Antique French Burr Walnut Sevres & Ormolu Mounted Writing Table Desk 19th C

This lovely shaped top is crafted from the most beautiful burr walnut, with amboyna crossbanded decoration and boxwood stringing, and featuring a striking ormolu border cast with foliates and gadroons. The frieze features a usefull drawer with oval ormolu frames housing Sèvres plaques hand painted with floral decoration on each side. The desk is raised on elegant ormolu mounted ebonised reeded tapering legs terminating in ceramic castors.

It is finished on all sides so that it can stand freely in the centre of your room.

Complete with working lock and key.

Condition:
In excellent condition having been beautifully cleaned and waxed in our workshops, please see photos for confirmation.

Dimensions in cm:
Height 74 x Width 93 x Depth 56

Dimensions in inches:
Height 2 foot, 5 inches x Width 3 feet, 1 inch x Depth 1 foot, 10 inches

Walnut & Burr Walnut

Walnut is a hard, dense, tight- grained wood that polishes to a very smooth finish. It is a popular and attractive wood whose colour ranges from near white in the sapwood to a dark hew in the heartwood. When dried in a kiln, walnut wood tends to develop a dull brown colour, but when air-dried can become a rich purplish-brown. Because of its colour, hardness and grain, it is a prized furniture and carving wood. Walnut veneer was highly priced and the cost would reflect the ‘fanciness’ of the veneer – the more decorative, then the more expensive and desirable.

Burr walnut refers to the swirling figure present in nearly all walnut when cut and polished, and especially in the wood taken from the base of the tree where it joins the roots. However the true burr is a rare growth on the tree where hundreds of tiny branches have started to grow. Burr walnut produces some of the most complex and beautiful figuring you can find.

Walnut “burrs” were often used to make fabulous furniture. Veneer sliced from walnut burl is one of the most valuable and highly prized by cabinet makers and prestige car manufacturers and is also a favourite material for shotgun stocks.