How many come up for sale each year?

About seventeen knee hole desks are listed on Sellingantiques in a year, drawn from a wide spread of dealers rather than a handful of specialists. Forty-five different dealers have carried one, so no single stock or taste shapes what the category looks like.

What woods were they made from?

Mahogany leads, in about two fifths of titles, followed by walnut at a quarter and oak at one in eight. Together they cover nearly four fifths of the category. The tail is long but thin. Yew, ash, satin birch, satinwood, rosewood, pine, Chinese elm, Cuban mahogany, burr oak and kingwood each appear only once or twice.

Which periods do these desks cover?

The dealers' dated field runs from 1750 to 1930. The earliest sampled piece is a walnut desk dated 1750, and a kingwood-veneered example is labelled late 17th century, older than the stated range. Where a clean year is given, the clusters fall in the 1920s, 1930s, 1910s, 1900s and 1890s. So the late-Victorian to interwar span is the bulk of what dates precisely.

Are all of them office-sized?

No. A sizeable minority are described as small, compact or neat-sized, and the form suited bedrooms and small studies from the start. Against those sit the large and very large desks, including a nine-drawer twin-pedestal example.

Do foreign-made examples turn up?

France is the only foreign origin with real presence, through a run of inlaid marquetry desks all dated to the 1930s. Beyond that there is a single Continental carved walnut desk and a Chinese elm one.

Can a knee hole desk be a dressing table?

Two titles record the same object doing both jobs, offered equally as a desk and as a dressing table. That reflects how the form began, as a compact writing and dressing piece for a bedroom as much as a study.

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Antique Knee Hole Desks

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A knee hole desk is a flat-topped writing desk with a recessed opening for the sitter's legs between two banks of drawers, made for bedrooms and small studies as much as for offices.