Object: Desk - Desk-on-frame ​​​​​​​Ca: 1690–1720

This highly unusual late 17th-century New Amsterdam/New York desk-on-frame, also known as an “escritoire” or writing desk, features a lectern-style top with slanted lid, some drawers and various little inner compartments. It belongs to the kind of practical furniture that was used throughout the 17th century for writing and storing paperwork, especially in households of merchants and doctors where record keeping was essential.

Depending on the height of the frame, this design allowed one to either stand or sit more comfortably while writing letters or handling documents. Such a piece of furniture may well have stood in the New Amsterdam Apothecary of the Kierstede family, with Hans and Roelof as surgeons-physicians spending a lot of time writing and sorting recipes for their patients.

Metropolitan Museum Summary:

An early inscription in Dutch inside the lid recording a business transaction, points to a New York origin for this desk, which is reputed to have been found in Brooklyn in the early 1900s. The use of gumwood, a wood that found favor in New York City and environs for furniture and interior woodwork during the early decades of the eighteenth century, supports such an attribution. No comparable piece is known. The turnings appear to derive from French prototypes and the desk may have been made by a Huguenot craftsman—a distinct possibility in New York around 1700.

Reference:

Geography: Made in New York, New York, United States

Culture: American- Dutch Colonial

Medium: Sweet gum, possibly mahogany veneer, yellow poplar

Dimensions: 35 1/4 x 33 3/4 x 24 in. (89.5 x 85.7 x 61 cm)

Object Number: 44.47