What wood are most Georgian bureaux?

Mahogany leads, named in 327 of the 709 titles on Sellingantiques. Oak and walnut follow, at 143 and 148 titles. Everything else is scarce. Elm, yew, fruitwood, cherry, satinwood, rosewood, padauk, mulberry and cedarwood turn up only a handful of times apiece, and the rarest of them sit at the top of the range.

How wide is a typical example?

Narrow. Titles repeatedly specify 2'6" or 3ft widths, and the usual piece is three feet or less across. The trade treats that narrowness as the selling point. "Small" appears in 79 titles, with petite, dinky, diminutive, neat and tiny doing the same job elsewhere.

Why are 1920s pieces filed as Georgian?

Because they're revival work. Titles such as "Georgian Style" and "in the Georgian Taste" sit inside the category alongside the originals. That's why the dated years run from 1700 to 1930, a 230-year spread. Revival and Edwardian examples make up under one in ten of the listings.

What is the difference between a bureau and a secretaire?

A bureau has a hinged sloping fall that drops forward to make the writing surface. A secretaire has a flat pull-out drawer front instead. Secretaire appears in 25 titles, secretaire bookcase in nine. A third variant, the cylinder or tambour, closes the writing space with a curved solid or slatted shutter, and shows up in eleven titles.

Are corner bureaux common in this category?

No. Three exist in the whole archive: a Welsh oak one, a George I oak one and a walnut corner bureau bookcase. Miniature and child-size pieces are a slightly stronger strand, with a Welsh oak miniature from Glamorgan, a George III child's bureau and two miniature mahogany examples.

How often do these come up for sale?

Around 74 Georgian bureaux are listed on Sellingantiques in a year. Across the archive 176 different dealers have handled one, which makes this a form almost every general furniture dealer touches at some point.

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Antique Georgian Bureau

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A sloping fall-front writing desk on a base of drawers, made in Britain through the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries to give a household one lockable place to write and keep papers.