Slant-front desk
Details
Description
Slant-front desk made of mahogany, cherry and white pine, with mahogany facings on cherry lid supports.
With a serpentine-profile and oblong projections and depressions commencing at the top drawer, the case consists of a fall-front writing leaf and three drawers. The hinged fall-front has molded edges and a shaped escutcheon at the top with a keyhole. The leaf opens to rest on knobbed lopers and when open, exposes a central door with ogee paneling flanked by two tiers of drawers (one long atop two short per side) with brass knobs above four pigeonholes (per side) with shaped ogee cornices.
Below the writing surface are three drawers. The top drawer is set within the lopers. Each of the three drawers has a central, shaped escutcheon with a keyhole flanked by two bail pulls affixed to matching escutcheons. The edges of the drawers are molded. The bottom drawer runs directly on the case bottom, which has a large dovetail binding the base molding to the pine bottom. The drawer bottoms are nailed into the rabbeted edges of the front and sides, and runners were originally glued to the bottom along the rabbeted edge of the sides.
On each side of the case are additional bail pulls with matching escutcheons.
The back is inscribed: [Thomas Austin / August 10, 1803].
The shaped skirt with cavetto and stepped molding features two foliate-carved c-scroll central drops. Carved acanthus leaves and c-scrolls embellish the knees of the legs which terminate in large ball-and-claw feet. The feet are tenoned through the bottom and braced with support blocks. The back two feet are uncarved on the back and inside edges.
According to according to New England Furniture: the Colonial Era (1984), pg. 233, the desk received many pieced repairs and about a century ago, was refinished. A section of the thumbnail molded edge along the top of the lid, two knee brackets, and many support blocks behind the side base moldings have been replaced. The lid supports have been altered and feet have been re-glued. The finish bleached the case badly, and so the object was refinished in 1983. The brass hardware on the bottom drawer and on the left and center of the middle drawer are original. The steel locks in the lower two drawers and brass lock in the lid are also original.
With a serpentine-profile and oblong projections and depressions commencing at the top drawer, the case consists of a fall-front writing leaf and three drawers. The hinged fall-front has molded edges and a shaped escutcheon at the top with a keyhole. The leaf opens to rest on knobbed lopers and when open, exposes a central door with ogee paneling flanked by two tiers of drawers (one long atop two short per side) with brass knobs above four pigeonholes (per side) with shaped ogee cornices.
Below the writing surface are three drawers. The top drawer is set within the lopers. Each of the three drawers has a central, shaped escutcheon with a keyhole flanked by two bail pulls affixed to matching escutcheons. The edges of the drawers are molded. The bottom drawer runs directly on the case bottom, which has a large dovetail binding the base molding to the pine bottom. The drawer bottoms are nailed into the rabbeted edges of the front and sides, and runners were originally glued to the bottom along the rabbeted edge of the sides.
On each side of the case are additional bail pulls with matching escutcheons.
The back is inscribed: [Thomas Austin / August 10, 1803].
The shaped skirt with cavetto and stepped molding features two foliate-carved c-scroll central drops. Carved acanthus leaves and c-scrolls embellish the knees of the legs which terminate in large ball-and-claw feet. The feet are tenoned through the bottom and braced with support blocks. The back two feet are uncarved on the back and inside edges.
According to according to New England Furniture: the Colonial Era (1984), pg. 233, the desk received many pieced repairs and about a century ago, was refinished. A section of the thumbnail molded edge along the top of the lid, two knee brackets, and many support blocks behind the side base moldings have been replaced. The lid supports have been altered and feet have been re-glued. The finish bleached the case badly, and so the object was refinished in 1983. The brass hardware on the bottom drawer and on the left and center of the middle drawer are original. The steel locks in the lower two drawers and brass lock in the lid are also original.
Object use
Case furnitureObject type
DeskMaker
Austin, John, carver and cabinetmaker, 1722-1798, active about 1770-1786Basis of maker
Maker attribution based on provenance. The desk is inscribed with the name of Thomas Austin, the original owner and son of cabinetmaker John Austin, and it descended through the family until Historic New England acquired the object around 1982.Place of origin
Boston, MassachusettsBasis of origin
John Austin was active in Charlestown, Massachusetts prior to 1770 and Boston from about 1770-1786.Date
1770-1798Basis of date
An inscription on the back of the piece, [Thomas Austin / August 10, 1803], likely postdates the construction of this piece, as Thomas Austin was not a cabinetmaker. It is presumed that Thomas received the piece from his father, cabinetmaker John Austin, who was active in the Boston area from prior to 1770 to 1798.Style
ChippendaleMaterials
Mahogany; Cherry; White pine; Brass; SteelAttributes & techniques
Serpentine-front; Cabriole legs; Claw-and-ball feet; Carving; Moldings; Veneer; Escutcheons; Hinges; Bail pulls; LocksMarks, signatures, inscriptions
Inscribed on back: [Thomas Austin / August 10, 1803].Dimensions
Height 44 in. (111.8 cm), Width 44.38 in. (112.7 cm), Depth 60.9 in. (60.9 cm)History of ownership
Descended from Thomas Austin's widow, Martha Frost, to their daughter, Susan, who bequeathed the desk with her half of the family house to her cousin, Martha Frost Kuhn. Subsequently, it passed to her daughter, Martha A.K. Clarke, to her son, Charles, and to his daughter, the donor of the object to Historic New England, Eleanor Clarke Bowser. See Jobe and Kaye, 233.Bibliography
Book: Brock Jobe and Myrna Kaye, with the assistance of Philip Zea, New England Furniture, the Colonial Era: Selections from the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984), 230-233, fig. 46.Online resource: Historic New England, https://www.historicnewengland.org (accessed February 13, 2018), 1982.7.
Subject
DesksContext
This type of desk is usually constructed with four full-width drawers instead of three.From New England Furniture: The Colonial Era (1984), page 232: "…Until the early twentieth century, it was in the Frost family house in Cambridge, the house into which Thomas Austin (1762-1816), a Boston merchant, moved soon after he married Martha Frost in 1807. According to the family members who inherited the house and desk, the desk was made in Charlestown in 1787 by two brothers, relatives of the family and believed to be named Frost. However, the 1803 inscription suggests that Austin's desk entered the Frost-Austin house with the 1807 marriage. If the desk was made by relatives, they were probably Austins, not Frosts. No Charlestown Frosts are known to have been making furniture in this era; however, Austins were. John Austin (b. 1722) was a carver still working at his trade in 1786. His sons John Jr. and Richard are chairmakers. Josiah Austin (1746-1825), a cabinetmaker, was probably John's nephew, although by some accounts he was a son. All worked in Charlestown, but John Sr. moved to Boston in 1770 and Josiah moved to Salem between 1782 and 1803. One son of carver John Austin who did not work in the furniture trades was Thomas, the man who inscribed the desk in 1803. It seems probable that if Thomas wanted an elaborately carved desk, he would have gone to his father, for John did carve six mahogany chairs that Thomas owned.
Current owner
Historic New EnglandCredit
Bequest of Eleanor Clarke BowserOwner's accession number
1982.7Rights
Object owned by Historic New England, https://www.historicnewengland.org.Metadata and images digitized from the Decorative Arts Photographic Collection of the Winterthur Library. For reproduction requests or more information, contact DAPC at reference@winterthur.org.
