Desk and Bookcase

Few pieces of American furniture possess the sculptural qualities of this diminutive desk and bookcase. Notable for its bombé sides, the case exhibits an even greater complexity and movement with its serpentine front. This sense of motion is further accentuated by the scalloped mirrors framed within the bookcase doors. Although the desk’s scale and construction suggest it was produced toward the end of the century, as the popularity of the Rococo was beginning to diminish, it fully embraces the Late Baroque aesthetic. It is provocative to think that the desk’s original owner, Thomas Dawes, assumed a central role in its design and attentively oversaw its construction. Initially trained as a mason, he eventually became a recognized architect. Dawes was clearly versed with the bombé form, having designed a pulpit in this contour patterned after plate 112 in Batty Langley’s The City and Country Builder’s and Workman’s Treasury of Designs for Boston’s Brattle Street Church in 1772. His library included other important architectural volumes by James Gibbs, William Salmon, William Pain, and Colen Campbell, and books of furniture designs by Robert Manwaring. Perhaps these were a source of inspiration for the desk’s design, particularly its bombé shape, writing interior, and architectonic bookcase.

Related examples: Other bombé desk and bookcases with serpentine fronts include Podmaniczky and Zimmerman 1994; Monkhouse and Michie 1986, pp. 100–101, no. 41. Two desks are recorded in Mussey and Haley 1994, pp. 81–83, 86–87. Five bombé desk and book-cases with pitched pediments are recorded: Monkhouse and Michie 1986, pp. 100–101, no. 41; Vincent 1974b, pp. 186, 188–89; Fales 1976, pp. 236–37; one offered by Bernard and S. Dean Levy, New York. The fifth was restored with a pitched pediment, although evidence is inconclusive that this reproduces the original configuration. Its prospect door, pilastered document drawers, and ornamental fretwork on the bookcase are related to the Bayou Bend desk and bookcase (Conger 1991, pp. 168–69, no. 82). A group of serpentine-front bombé case pieces is attributed to John Cogswell’s (1738–1819) Boston shop in Mussey and Haley 1994. The authors do not include the Bayou Bend desk and bookcase in this group. Coincidentally, in 1773 Cogswell’s younger brother William married Thomas Dawes’s sister.

Book excerpt: Warren, David B., Michael K. Brown, Elizabeth Ann Coleman, and Emily Ballew Neff. American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection. Houston: Princeton Univ. Press, 1998.