A Victorian Walnut and Feather banded kidney shaped kneehole desk

VICTORIAN WALNUT AND FEATHER BANDED KIDNEY SHAPED KNEEHOLE DESK with a replaced tooled leather inset top with a pierced brass gallery above three frieze drawers and eight pedestal drawers, with open shelves to the back, on a plinth.

The kidney-shaped desk first appeared as a writing or dressing-table during the Louis XV period (1715-1774) in France before being introduced into England in the late 18th century.  It evolved to incorporate drawers and often small shelves in the Sheraton period, see ‘The Cabinet Directory’ of 1803.  The finest Victorian examples were made by Gillows following the design for ‘An Oak Pedestal and Kidney Table supplied to Ferguson & Co.’ in the ‘Gillows Estimate Sketch Books’ (1840).  See Susan E Stuart ‘Gillows of Lancaster and London, 1730-1840,’ (ibid), Vol. I, p.339, pl. 393 for a similar walnut desk also stamped and with Bramah locks, which once belonged to the cricket writer Brian Johnston (1912-1994).