CIRCA 1800

The first published design of a desk of this type was one illustrated in A. Hepplewhite & Co. The Cabinet Maker's London Book of Prices, 2nd ed., 1793, pl. 21. The pattern became associated with Carlton House, the residence of the Prince Regent, later King George IV, after Rudolph Ackermann had illustrated a writing-table of this design in 1814, claiming that it was called a Carlton House desk 'from having been first made for the august personage whose correct taste has so classically embellished that beautiful palace' (see H. Roberts, 'The First Carlton House Table?', Furniture History, XXXI, 1995, pp. 124-128). The recent discovery of a bill among the Prince of Wales's accounts in the Royal Archive revealed that 'a large Elegant Sattin wood Writing Table containing 15 Drawers and 2 Cupboards' with '16 Elegant Silver handles with Coronets' was supplied by John Kerr, a recipient of several orders for the Prince of Wales, in 1790, a full two years before the earliest known published design for a table of this form (ibid. p. 127). It is also interesting to note that the Carlton House inventories of 1793 also record that there was a 'A large writing Table' in the library of Captain Payne's apartment at Carlton House (Carlton House Inventories, vol. A (Coutts), 1793, f. 42).