This desk-on-frame, the visual successor to the previous example (B.71.10), exhibits the subsequent stage in the form’s development. Here, the writing box is supported by a table with a drawer that introduces additional storage. The form relates to the dressing table, and, indeed, one group of Philadelphia desks is characterized by a deeply arched skirt and a series of small drawers reminiscent of Early Baroque dressing tables. Bayou Bend’s desk presents the alternative format, consisting of one deep drawer and a scalloped skirt. A striking contrast with its relatively plain exterior is a lively interior composed of double tiers of serpentine drawer fronts flanking an arched, field-paneled prospect door.

Technical notes: Black walnut; yellow-poplar (backs and sides of two principal drawers, drawer guides in upper case, bottom board of upper case), red oak (sides and backs of interior serpentine drawers), Atlantic white cedar (serpentine drawers’ bottoms), chestnut (sides and backs of prospect drawers), eastern white pine (lower case drawer runners, glue blocks), black walnut (upper case drawer guide). The stiles have chamfered corners and are secured with unusually large pins. The dividers are dovetailed in. The sides are dovetailed to the top. The interior serpentine drawers have their bottoms let in and rest on the sides. When opened, the prospect door reveals two stacked drawers and a pigeonhole. The hardware, while of the period, is not original. Inscribed on the prospect door: “George D. Mason.”

Related examples: Holloway 1928, pl. 13; Sack 1969–92, vol. 1, p. 40, no. 124; Mooney 1978, p. 1036; Christie’s, New York, sale 5594, June 16, 1984, lot 331. Sotheby’s, New York, sale 6051, June 27–28, 1990, lot 386. Related interiors are pictured in Downs 1952, no. 220; Antiques 130 (September 1986), p. 544.

Book excerpt: David B. Warren, Michael K. Brown, Elizabeth Ann Coleman, and Emily Ballew Neff. American Decorative Arts and Paintings in the Bayou Bend Collection. Houston: Princeton Univ. Press, 1988.