Victorian Mahogany Bank Clerk Desk
You must be a subscriber, and be logged in to view price and dealer details.
Subscribe Now to view actual auction price for this item
When you subscribe, you have the option of setting the currency in which to display prices to $Au, $US, $NZ or Stg.
- Victorian Period - The Victorian period of furniture and decorative arts design covers the reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1901. There was not one dominant style of furniture in the Victorian period. Designers used and modified many historical styles such as Gothic, Tudor, Elizabethan, English Rococo, Neoclassical and others, although use of some styles, such as English Rococo and Gothic tended to dominate the furniture manufacture of the period.
The Victorian period was preceded by the Regency and William IV periods, and followed by the Edwardian period, named for Edward VII (1841 ? 1910) who was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India for the brief period from 1901 until his death in 1910. - Mahogany - Mahogany is a dense, close grained red-coloured timber from the West Indies and Central America. It was first imported into Europe in the the early 18th century and its use continued through the 19th century. It was popular for furniture making because of its strength, the wide boards available, the distinctive grain on some boards, termed flame mahogany and the rich warm colour of the timber when it was polished.. The "flame" was produced where a limb grew out from the trunk of the tree, and this timber was usually sliced into veneers for feature panels on doors, backs and cornices.
Some terms used to describe mahogany relate to the country from which it originally came, such as "Cuban" mahogany, "Honduras" mahogany etc. However unless the wood has been tested the names assigned are more a selling feature, rather than a true indication of the timber's origin.
This item has been included into following indexes:
- desk - clerk's 21
- desks, period or age - Victorian 409
-
desks, style or type
- sloped top 10
- small antique pedestal 183
Visually similar items
Bank of Van Diemen's Land desk, Australian red cedar, mid 19th century, together with original Bank of Van Dieman's Land ink stamp and accompanying letter., 102 cm high, 152 cm wide, 82 cm deep
Colonial cedar twin pedestal writing desk, c.1860-1870, maker unknown, the desk front has two side drawers with twin, pedestals each having three drawers upon castors, the top has three tooled leather writing surfaces, the central slope is a lift-up type w
A cedar pedestal desk, Australian, circa 1890, 114 cm high, 145 cm wide, 75 cm deep
A Victorian mahogany twin pedestal desk, later 19th century, the desk with a brown tooled leather writing plane above a central drawer flanked by pillars with four graduated drawers, each with turned knob handles, raised on slightly extended plinth base wi