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 field desk is both an antique and a modern desk form. The antique form is usually made of fine woods and brass fittings. The smaller versions can often be confused with the civilian writing slope. This is quite understandable, because during the 18th and 19th centuries they were often used interchangeably. There is a wide variety of antique field desks, ranging from small suitcase-sized ones to fairly big chests, like the one general Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson used during the American Civil War in the United States. Until recently, General Jackson's desk was exhibited in the museum of the Virginia Military Institute (VMI). At one point, VMI gave a licence to a furniture manufacturer to produce copies of the desk, available on the web.
The field desk was a civil war officers "office in a box." This portable, upright desk has a drop-down front used for a writing surface.
The most common modern field desk is made of resistant plastic composites and steel or aluminium. It is built to NATO standards or to the standards of national armies. There are several variants, but the most common one is a nearly cubic chest whose lid is removed to expose internal drawers and then reattached on the side to serve as a desktop.
An armoire desk is a writing-table built within a large cabinet, usually 1.5–2.0 metres high. The cabinet is closed by two to four full-height doors, to keep out dust or to give a tidy appearance to a room by hiding the cluttered working surface of the desk. This form of desk is usually placed against a wall, like its antique uncle, the secretary desk.
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 true antique is an item perceived as having value because of its aesthetic or historical significance, and often defined as at least 100 years old, although the term is often used loosely to describe any object that is old. An antique is usually an item that is collected or desirable because of its age, beauty, rarity, condition, utility, personal emotional connection, and/or other unique features. It is an object that represents a previous era or time period in human history. Vintage and collectible are used to describe items that are old, but do not meet the 100-year criterion.
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, and were usually placed against a wall.
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.
The portable desk has not one but many forms. It can be seen as an ancestor of the portable computer, and the modern laptop could be considered an atavistic grandchild of the 19th-century lap desk.
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 lectern desk exists in two distinct forms, antique and modern.
A Bible box is a small container that is used to store a bible. About the size of a bible, this box could be used to transport in safety what was a very costly book. Many varieties had a slanted or angled top with a lower lip, meant to hold the Bible for reading when the box was placed on a table. In a sense it then served as a portable lectern. Over the years the typical Bible box was also used or specifically built to contain writing implements such as a quill, ink pot, blotting paper and writing paper. The level or slanted surface of the box then served as a desktop for writing as well as reading.
A Davenport desk, is a small desk with an inclined lifting desktop attached with hinges to the back of the body. Lifting the desktop accesses a large compartment with storage space for paper and other writing implements, and smaller spaces in the forms of small drawers and pigeonholes. The Davenport has drawers on one of its sides, which are sometimes concealed by a panel. This stack of side drawers holds up the back of the desk and most of its weight.
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 campaign desk is an antique desk of normal size which was used by officers and their staffs in rear areas during a military campaign.
The lap desk is a desk set in the lap. In the European tradition, it can be considered a modern form of the portable desk.
The desk on a frame is usually an antique form made up of two pieces of furniture. The first piece is a fairly large and closable portable desk with a slanted hinged top giving access to the writing surface and utility nooks and small drawers. The second piece is a stand made for it in the same style and material. It is also sometimes a single piece of furniture which looks as if it were made up of the two previous pieces but is in fact solid and nondetachable. This form was popular in Colonial America and was often done in the Queen Anne style.
A table is an item of furniture with a flat top and one or more legs, used as a surface for working at, eating from or on which to place things. Some common types of table are the dining room table, which is 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 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.
A chest is a form of furniture typically of a rectangular structure with four walls and a removable lid, for storage. The interior space may be subdivided. The early uses of an antique chest or coffer included storage of fine cloth, weapons, foods and valuable items. It is a box with a hinged lid that can safeguard personal items. Some chests are equipped with locking mechanisms or a metal band that a lock can be secured on. In Webster’s Dictionary 1988 version, a chest is defined as a “a box with a lid and often, a lock, for storing or shipping things” or as “a cabinet as for holding medical supplies, toiletries, etc.”
Campaign furniture is a type of furniture made for travel. Historically, much of it was made for military campaigns.
Ross and Co. of Dublin were one of the most important and famous makers of campaign furniture in the Victorian era.
What later came to be known as the William and Mary style is a furniture design common from 1700 to 1725 in the Netherlands, the Kingdom of England, the Kingdom of Scotland, and later, in England's American colonies. It was a transitional style between Mannerist furniture and Queen Anne furniture. Sturdy, emphasizing both straight lines and curves, and featuring elaborate carving and woodturning, the style was one of the first to imitate Asian design elements such as japanning.
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