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 {{unreferenced, date=January 2008 The portable desk had many forms and is an ancestor of the portable computer, the modern laptop an atavistic grandchild of the 19th-century lap desk. Medieval era and Renaissance All desks were portable to some ...

with a slanted hinged top giving access to the writing surface and utility nooks and small drawers. The second piece is a stand made for it in the same style and material. It is also sometimes a single piece of furniture which looks as if it were made up of the two previous pieces but is in fact solid and nondetachable. This form was popular in

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 ...

and was often done in the Queen Anne style. The

slant top desk 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, wh ...

is a direct morphological descendant. In a sense the Spanish Bargueño (or Vargueño) desk is a distant cousin of the two piece version, since the Bargueño is also made up of a portable desk and a stand constructed specially for it, using the same materials and style.

References

*Aronson, Joseph. The Encyclopedia of Furniture. 3rd edition. New York: Crown Publishers Inc., 1965. *Boyce, Charles. Dictionary of Furniture. 2nd ed. New York: Roundtable Press Book, 2001. *Moser,Thomas. Measured Shop Drawings for American Furniture. New York: Sterling Publishing Inc., 1985. *Sack, Albert. Fine Points of Furniture: Early American. New York: Crown Publishers, 1950. Desks Portable furniture {{furniture-stub

See also

References