Secretary desk

A secretary, or escritoire, is a historic piece of furniture with a writing surface. It has evolved from the Cabinet and was in contrast to the high desk designed primarily for home use. Great popularity enjoyed the furniture in the 18th and 19th centuries, especially in the Biedermeier period.

Shaping

Early copies are borrowed from a closet or a chest of drawers, later more like a table with attachment. The design of the furniture varied between these extremes functional, but also between the styles of different eras.

The dresser had three drawers usually from France but are also copies with lockable doors and drawer hidden behind rows known. The essay contained bins, drawers and recesses for ink, paper, documents and the like, and was closed with a fold- forward console lid, which served as a writing surface when open. By the time it was in the design of a series of changes, for example, mirror doors to the middle part, more legroom for the user or drawer rows right and left of the central cavity of the essay.

Originally developed as a compact furniture for a variety of needs, the design of the Secretary of the end of the 18th century was always easier and more elegant. The massive base important dividing with more or less imaginatively designed feet and took more and more the form of a table instead of a chest of drawers on. The writing surface could be pulled out, and the overlying compartments and drawers hidden behind a guided quarter- circle roller shutter. This part as well as the resulting intellectual nature of the desk with run in half-or quarter-circle roller shutters and without tower was named "Cylinder Bureau ."

The roll-top desk was after 1760 one of the most important furniture of the Paris art carpenter. Another furniture from France were the small Bonheur du jour. These were ladies desks, although they had little drawers or shelves, but were it worked even more complicated, even with mosaic work.

The secretary or writing desk came early 18th century in Germany, primarily over England and the Netherlands. From there, the German furniture are mostly inspired. Unlike the French and English copies of these are performed less often from exotic hardwoods, but more often from local wood about veneers with fruit trees.

With the service company the reputation of paperwork took off, so that secretaries were no longer manufactured. Since the 1920s, took over lighter desks, often made ​​of steel tubing, their function. Above all, because of the noble woods and intricate veneer work are historical secretaries in demand today as antiques and since about 1970 also reproduced.

Rococo Secretary from the Karlsruhe Palace

Low secretary of the Louis Seize

Roll-top desk from 1775