Years of letters were written on this desk, and it still does the job. Drop the fall and a full fitted interior opens up: nine pigeonholes under scalloped valances, six small drawers with turned brass knobs, and an inset leather writing surface worn to a soft moss green where wrists rested and pens moved. The fall is supported on its original lopers, each with a small brass ring pull, and the brass lock plate and butt hinges are still in place.
The case is mahogany with a wild figure, crossbanded in satinwood and picked out with fine inlaid stringing along every drawer front and around the fall. Three graduated drawers sit on cut bracket feet. The hardware is the flourish: cast swag pulls hung from ribbon-tied bows and floral rosettes, with matching bow-crested oval escutcheons that give an otherwise restrained Georgian form a little French romance.
