BOOKCASES, HANGING SHELVES
About 1750 onwards
Asmall set of open shelves for books and china which hung on the wall above table height, often called a
‘hanging chiffonier’ in the 19thC. Usually designed for ladies’ rooms, hence
generally rather light and pretty objects.
STYLE AND APPEARANCE
Could have two, three or four shelves, either tiered or of equal depth, and sometimes [...]

BOOKCASES, REVOLVING
About 1790 to 1915
A smallish open-shelved bookcase revolving on a central pillar. A patent for a bookcase with individually rotating shelves was granted to Benjamin Crosby in 1808, but many pre-date this. Especially popular during Regency and, in a different form, during the Edwardian period.
STYLE AND APPEARANCE
Usually circular. Could have been two and six [...]

ENGLISH DWARF BOOKCASES
About1800 onwards
The burgeoning popularity of reading at the turn of the 19thC, particularly among women, created demand for small, readily accessible bookshelves of only table height, where books of relatively small value could be stored openly in rooms used in an informal way. Especially popular during the Regency period when they were made [...]

BREAKFRONT AND LIBRARY BOOKCASES
About 1730 onwards
George III mahogany breakfront bookcase with broken pediment.
Free-standing domestic bookcases were rare before the 18thC. Those made for Samuel Pepys in the 1660s are the earliest known. After about 1720, as people owned more books, substantial bookcases were to be found in the libraries of all large houses; by the [...]

Bureau-Bookcase
From the mid-eighteenth century, cabinets and bureau-bookcases conformed to the
Signs of authenticity
1. Wood smooth and silky to the touch.
2. Carved decoration deep and precise, rounded with age and use.
3. Vertical grain in central panels of block-fronted doors, held in cleated frames.
4. Sides in two pieces, not flush.
5. Lip moulding to edges of solid mahogany fall-fronts.
6. [...]

BUREAUX — cylinder and tambour
The use of a sliding cylinder or tambour instead of a fall seems to have become most prevalent in the late eighteenth century and to have continued in use throughout the nineteenth, when the roll-top desk became widely used in offices.
This form of writing desk or bureau merits a section on [...]

BUREAU BOOKCASES — oak
Eighteenth century oak examples of fashionable objects like bureau bookcases are generally thought of purely as provincial or even country pieces; indeed many are, but the range of quality varies enormously. They were made throughout a very long period of time.
Very typical of the solidly well-made pieces produced in oak; like the [...]

BUREAU BOOKCASES —  mahogany
A Chinese lacquer double-domed bureau bookcase on serpentine bracket feet. Note how the constructional features are similar to those of walnut pieces — double-D moulding (gilded) etc. Finials are missing.
1720-1740
Assume original lacquer price is $30,000 — 40,000 If lacquer 20th century $4, 000 — 8, 000
A magnificent mahogany bureau bookcase under the [...]

BUREAU BOOKCASES — walnut
A walnut bureau bookcase of finely figured walnut, with double-D mouldings and a dividing moulding around the bureau section — relic of earlier divisions (see Bureau). There is a bookrest moulding on the fall. The top has candle slides below the shaped mirrored doors, which are edged with cross-grained mouldings. 1700-1720
A burr [...]

BUREAU BOOKCASES
In the main, the same rules apply to the value of bureau bookcases as are applied to bureaux themselves and the dating of them lies in an understanding of the mouldings and types of veneered decoration. However, for the bureau bookcase there are additional features, particularly the decoration of the top moulding and the [...]