Antique Bureaux
BUREAUX
The bureau evolved from the simple portable boxes with sloping lids used by writers in the Middle Ages. With a certain stability coming to life, it was useful to have this on a stand rather than to keep using up valuable table space (although Victorians returned to the writing box much later). Towards the third quarter of the seventeenth century this form of desk appears to have been made on a stand as well as continuing in its portable form and our first illustrations show clearly this `desk on legs’, firstly in oak and, later in walnut.
Whilst these bureaux were initially on the turned legs and octagonal legs of the period, in due course they followed the fashion and were raised on cabrioles. This continued into the mahogany period — as the first
section shows — but in later years they were put on square tapering legs but with modifications to the top desk section.
However, the merit of using the space beneath for drawers in chest form could not be ignored. In some early bureaux of the 1680-1700 period this form shows clearly the union between desk and chest by the moulding above the drawer section, which continues right round the sides and was retained, in an almost absent-minded way, either to appease traditionalists or as a decorative feature. The fall-front bureaux, originating as a simple desk, continued to be popular throughout the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Walnut, then mahogany, were used, but elm, fruitwood, ash, oak and other available woods were quite often used by the provincial or country maker.
The style and construction of the drawers followed those of chests of the same period and the same constructional points apply.
Value Points:
All bureaux
1. Structural condition and originality
2. Size: Width aft. or under
Width 2ft. 9ins. or under
Width 2ft. 6ins. or under
3. Original brass handles and keyhole plates
4. Oak drawer linings
Up to 1690 — The Oak Period
1. Colour and patination
2. Original bun or bracket feet
3. Interior stepped
4. Well
5. Quality of mouldings
1680-1740 — The Walnut Period
1. Quality and figure of veneers, colour and patination
2. Herring-bone inlays and crossbanding
3. Stringing and other inlays
4. Marquetry
5. Original bun or bracket feet
6. Colour (faded) and quality of cross-grained mouldings
7. Interior stepped
8. Well
For oak and fruitwood of this period value points 3, 5, 7 and 8 as in the walnut period also apply plus the following:
Choice of figured woods, colour and patination Quality of mouldings
1730 onwards — The Mahogany Period
It should be remembered that mahogany and walnut periods overlapped each other for about ten years from 1730-1740 and possibly longer. Value points for mahogany bureaux are:
Quality and choice of figured wood, colour (faded or rich Spanish mahogany) and patination Interior arrangement
Quality of mouldings
Original bracket feet
For oak and fruitwood examples of the period the above points also apply.
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Tags: Colour, crossbanding, desk section, drawers, fruitwood, mahogany, middle ages, nineteenth centuries, oak, Original, seventeenth, Veneers, Victorians, walnut