Desk and bookcase

Date1760-1780

OriginAmerica, Virginia, Surry County (possibly)

MediumBlack walnut, yellow pine, oak, and boxwood or maple.

DimensionsOH: 96 1/8"; OW: 46"; OD: 25 1/8"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number1975-61

DescriptionAppearance: Desk and bookcase with two sash-molded and glazed upper doors; deeply coved cornice highlighted by wall-of-Troy molding; bookcase features eight upper pigeon holes with arched brackets, three fixed shelves, and four lower drawers; lower case features one long drawer over two short over two long drawers; ogee bracket feet with C-shaped instep profile; desk interior has removable prospect with central divider and single lower drawer, behind prospect are two interior drawers; lightwood inlaid fluted documents drawers, flanked on either side by four pigeon holes with arched upper brackets over two short drawers, over one long drawer.

Construction: On the bookcase, the two-part cornice slightly overlaps the upper edges of the case and is glued and nailed to full-depth side blocks and spaced front blocks glued to the top of the case. An additional block runs across the front and is lapped under the front edges of the side blocks. There is another chamfered block above the right side cornice block. The top and bottom boards have exposed black walnut blades and are half-blind dovetailed to the case sides. The rear portion of the bottom board is cut thinner than the blade, resulting in protruding lower dovetail pins. Beaded and half-lapped vertical backboards are nailed into rabbets on the case sides and flush-nailed at the top and bottom. Fixed shelves, which have original grooves across the rear to display plates, are set in the dadoed case sides and nailed through the backboards. The pigeonhole dividers are set in dadoes at the top and bottom, and the brackets are secured by full-width chamfered glue blocks. The drawer dividers are set in dadoes. The small drawers are traditionally dovetailed and have chamfered bottom panels set in grooves on the sides and front and flush-nailed at the rear. Each drawer bottom extends approximately three-eighths of an inch past the drawer back. Pinned mortise-and-tenon joinery secures the door frames, and the inner stile of the right door is rabbeted to overlap the corresponding stile on the left door. The sash-molded muntins reveal cope-sawn joinery and are tenoned into the frame members. The glass panes are secured with putty.

On the desk, top and bottom boards are half-blind dovetailed to the two-piece case sides. The waist molding is flush-nailed to the top board; full-depth side blocks and spaced front blocks are glued to the top board to support the bookcase. Half-lapped vertical backboards are nailed into the rabbeted case sides and flush-nailed at the top and bottom. The fall board has mitered end battens that are triple through-tenoned. The fall-board supports have tongue-and-groove, thumbnail-molded facades with brass knobs. Instead of the conventional dowel stop method, the supports may have originally had glued-on stop blocks. The stiles framing the fall-board supports are open half-dovetailed to the underside of the writing surface and to the drawer blades. The writing shelf is set into dadoes on the case sides and is half-lapped at the rear to receive the plinth blade. The plinth blade is thumbnail molded on its leading edge and backed by a slightly thinner dustboard that sits in the same dadoes as the writing shelf and is locked in place with a thin tightening strip glued into the bottom of the dado. The drawer blades are set in dovetailed dadoes on the case sides. Half-depth and three-quarter-thickness dustboards are set into wider dadoes. They are secured with filler strips glued in from below. With the exception of the bottom drawer runners, which are flush-nailed to the bottom board creating a shallow well, the remaining runners are similarly dadoed to the case sides. Thin drawer guides for the smaller case drawers run all the way to the backboard. The base molding is nailed in place. The mitered front feet are nailed to the bottom of the base molding and secured with vertical glue blocks. The side faces of the rear feet are nailed to the bottom of the base molding and dadoed to receive the back faces. The back faces are nailed to plinths nailed to the underside of the case. The plinths appear to be unused blanks for staircase spandrels.

On the desk interior, the construction of the small drawers matches that of the bookcase drawers. The dividers are set in upper and lower dadoes and are similarly joined to the case sides. The pigeonhole bracket attachment matches that in the bookcase. The side panels on the document drawers are nailed into rabbets at the front and flush-nailed at the back and bottom. The removable prospect case displays open dovetailed construction with a flush-nailed back panel. Its dividers are set in dadoes, and the drawers match those in the desk. The hidden interior shelves are also set in dadoes, while the dovetailed drawers have bottom panels set into rabbets on the front and sides and flush-nailed at the front and rear. They additionally have string pulls.

