Desk and bookcase

Date:: 1765–90

Geography:: Made in Boston, Massachusetts, United States

Culture:: American

Medium:: Mahogany, white pine

Dimensions:: 93 1/2 x 45 5/8 x 24 5/8 in. (237.5 x 115.9 x 62.5 cm)

Classification:: Furniture

Credit Line:: John Stewart Kennedy Fund, 1918

Accession Number:: 18.110.3

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 717

According to late-nineteenth-century tradition, this desk was in George Washington’s headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts, during the Siege of Boston (April 1775–March 1776). Consequently, it was exhibited at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago as “Washington’s desk.” It is the only known piece of American furniture to combine the bombé and blockfront forms. A later collector replaced the original mirror-glass doors in the upper section with wood panels.

Inscription: inscribed in chalk on bookcase bottom board: Boston / H. Rechards; inscribed on desk bottom board: H. Rechards

William Greenleaf, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, until died 1803; his daughter, Elizabeth Greenleaf Pope, 1803–died 1841; her son, Thomas Pope, 1841–1872; his son, William Greenleaf Eliot Pope, 1841–1881; R. J. Lackland, St. Louis, 1881–1892; Reverend Edward R. Pope, Rochester, Minnesota, 1892–1893; George S. Palmer, New London, Connecticut, until 1918

Timelines
The United States, 1600–1800 A.D.

American Furniture in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Late Colonial Period. Vol. II, The Queen Anne and Chippendale Styles
A Handbook of the American Wing

Department

American Decorative Arts (12,059)

Object Type / Material