Antique Victorian Edwards & Roberts Inlaid Kidney Desk C1880 19th C

This is a delightful antique late Victorian mahogany kidney shaped kneehole desk by the renowned Victorian cabinet maker and retailer Edwards & Roberts, Circa 1880 in date.

The desk is free standing and features an abundance of gorgeous floral marquetry decoration with satinwood line inlay and banding. The top is inset with a beautiful gold tooled dark green leather writing surface. The handles, brass castors, and locks are all original and add elegance to this beautiful desk.

This desk features an arrangement of nine solid oak lined drawers for convenient storage, has a beautifully inlaid modesty panel on the rear and is raised on short square tapering legs.

It is fitted with top quality brass Chubbs patent locks and the desk bears the ivorine trade label for Edwards & Roberts,

Edwards & Roberts

148-160 Wardour Street

532 Oxford Street

London

This stunning desk is sure to become the centrepiece of your furniture collection and will receive the maximum amount of attention wherever it is placed.

Condition:

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

Dimensions in cm:

Height 72 x Width 122 x Depth 58

Height 58 x Width 37 - Knee Hole

Dimensions in inches:

Height 2 foot, 4 inches x Width 4 foot x Depth 1 foot, 11 inches

Height 1 foot, 11 inches x Width 1 foot, 3 inches - Knee Hole

Edwards & Roberts

The firm Edwards & Roberts was one of the best English antique furniture cabinet makers of the second half of the eighteenth century. The company was founded in 1845 and by 1854 was trading as ‘Edwards & Roberts’, 21 Wardour Street, Antique and Modern Cabinet Makers and Importers of Ancient Furniture’. By 1892 they occupied more than a dozen buildings in Wardour Street, where they continued to trade until the end of the century.

They became one of the leading London cabinet makers and retailers producing high quality furniture and working in a variety of styles, both modern and revivalist. Their business also involved retailing, adapting and restoring the finest antique furniture and there are many examples of their earlier furniture with later embellishments bearing their stamp. The quality of timber used was always the best quality with fine burr walnuts, finely figured mahogany and lighter toned satinwood as they specialised in marquetry, inlay and ormolu.

Marquetry

is decorative artistry where pieces of material (such as wood, mother of pearl, pewter, brass silver or shell) of different colours are inserted into surface wood veneer to form intricate patterns such as scrolls or flowers.

The technique of veneered marquetry had its inspiration in 16th century Florence. Marquetry elaborated upon Florentine techniques of inlaying solid marble slabs with designs formed of fitted marbles, jaspers and semi-precious stones. This work, called opere di commessi, has medieval parallels in Central Italian "Cosmati"-work of inlaid marble floors, altars and columns. The technique is known in English as pietra dura, for the "hardstones" used: onyx, jasper, cornelian, lapis lazuli and colored marbles. In Florence, the Chapel of the Medici at San Lorenzo is completely covered in a colored marble facing using this demanding jig-sawn technique.

Techniques of wood marquetry were developed in Antwerp and other Flemish centers of luxury cabinet-making during the early 16th century. The craft was imported full-blown to France after the mid-seventeenth century, to create furniture of unprecedented luxury being made at the royal manufactory of the Gobelins, charged with providing furnishings to decorate Versailles and the other royal residences of Louis XIV. Early masters of French marquetry were the Fleming Pierre Golle and his son-in-law, André-Charles Boulle, who founded a dynasty of royal and Parisian cabine