Reading desk

This is one of three adjustable desks supplied by Chippendale's workshop to Sir Rowland Winn between March 1767 and January 1769. Two were ‘music desks', costing £2 10s; they were fitted with a pair of brass arms to support candlesticks and each had a small drawer underneath. One of these survives in a private collection, by direct descent from Sir Rowland Winn. The present version has mahogany candle arms and no drawer, so it was considerably cheaper, at £1 18s. The bill, dated 31 January 1769, describes it as ‘A Mahogany reading desk to rise out of a pillar and Claw'. As well as being adjustable for height, the desk rotates and can be set at any angle, resting on an easel support at the back. As the slope is raised, a spring-loaded bookrest rises from its surface. The wooden castors are original. This type of adjustable table or desk was a common London model, and was made over a long period in a number of variants by different makers. Chippendale's workshop probably made these to a standard pattern, and Chippendale himself evidently did not think it worth including a design for such a quotidian article in The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director. However, one was illustrated in Ince & Mayhew's Universal System (1762) together with different versions of the adjustable slope.

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