1860 Victorian Desk...maybe

Hi antique enthusiasts - am seeking some help. Am being told that desk in the attached photo is an 1860 Victorian desk. Seeking opinions as to the likelihood of that being true, or ways I can tell ?

Thanks in advance!

 

The best way to tell....is by showing pics of the underside, drawers, legs and castors , as well as the top.
Is that a leather insert ???

The more we see the better our Master Experts can make a determination.

Oh.....I mean Brad !!

 

More likely 1880s - 90s. Looks to be oak. I would expect machine made dovetails on the drawers.

 

Thanks so much - will get a lot more pics of the drawers and underside and post here

 

It looks pretty inconvenient as a desk. I think more likely it was a writing table or a library table, designed for occasional use. I notice that it's on caster-wheels, so it can be moved and pushed around the place.

The leather insert would indicate that it's meant for writing on. Steel dip pens are EXTREMELY sharp (having stabbed myself more than a few times, I can attest to this). Writing on a wooden desktop with nothing but a couple of sheets of paper underneath would scratch up the finish on the table in no time. Hence the leather, to provide cushioning.

 

Thanks shangas - I suspect you might be right about its original purpose! I still like it, but am concerned it's a reproduction. Will post more photos in a couple of days

 

I doubt it is a reproduction.
Leg turnings, castors, hardware, look correct.
The leather top may be replaced.
And because of the leather top, I would have dated it a little later than 1880. More like 1890 - 1900.

I agree with Brad that it is part of the early machine manufactured furniture.

 

That's the real deal. They didn't use those wooden wheels on the bottom after WWI, and the rest of it looks straight out of the late Victorian or early Edwardian era. I don't think that style has ever been reproduced much, and the repros don't look this original unless built to fake someone out. Frankly, no one's ever thought enough of pieces from that era (as far as I remember at least) to bother making phonies.

 

The leather top may be a replacement (such things do exist), but the presence of the leather top immediately says that this was used for writing - there's absolutely no other reason a table of this period would have one.

Steel dip-pens came out in the 1820s/30s, when two brothers living in Birmingham, England, discovered that you could mass-produce them by punching out millions of them from cheap, sheet-steel.

Just feed the sheet through the press. WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM WHAM! In the space of five minutes you could have five hundred pens.

This made writing much more accessible, so a greater variety of writing-desks/tables were being produced. But like I said - mass-produced dip pens are extremely sharp-pointed - so writing on a wooden surface (while it was possible) wouldn't have been very comfortable (to get an idea of what it's like - get a sewing needle and try and 'write' with it on a wooden tabletop. You'll soon find out how frustrating it is).

So leather writing-surfaces became popular (they existed prior to the invention of the steel pen, however).

They provided the cushioning OVER the wood that stopped the sharp point of the pen from scratching into the desktop - and if the leather was damaged (accidental cuts/tears, or spillages etc), then it could be replaced, without damaging the desk underneath.

A table like this, I agree, probably isn't worth faking (why the hell would you bother??).

I would imagine this as a side-table in an office or a library somewhere, or in a person's study. It might be used to store household account books or something, so that when you needed to check/update them, you could take the book or papers out of the drawers, put it on top, write on it, and then put back in.

It's the lack of storage space (compare this to what most people considered to be a 'desk' in the 19th century) that makes me call this a writing table rather than a desk. I can't imagine someone sitting at this for 6 or 8 hours a day and being able to do any serious work on it. For one, the surface isn't very big - and the storage space is negligible.

Anyway, I'll shut up now.

 

Hello Chris,
What you have is a Victorian 'Library Desk' (sometimes known as a writing desk) and you are indeed correct, it is most likely c.1850/60 in age with an English Origin. Like most of these tables it has a tooled leather hide top in your case, dark green. It has brass castors to enable it to be portable and easily stored. The timber, which I cannot see the grain well, but I assume to be mahogany or oak or even cedar which were popular in use for furniture at this period. It is truly a beautiful piece and exhibits beautiful craftsmanship and technique. Thank you for sharing it with us.
Here is a photo example of a nearly identical piece from the 1850's from an auction house website for comparison.
Thanks again and kind regards,
Tara

 

It is not that late as furniture from that period and origin became more decorative towards the art nouveau period.

 

I don't see the similarity to the one you posted. Note how the skirt is integrated all the way around with the drawers recessed in to them with applied beading to the edges. This is much more difficult and earlier construction than that seen on the OP's example. There are other differences in the style of the top and legs that place this earlier as well, not to mention the difference in wood used.

The OP's is definitely oak and later than this example. While more ornate furniture did come in later, there was a whole other genre of simple furniture, specifically that influenced by Eastlake. In fact, the incised line detail and the drawer pulls on the OPs example are very typical of the style.

 

Here is a more similar Eastlake example in walnut that the sellers are calling 1870s. Note the incised lines on the drawer fronts. Also note the different construction of the skirt, drawer placement and how the legs are attached compared to the one you posted.


I believe the Ops to be later than this example based on the use of oak rather than walnut, the sharper cornered top, the drawer hardware, and the shape of the legs. This piece is transitional between the one you posted and the OP's

Here is an Eastlake drawer pull similar to that on the Op's table.

 

Ahhh......whom to believe ......you both make compelling arguments.

 

The devil is in the details and they don't match up for the earlier period.