cylinder desk

It must have been inspired by the French cylinder desk."

In that, it is a descendant in function, and partly in form, of the cylinder desk of the 18th century.

As the Empire style became more entrenched, and his success grew, Lannuier produced larger, more expensive pieces including sofas, cylinder desks, and bedsteads.

Unlike the cylinder desk, the rolltop desk could be mass-produced rather easily since the simple wooden slats could be turned out very fast in a uniform way.

A cylinder desk bearing in the marquetry the arms of the comte d'Artois, and made in 1781-82, is in the Royal Collection, Windsor Castle.

Also in the room is a Louis XVI mahogany cylinder desk acquired for the Red Room during the administration of President John F. Kennedy.

Like the rolltop desk, which was invented much later, the cylinder desk usually has a fixed work surface: the paperwork does not have to be stored before the desk is shut.

The most famous cylinder desk, and perhaps the most famous desk of all times is the Bureau du Roi manufactured for the French royalty in the 18th century.

By this capacity of hiding or revealing the main working area the spinet desk could be said to be a smaller, less obtrusive cousin of the rolltop desk and the cylinder desk.

The wooden slats of the rolltop's tambour were usually joined together by being all attached to a cloth or leather foundation, and were thus less influenced by the problems which plagued the cylinder desk.

The show begins when two muscular supernumeraries carry, as for example on a recent Sunday, a Victorian cylinder desk from its resting place near an inlaid, 19th-century flip-top game table to a central spot in the room.

More paper and more correspondence drove the need for more complex desks and more specialized desks, such as the rolltop desk which was a mass-produced, slatted variant of the classical cylinder desk.

The cylinder desk was a predecessor of the rolltop, and had been in use in France in the 1700s, but warping of the top was common as it was made from a single piece of wood.

The knockout piece here is Lot 88, a marquetry cylinder desk attributed to Jean-François Oeben, a German-born, Paris-based craftsman who was considered one of the very best cabinetmakers of the mid-18th century.

The Billiards Room has two impressive, massive mahogany desks, including a cylinder desk with gilt bronze mount of circa 1785 made by a Russian follower of the cabinetmaker David Roentgen (estimate: $160,000 to $192,000).

While there are certainly a few antiques with high estimates - a pair of colorful majolica blackamoor garden seats by George Jones, for example, and a George III mahogany-and-satinwood cylinder desk - many pieces in the sale carry estimates under $5,000.

In some cases the bureau a gradin has a second tier of drawers under the work surface, and thus looks like an advanced form of the bureau Mazarin or like a non-enclosed version of the cylinder desk, or the tambour desk.

The cylinder desk is also called "bureau Kaunitz", as it was allegedly introduced in France in the first half of the 18th century by Wenzel Anton von Kaunitz, then the ambassador of the Habsburg Empire to the French court.

The cylinder desk is a desk that resembles a Bureau Mazarin or a writing table equipped with small stacked shelves in front of the user's main work surface, and a revolving cylinder part that comes down to hide and lock up the working papers when the desk is not in use.

Thus, like the Wooton desk, the fall front desk and others with a hinged desktop, and unlike closable desks with an unmovable desktop like the rolltop desk or the cylinder desk all documents and various items must be removed from the work surface before closing up.

The sale is particularly strong in French antiques, including a Louis XVI cylinder desk with the stamp of Ferdinand Bury, circa 1780, and a pair of Louis XV giltwood consoles with carved dragons, one of them formerly owned by Hubert de Givenchy, the couturier.