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Lot Essay
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, but the present example adheres closely to a Gillows design for a 'Writing-table' from 1798 (L. Boynton, Gillows Furniture Designs 1760-1800, Royston, 1995, fig. 50). A desk stamped GILLOWS.LANCASTER and inscribed Nash Oak Lodge is of similar design, and might be the same desk in a watercolor from the Colored Sketch Book inscribed the Carlton table made for Carlton House for Prince Consort, illustrated in S. Stuart, Gillows of Lancaster and London 1730-1840, 2008, vol. I, p. 287, pl. 302.
The best known form of 'Carlton House' desk is that usually executed in mahogany, with a stepped superstructure of two or three tiers and curved back. This form of desk 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, 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" and 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).
The best known form of 'Carlton House' desk is that usually executed in mahogany, with a stepped superstructure of two or three tiers and curved back. This form of desk 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, 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" and 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).