Dutch Rococo Revival Desk, ca. 1890
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GUEST:
It was my aunt's, and she offered it to me. She was an antique collector all of her life. She never told anybody her age. Doesn't even have it on her gravestone, she just has the dates that she died.
APPRAISER:
Oh, my gosh. (laughing)
GUEST:
But anyway, I thought it was beautiful and so I decided to get it from her, and I think I paid her about $300 or $400.
APPRAISER:
And when was this?
GUEST:
I think it was in the early '70s.
APPRAISER:
So it is in the Dutch rococo style. And this desk was made around about 1890, but it was made in the style of a piece of furniture which would have been made around about 1720 or 1730.
GUEST:
Uh-huh.
APPRAISER:
And in the beginning of the 18th century in northern Europe, especially surrounding Holland, people became fascinated with marquetry inlay, and this piece has some wonderful marquetry inlay here on the slant front: this wonderful bird within the flower arrangements. And this was at the beginning of the 18th century, and then towards the end of the 19th century, there was a big revival of it and people really couldn't get their hands on enough of it. And so they started producing more pieces. They took old, slightly more boring-looking pieces of furniture and added inlay to them to make them a little fancier, and then they made pieces as well. I wanted to show the inside of the piece. It has this really pretty interior with the marquetry here, also on the door, and then all of the drawers surrounding. It's been exposed to the elements, to the sun a fair amount, and so it's a little sun faded.
GUEST:
Did you find the secret drawer in here?
APPRAISER:
Where did you find the secret drawer?
GUEST:
The secret drawer... ...is right under here.
BOTH: This comes out.
GUEST:
And then this comes out.
APPRAISER:
Well, they certainly don't make it easy to find the secret drawer, that's for sure.
GUEST:
And there's the secret drawer.
APPRAISER:
And this whole compartment down here, yes.
GUEST:
The whole compartment all the way across.
APPRAISER:
So it has a couple of things playing against it. The condition isn't ideal.
GUEST:
No.
APPRAISER:
And I pointed out some of the issues. And then, interestingly enough, across the board, slant front desks in general have just fallen out of favor. That being said, if I were to see this in a well-publicized auction, I would expect it to bring between $1,000 and $1,500.
GUEST:
Oh, my goodness. Good heavenly days!
Appraisal Details
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