Antique Bureaux on Legs
BUREAUX reproduction, on legs
This section covers several types of bureaux which emulate earlier styles with varying degrees of accuracy. They are mainly small pieces of furniture intended for occasional use.
A made-up oak desk on stand with an interesting contrast of styles which works quite well. The top desk section has been carved in 17th century style and has a false drawer with two rectangular moulded panels on the front. The base is pad-footed in the style of George II, say around 1730 to 1740 and has been carved to match the top. A decorator’s piece. 1870-1890
A mahogany bureau with rather striped crossbanding, on turned legs with inverted cups of William and Mary inspiration. A combination of styles from late 17th to late 18th century which is feeble, particularly in the
inlaid central motif in the fall, which is neither one thing nor t’other. To be exported joyfully. 1900-1910
A further bureau in the Sheratoncum-William and Mary manner made, like the previous example, in mahogany. The overall effect is thin and cheap. 1900-1910
An oak bureau of Queen Anne inspiration in style, on tapering legs ending in pad feet. It has a lot of pigeon holes inside, two long drawers under the fall and, like many of these Edwardian pieces, is rather small
2ft.6ins. wide.
A japanned bureau of Chippendale ‘design’, decorated with chinoiserie features and with a pot stand on the turned cross stretchers between the legs. A decorator’s piece. 1920-1940
A lacquer and mahogany bureau in the Queen Anne style of the 1920s, on cabriole legs. The fall front encloses a fitted interior on the lines of its early 18th century inspiration. The chinoiserie lacquer is of a type which, along with ‘Queen Anne’ burr walnut of many quarterings, gained a tremendous popularity in the 1920s and early 1930s. Not cheap because many would try to sell it as a period piece. 1920-1930
A 1920s reproduction in which both lacquer chinoiserie work and a gilt stand are combined. In emulation of something Queen Anne but, again, really a decorator’s piece. c. 1920
The classic oak `Jacobethan’ bureau of the 1920s and 1930s. Raised on twist-turned legs of Restoration Stuart origin and with moulded geometric panels on the drawer fronts dating from slightly later Stuart examples.
So popular that the genus was made in vast numbers and is now being avidly traded in the ’shipping goods’ business to overseas buyers. 1920-1940
A burr walnut bureau on high cabriole legs ending in pad feet. Quite clearly intended as a reproduction of a Queen Anne period piece of quality. The legs are well made and shaped from solid walnut and are carved with scroll decoration ending in slightly Adam-classical pendant leaf decoration on the knee. The squared lip moulding around the legs below the knee is a period feature. Where the departure from the original starts is in the veneers fall and drawers much too burr, contrasting too much with the straight-grained sides and banded carcase front, and the embellished top corners (the idea for which comes from the period use of re-entrant corners), and most telling, this the lack of any finish to the drawer edges to relate them to the carcase edges which are cross-banded. A period piece would have those drawer edges either lip-moulded, cock-beaded or at least crossbanded themselves. The proportion of the drawers is another point the chances are that a period piece would have only had one drawer of a shallower dimension than these, which are a little too square in proportion for the piece. 1920-1930
The version as the late ’20s and ’30s saw it the bulbous legs retained to give a Jacobethan effect but turned with rings of modernistic type. The top has been chamfered off at the corners to give what would now be
thought of as an art deco look.
Tags: 17th century, Art Deco, cabriole, cabriole legs, Chippendale, crossbanding, desk section, drawers, Edwardian, example, furniture, Jacobethan, lacquer, mahogany, Queen Anne, queen anne style, stretchers, walnut, william and mary