A VICTORIAN BURR WALNUT KIDNEY-SHAPED DESK

  
This model of desk is based on a design dated 1792 published by Thomas Sheraton in his The Cabinet-Maker and Upholsterer's Drawing-Book, London, 1793, pl. 58.  The form, with open bookshelves to the reverse, was made by Gillows of London and Lancaster from 1840 to circa 1860 and became one of the firm’s best-known models. It corresponds to two sketches for 'An Oak pedestal and Kidney table' in one of Gillows' Estimate Sketch Books, dated 1840.  A stamped Gillow example with the same Bramah lock is illustrated in S. E. Stuart, Gillows of Lancaster and London 1730-1840, Woodbridge, 2008, vol. I, p. 339, fig. 393. A desk of this model was sold in Apter Fredericks: 75 Years of English Furniture at Christie’s, London, 21 January 2021, lot 70 and another was sold from the Estate of Richard Mellon Scaife at Christie’s, New York, 30 June 2015, lot 451.