effect.
This desk owes its name to a Captain Davenport who was the first to commission the design, from Gillows of Lancaster, near the end of the 18th century. In a sense then it could also be considered a campaign desk though there are no records indicating if Captain Davenport was in the British Army or the Royal Navy. [3]
This desk form was popular during the 19th century. There have been numerous reproductions during the 20th century, and amateur cabinetmakers sometimes consider a Davenport to be an interesting project.
The Davenport desk should not be confused with the Davenport sofa, which is usually a modern combination sofa and bed or an antique form of upholstered sofa based on a design conceived at the beginning of the 20th century by a Boston, Massachusetts, company called A. H. Davenport and Company.
A desk or bureau is a piece of furniture with a flat table-style work surface used in a school, office, home or the like for academic, professional or domestic activities such as reading, writing, or using equipment such as a computer. Desks often have one or more drawers, compartments, or pigeonholes to store items such as office supplies and papers. Desks are usually made of wood or metal, although materials such as glass are sometimes seen.
A rolltop desk is a 19th-century reworking of the pedestal desk with, in addition, a series of stacked compartments, shelves, drawers and nooks in front of the user, much like the bureau à gradin or the Carlton House desk. In contrast to these, the compartments and the desktop surface of a rolltop desk can be covered by means of a tambour consisting of linked wooden slats that roll or slide through slots in the raised sides of the desk. In that, it is a descendant in function, and partly in form, of the cylinder desk of the 18th century. It is a relative of the tambour desk, whose slats retract horizontally rather than vertically.
A pedestal desk or a tanker desk is usually a large, flat, free-standing desk made of a simple rectangular working surface resting on two pedestals or small cabinets of stacked drawers of one or two sizes, with plinths around the bases. Often, there is also a central large drawer above the legs and knees of the user. Sometimes, especially in the 19th century and modern examples, a "modesty panel" is placed in front, between the pedestals, to hide the legs and knees of the user from anyone else sitting or standing in front. This variation is sometimes called a "panel desk". The smaller and older pedestal desks with such a panel are sometimes called kneehole desks, they were intended for small spaces like boudoirs and were usually placed against a wall. The kneehole desks are also known as bureau tables.
A secretary desk or escritoire is made of a base of wide drawers topped by a desk with a hinged desktop surface, which is in turn topped by a bookcase usually closed with a pair of doors, often made of glass. The whole is usually a single, tall and heavy piece of furniture.
A writing table has a series of drawers directly under the surface of the table, to contain writing implements, so that it may serve as a desk. Antique versions have the usual divisions for the inkwell, the blotter and the sand or powder tray in one of the drawers, and a surface covered with leather or some other material less hostile to the quill or the fountain pen than simple hard wood.
The fall-front desk can be considered the cousin of the secretary desk. Both have a main working surface or desktop that does double duty as a cover to seal up papers and other items located in small shelves or small drawers placed one on top of the other in front of the user. Thus, all working papers, documents and other items have to be stored before the desk is closed.
The Wooton desk is a variation of the fall front desk.
The slant-top desk, also called secretary desk, or more properly, a bureau, is a piece of writing furniture with a lid that closes at an angle and opens up as a writing surface. It can be considered related, in form, to the desk on a frame, which was a form of portable desk in earlier eras.
There are two kinds of trestle desk: as with trestle tables, some have trestles joined by one or more stretchers, and some have free-standing trestles. They can be dismantled, with the desk top removed from the trestles, for storage or transport.
The bureau Mazarin is a 17th-century desk form named more or less in memory of Cardinal Mazarin, who was the Chief minister of France from 1642 to 1661. It is the earliest predecessor of the pedestal desk and differs from it by having only two tiers of drawers or three tiers of rather small drawers under the desktop surface, followed by eight legs supporting the whole. Also, the bureau Mazarin has cross braces between the legs, forming two Xs or two Hs on each side.
A tambour desk is a desk with desktop-based drawers and pigeonholes, in a way resembling bureau à gradin. The small drawers and nooks are covered, when required, by reeded or slatted shutters, tambours, which usually retract in the two sides, left and right. It is a flatter and "sideways" version of the rolltop desk.
In cabinetry, the bargueño is a form of portable desk, made up of two chests, the bottom one usually having drawers and the top one having a hinged desk surface which also serves as a side-mounted lid. It is basically a chest or box with one of the side panels, rather than the top panel, serving as a fold-out writing surface. The interior of the desk is equipped with small drawers, pigeonholes, etc., for storing papers and supplies. The bargueño has also been used for sewing or as a jewel chest.
A Carlton House desk is a specific antique desk form within the more general bureau à gradin form. This form of desk is supposed to have been designed in the 18th century for the Prince of Wales by George Hepplewhite. It is named after Carlton House, which was at the time the London residence of the Prince, and sometimes is also known as a Carlton House writing table.
A Plantation desk is an antique desk form. It is thought to have been originally used as a mail desk by postmen. The form is known to have been used on Southern plantations in the United States, but it is not limited to them. For some time communities of Shakers in New England built a large version of this form of desk. It was quite popular in the 19th century.
A field desk is a portable desk which is meant to be used in rear areas near a battlefield and moved around rather frequently in difficult conditions. It is in contrast to the campaign desk, which is usually heavier and meant for areas further in the rear.
The secretaire en portefeuille is an antique desk form which is usually mounted on rollers at the end of four jutting legs. The legs in turn support what looks like an oversize vertically mounted wooden pizza box. This is a cabinet a few inches thick, with barely enough space in it for the raised desktop surface and a few pens and sheets of paper disposed vertically. It is also called a "Billet doux".
A table is an item of furniture with a raised flat top and is supported most commonly by 1 to 4 legs. It is used as a surface for working at, eating from or on which to place things. Some common types of tables are the dining room tables, which are used for seated persons to eat meals; the coffee table, which is a low table used in living rooms to display items or serve refreshments; and the bedside table, which is commonly used to place an alarm clock and a lamp. There are also a range of specialized types of tables, such as drafting tables, used for doing architectural drawings, and sewing tables.
Campaign furniture is a type of furniture which is made for travel. Historically, much of it was made for military campaigns.
Louis XVI furniture is characterized by elegance and neoclassicism, a return to ancient Greek and Roman models. Much of it was designed and made for Queen Marie Antoinette for the new apartments she created in the Palace of Versailles, Palace of Fontainebleau, the Tuileries Palace, and other royal residences. The finest craftsmen of the time, including Jean-Henri Riesener, Georges Jacob, Martin Carlin, and Jean-François Leleu, were engaged to design and make her furniture.
