The slant-top desk, also called secretary desk, or more properly, a bureau, is a piece of writing furniture with a lid that closes at an angle and opens up as a writing surface. It can be considered related, in form, to the

desk on a frame The desk on a frame (or desk on frame) is usually an antique form made up of two pieces of furniture. The first piece is a fairly large and closable portable desk with a slanted hinged top giving access to the writing surface and utility nooks ...

, which was a form of portable desk in earlier eras. In the United States, the slant-top desk is sometimes called a Governor Winthrop desk, in memory of John Winthrop, the 17th century governor of the

Massachusetts Bay Colony The Massachusetts Bay Colony (1630–1691), more formally the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, was an English settlement on the east coast of North America around the Massachusetts Bay, the northernmost of the several colonies later reorganized as the ...

. As Winthrop died in 1647, he had no actual connection to this style of desk, which originated in the 18th century and is especially associated with Chippendale. The name "Winthrop" was attached to this kind of desk by the Winthrop Furniture Co. of Boston, Massachusetts, who offered their "Gov. Winthrop" desk in 1924, during the colonial revival period. Like the Wooton desk, the

fall-front desk The fall-front desk can be considered the cousin of the secretary desk. Both have a main working surface or desktop that does double duty as a cover to seal up papers and other items located in small shelves or small drawers placed one on top of t ...

and others with a hinged desktop (and unlike closable desks with an unmovable desktop like the rolltop desk or the

cylinder desk 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 ...

), all documents and various items must be removed from the work surface of the slant-top desk before closing up. The slant-top desk has been handcrafted in a variety of styles, one of them being the block front

seashell A seashell or sea shell, also known simply as a shell, is a hard, protective outer layer usually created by an animal or organism that lives in the sea. The shell is part of the body of the animal. Empty seashells are often found washe ...

desk of the 18th century which was popular among the well-to-do of

Colonial America The colonial history of the United States covers the history of European colonization of North America from the early 17th century until the incorporation of the Thirteen Colonies into the United States after the Revolutionary War. In the ...

. The slant-top desk has also been mass-produced in a great quantity of sub-forms and materials. For instance, some slant-top desks have very crude chains or levers to hold the desktop in an open working position, while others have elegant sliders ("lopers") which are manually or automatically extended to give support.

References

*Aronson, Joseph. The Encyclopedia of Furniture. 3rd ed. New York: Crown Publishers, 1966. *Boyce, Charles. Dictionary of Furniture. 2nd ed. New York: Roundtable Press Book, 2001. *Gloag, John. A Complete Dictionary of Furniture. Woodstock, N.Y. : Overlook Press, 1991. *Moser, Thomas. Measured Shop Drawings for American Furniture. New York: Sterling Publlishing Inc., 1985. *Romand, Didier. L'argus des meubles. Paris: Balland, 1976. Desks

See also

References