The secretaire en portefeuille is an antique
desk form which is usually mounted on rollers at the end of four jutting legs. The legs in turn support what looks like an oversize vertically mounted wooden pizza box. This is a cabinet a few inches thick, with barely enough space in it for the raised desktop surface and a few pens and sheets of paper disposed vertically. It is also called a "Billet doux".
The secretaire en portefeuille is much like a
fall front desk which has been reduced in depth to a bare minimum. Like the fall front desk and the
secretary desk
A secretary desk or escritoire is made of a base of wide drawers topped by a desk with a hinged desktop surface, which is in turn topped by a bookcase usually closed with a pair of doors, often made of glass. The whole is usually a single, tall ...
the secretaire en portefeuille's desktop lifts up to cover internal areas and must thus be cleared of all work before closing up. By its mobile nature and its relatively light weight it was sometimes used as a
fire screen desk {{Citations missing, date=August 2007
The fire screen desk (also known as a screen writing table) is a very small antique desk form meant to be placed in front of a fireplace to keep a user's feet warm while he or she is stationary while writing. ...
. It was also sometimes known by that name.
Its name comes from the French word for wallet: ''
portefeuille''. This is probably because it has the same proportions as many kinds of wallets and it opens up a bit like some of them.
Modern day cabinet makers and furniture designers have sometimes created contemporary versions of the secretaire en portefeuille, eschewing the florid designs of the antique ones.
See also
*
List of desk forms and types
This is a list of different types and forms of desks.
Desk forms and types
*Armoire desk
*Bargueño desk
* Bible box
* Bonheur du jour
*Bureau à gradin
* Bureau brisé
* Bureau capucin
*Bureau Mazarin
*''Bureau plat'', see Writing table
* Butl ...
References
Bibliography
* De Reyniès, Nicole. ''Le Mobilier Domestique: Vocabulaire Typologique''. Paris: Ministère de la Culture et de La Communication, 1987.
* Gloag, John. ''A Complete Dictionary of Furniture''. Woodstock, N.Y. : Overlook Press, 1991.
* Bogomolets O. Radomysl ''Castle-Museum on the Royal Road Via Regia''. — Kyiv, 2013 {{ISBN, 978-617-7031-15-3
External links
* An 183
Secrétaire en portefeuillefrom the collection of the Musée Carnavalet, Histoire de Paris.
Desks
History of furniture