Desk, Slant-Top

Object Name:

Desk, Slant-Top

Object ID:

1933.001.02

Place of Origin:

New Hampshire

Date:

circa 1800

Description:

Slant-front desk, with history of use by Franklin Pierce. Sloped lid with transverse end cleats and supported on slides when open. Case has reverse-serpentine or "ox-bow" front. Four markedly graduated drawers framed on the case with beads. Each drawer has an oval brass escutcheon and two brass handles, each having a bail with bulbous center and a round plate for each post. Scotia and ovolo molded base with a shell-curved central drop. Four short cabriole legs with sharp knees, claw and ball feet, and shaped brackets. Escutcheon on lid similar, but not identical, to those on drawers. Desk interior has a central cabinet with door hinged on the right and decorated below center with a carved fan. On each side of central cabinet are two compartments surmounted by two layers of drawers, two drawers below and one above. Central cabinet contains two full-width drawers.
Birch partly of "wavy" grain. Interior compartments and drawers pine, stained red-brown on fronts. Pencil inscription on inner surface of left end: "REPAIRED + REFINISHED / DEC. 1920 / THOMAS HOLLIS / CONCORD, / N.H.".

Material:

Wood
Metal

Dimensions:

H-43.75 W-45.5 D-24 inches

Provenance:

Typed label tacked inside back of one of larger interior drawers reading: "This desk used by Franklin Pierce, 14th President of the United States, when he was a practicing lawyer." Pierce practiced law in Hillsborough, NH, 1827-1838, and in Concord, 1838-1852. Donor's close family connections in Concord suggest that desk was acquired from Pierce's Concord office, but may also have been used earlier in Hillsborough.

Credit Line:

Gift of Margaret H. Jewell

People:

Pierce, Franklin (1804-1869)