Federal Inlaid and Figured Mahogany Butler’s Desk

Object Details

Object Essay

Although not labeled, this butler’s desk is closely related to a group of documented desks made by the New York City cabinetmaker Michael Allison.^{1_{Butler’s desks with the labels of Michael Allison can be found in the Newark Museum; the New York State Museum (Flannery, 996); and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Flannery, 995), among others.}} They all have a deep top drawer fitted with smaller drawers, pigeonholes, and a writing surface raised and lowered by a curved metal slide. Allison’s desks also typically have inlaid veneer banding, frequently in contrasting light woods, outlining each of the four drawers and forming a distinctive oval design on the top drawer; a scalloped skirt; elegant splayed French feet, reminiscent of the earlier Hepplewhite style; and diamond-shaped decorative inlays on the top drawer.^{2_{See, for example, “a fine [English] eighteenth century miniature mahogany chest on bracket feet with shaped apron front and sides” in an advertisement by Otto M. Wasserman (Antiques 101 [April 1972], 649).}} Here, the inlay—an American eagle surmounted by eighteen stars—suggests that the desk was not made before 1812, when Louisiana became the eighteenth state in the Union.^{3_{For similar inlay, described as typical of New York and New Jersey, see Montgomery 1966, 38, no. 115. Some scholars believe that dating a piece based on the number of stars in the eagle inlay is unreliable. Conger and Pool, 104, write, “The position of the eagle, the number of stars, the shape of the shield and the number of stripes all seem to have depended on design and technical considerations or simply on whimsy.” In this case, style as well as the number of stars have led to the possible date.}}

The attribution to Michael Allison is confused by the documented work of Richard Allison, Michael’s brother, both sons of Captain Joseph Allison (1722–1796). Richard (1780–1825) lived and worked on Vesey Street in New York City near his older brother.^{4_{A labeled desk by Richard Allison, of 58 Vesey Street, was illustrated in Edith Gaines, ed., “Collector’s Notes,” Antiques 101, no. 6 (June 1972), 1059.}} More labeled furniture is known to have been made by Michael Allison than by any other cabinetmaker of early 19th-century New York City (including Duncan Phyfe and Charles-Honoré Lannuier), but a handful of labeled pieces by Richard Allison have been identified.^{5_{Flannery, 995–96.}}

The furniture of both Allisons is characteristic of New York Federal-period furniture, inspired by the well-known English design books of Thomas Sheraton, Thomas Shearer, and George Hepplewhite. From a choice of round, serpentine, or plain-front chests of drawers, described in detail in the New York Cabinetmaker’s Book of Prices (1802), the straight front was the one most favored by the Allisons as well as other high-style New York cabinetmakers.

This desk is one of the finest butler’s desks preferred by New York’s upper-class clientele during the earliest years of the 19th century. 

Page Talbott

Excerpted from Clement E. Conger, et al. Treasures of State: Fine and Decorative Arts in the Diplomatic Reception Rooms of the U.S. Department of State. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1991.