A MAHOGANY PARTNERS' PEDESTAL DESK

This desk directly copies the celebrated 'library table' supplied by Thomas Chippendale for Sir Rowland Winn at Nostell Priory, Yorkshire in 1767 (illustrated in C. Gilbert,The Life and Works of Thomas Chippendale, 1978, vol. II, pp. 240-241, pl. 440-441). Chippendale's model 'compleatly finishd in the most elegant taste' costing Sir Rowland the then princely sum of 72p 10s. A photograph of the Nostell Priory desk was included in Oliver Brackett's Thomas Chippendale: A Study of his Life, Work and Influence published in 1924 (plate XXXVI). This book, whose author was the Curator of Furniture at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, no doubt contributed to the enthusiasm to reproduce this design.