This Newport Kneehole Desk is the only reproduction piece which Alan has ever made. The original resides in the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, and the piece shown lives in the Turner home. While similar to desks by John and other Townsends and John and other Goddards, it is believed that this desk was made by Edmund Townsend.

The last half of the 18th Century saw the advent of the block front design which was not copied by the American Colonists from the English, the Continental Europeans, or the Asian furniture makers of the time. Block fronts were made primarily in Newport, Rhode Island, but also in Boston, although the Boston style of block front differs in important respects.

When comparing American and English antiques of this period, even if certain details bear similarities, one striking feature of the American designs is an emphasis on verticality. The vertical nature of 18th Century American furniture is perhaps most obvious in the tall secretaries of Newport which can reach nearly eleven feet in height. But even on this diminutive Newport Kneehole Desk, the block front design emphasizes the vertical line. Most of these desks were in fact small bureaus and these pieces are also called bureau tables. However, occasionally John Townsend and others made the bureau table into a working desk, and Turner’s piece is such an example. The top drawer is a drop front and pulls out to offer both a writing surface and to reveal a fully fitted case, complete with cubbies and small drawers for stamps and other brick-a-brack. Behind the door is a convenient place to store flat documents.

In this example, the drawer edges are offset to the rear by one-half inch to a tight radius. Unlike other Turner pieces, in this example it is not the drawers themselves which are cockbeaded, but rather the case and drawer blades.

As is traditional in many block front pieces, the convex drawers finish on the top drawer with three shells, two outer convex shelves, typically applied, and an integral concave shell.

In this piece there are deviations from the original. For example, the back of the original consists of two 1/2” thick pine planks, unfinished and nailed in place. Although not photographed, the back of Turner’s piece is frame and panel, of solid mahogany, with the center styles mirroring the three divisions of the front of the piece. The back of this desk need not be hidden against a wall.

A carefully study of any of the Newport Kneehole Desks is warranted because these pieces have perhaps the most integrated design of any piece of furniture. All details are consistent; curves flow into each other smoothly and without interruption. The width of the cockbeading, the same throughout, equals the thickness of the carcass beyond the sliding dovetail drawer blades. The shells line up with, and smoothly complete, the blocking of the drawers. The bead on the crown molding is identical to the rest of the cockbeading.

All of the Newport originals appear to have been made of Cuban mahogany. Such wood has not been commercially available since approximately 1920, and was a rare wood after the mid 19th Century. In order to attempt the rich color of the original, Turner used an undercoat of lemon yellow aniline dye, followed by a mixture of lime and water which chemically reacts with the mahogany to create a strong red tone. This red tone, overcoating the yellow dye, results in a quite permanent deep red orange color. Mahogany cannot generally be purchased as flitch wood because it is all sawn in the country of origin and boards from individual trees are not kept in order during drying and shipping. Accordingly, color variations were handled with toned shellac. This piece is top coated in lacquer and rubbed out by hand with dark wax.

Mahogany, poplar as the carcass secondary wood, drawer parts in hard maple and quarter sawn sycamore. Brasses from Londonderry Brasses. www.londonderry-brasses.com

H-34 1/2 inches, W-36 1/2 inches, D – 20 1/2 inches.