What is a partners desk?

A desk with drawers or cupboards to both faces and a kneehole on each side, so two people can work opposite one another. It's finished all round, which means it stands in the room rather than against a wall. It's the defining variant in this category. Ninety-nine titles say partners and sixty-three say partners desk outright, and one sample runs to four pedestals.

Which wood is most common?

Mahogany, by a wide margin. It accounts for 160 of 294 titles, with walnut at 39 and oak at 38 roughly tied behind it. Other timbers appear only once or twice across the samples: pitch pine, teak, satinwood, kingwood, pollard oak and burr oak.

How old are these desks?

The dated field runs from 1700 to 1930, with 121 listings carrying a clean year. The earliest is a George I walnut library table dated 1700. Much of the labelling is broad. "19th Century" is the largest bucket and "Victorian" the next, so half the dating gives a century or a reign rather than a decade.

Do library desks come apart?

The pedestal form is commonly made in three parts: the top lifts off two separate pedestals. That's how a desk of this size gets through a doorway. Because it's finished on all sides, it was meant to be seen from every angle.

How many come up for sale each year?

About twenty-six a year on Sellingantiques, spread across 117 different dealers who have listed one at some point. That means few dealers hold more than a piece or two at a time.

Are French desks found in this category?

Occasionally. Nine bureaux plats appear across the archive, alongside Directoire, Napoleon III and Empire examples, some ebonised or in kingwood. Italian, Anglo-Indian and Chinese pieces turn up in small numbers too. The bulk of the category remains British.

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Antique Library Desks

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Large free-standing writing furniture made for the library or study: twin-pedestal desks with banks of drawers, and flat-topped tables on legs, built to be worked at from one side or both.