Each of the traditionally dovetailed case drawers has a central batten open dovetailed to the bottom of the drawer front and open tenoned at the rear. Two bottom boards beveled on the front and sides are set into grooves on the drawer sides, drawer front, and batten. They are flush-nailed at the rear.

Materials: Black walnut moldings, case sides, doors, fall board, drawer fronts, drawer blades, shelf blades, top and bottom board blades on bookcase, top board blade on desk, front part of writing surface, bladed leading edge of interior plinth, pigeonhole brackets, drawer dividers and stiles, exposed parts of feet, and top, bottom, and side panels of prospect case; yellow pine top and bottom boards, backboards, dustboards, case drawer sides and backs and bottoms, runners, glue blocks, strips and blocks supporting bookcase section, document drawer sides, backs, and bottoms, bottom panels on interior desk and bookcase drawers, bottoms on hidden prospect drawers, back on prospect case; oak sides and backs on interior desk and bookcase drawers, sides, backs, and fronts on hidden prospect drawers, central batten on case drawer bottoms; boxwood or maple inlays.

Label TextThis desk and bookcase has an oral tradition of early twentieth-century ownership in the Petersburg, Virginia, area, an important commercial center for central Southside Virginia. "Crawfords his desk" and "Jarrett," written in ink on the top board of the lower case, reinforce the Southside connection. The Crawford family owned a number of farms and plantations in the Southside during the eighteenth century, and Jarrett is the name of a small town in Sussex County. A desk by the same maker that has a history of ownership at Wakefield, the Surry County estate of the Harrison family, reinforces the Southside association. With a slightly blocked writing interior, a surprisingly complex base molding, and ogee bracket feet that project outward in the urban British fashion, the second desk illustrates the stylistic range of the unknown cabinetmaker.

Some of the elements on these two desks relate to case furniture attributed to Robert Walker of King George County, Virginia. For instance, the inlaid flutes of the document drawers in the desk and bookcase are similar to those on a Walker piece (CWF accession 1976-95). The blocked attachment of the cornice and the use of thin wedges under the dustboards also parallel those in Walker's work, while the projecting bracket feet of the Harrison desk are akin to those on a Walker clothespress in the CWF collection (accession 1950-205), suggesting that the maker of the Southside pieces was once associated with Walker, perhaps as a journeyman. The Southside desks differ from Walker work in the use of a central batten and double panels on the bottoms of the case drawers, an urban British approach found in furniture from Norfolk, Virginia, and Charleston, South Carolina. The batten, which rests in an open dovetail at the front of the drawer and in an open mortise at the rear, provides an extra measure of strength in wide drawers like these where the bottom had a tendency to sag.

That the maker of this desk was not always particular about material is indicated by his use of a badly scarred and partially miscut bottom panel on one of the interior drawers. The vertically aligned, coarsely cut backboards are also at odds with urban cabinetmaking practices. Set into rabbets on the case sides, they are nailed to the backs of the bookcase shelves much in the manner of corner cupboard construction. Together with the prevalent use of pinned joinery, the laminated cornice molding, and the skillfully sash-molded muntins in the doors, these elements suggest the hand of an artisan familiar with carpentry and architectural conventions. This conclusion is further supported by the plinths bracing the rear feet, which appear to be a pair of unfinished blanks for staircase spandrels.

InscribedThere are modern pencil numbers on the interior drawers. An original "R" and "L" appear in ink on the longer interior drawers; "1", "2", "3", and "4" are on the smaller interior drawers. Chalk assembly marks are on the backs of the case drawers. Written on the top board of the desk in ink are "Crawfords his desk," a word that appears to be "Jarrett," and two illegible words.
MarkingsNone
ProvenanceThe desk was acquired from collector Thomas Wood in 1975. It has an oral tradition of ownership in the Petersburg area, but inscriptions on the desk suggest an early history in the Surry Co. area of Southside Virginia.