Desk with book cupboard, oak, England, 1420-1450

Desk with sloping lectern top and book cupboard beneath, the base apparently cut down and nailed on to a 1" elm board. Carved on the front and sides with two rows of gothic blind arcading enriched with geometrical bar tracery within a cavetto moulded framework; the proper left side with a double, cusped arcade (each 13.5cm wide), the proper right with a triple arcade (each 9cm wide), and the front with four arcades (triple above, cusped below, each 15cm wide). On the upper storey of tracery (or super-arches) each unit consists of 2 'windows' with trefoil heads surmounted by a trefoil spandrel, with moulded crenellation along the bottom edge. The vertical back face (where a reader would stand or sit) is plain with the exception at the upper corners of two carved lions' masks, their tongues out. The sloping top (at 38 degrees tothe horizontal) opens on two hinges along its top edge; the interior is fitted towards the bottom with an internal hinged lid (which serves as a mid-height floor) opening to a lower compartment.

Materials
The desk is made of oak, except for replacement parts in elm. Two types of oak have been used: for the panels planks of very straight, slow growth eastern Baltic oak, and for most if not all of the structural framework, irregular, faster growth oak from small trees, with distinctive shakes (the visible natural shrinkage) and distortion indicative of typical of English timber used before it was fully seasoned. Ian Tyers conducted dendrochronology analysis on the three boards of the sloping top in June 2011 (none of which retain sapwood), and found growth patterns fully consistent with eastern Baltic oak. Accessing the end grain of the sawn-off carved panels would provide potentially useful additional data, but requires the removal of the nailed elm board, which is likely to damage both oak and elm parts. The narrower, central plank was still growing in 1412, the two flanking planks originated in the same tree which was still growing in about 1420. The surfaces of the boards, with smooth tool marks probably produced by a 'shave' blade, and lack of tearing of the fibres, suggest that they were worked while still green (unseasoned), probably around 1425-50.

Structure
The desk is of joined construction with full-height uprights at the corners (grooved to receive the boards with tracery), onto which the front upper rail and diagonal side rails (with integral mouldings and carved lion head) are set, using mason's mitres at the joints which are held with a single, large peg. (At the lower end of the side rail the peg is fixed from the desk back, but at the upper end, it is fixed from the side.) At the back (where the reader would stand), what is now the bottom rail with integral cavetto moulding is through-tenoned into the uprights, and secured with a single large peg from the back. The back appears to consist of a framework containing a floating panel consisting of two wide boards above one narrow one but in fact (as described above) the lion mask at the top of each upright is integral with the diagonal sloping side rail. Furthermore the uppermost 'board' is actually integral with the top 'rail' and is tenoned into each upright (the form of the tenon is hard to discern but the peg fixing is placed well below the fictive rail). Below it, butted and dowelled to this extended top rail is a board 8 1/2" (21.5cm) high, and a batten probably about 2" high (butted and dowelled to its neighbour) resting in a groove in the thick (3") bottom rail.

On the front and sides the large panels consist of butted and dowelled boards, grained vertically and carved in the solid (after dowel holes were drilled using a spoon bit, and fitted, as is revealed by carving). Each side consists of two planks, while the front consists of three. The joints and dowels are now easy to see, owing to cross-grain shrinkage and surface carving. What appears on each side at mid-height level to be a moulded rail holding panels above and below is in fact an applied moulding fixed to the tracery using two pegs, and matched within by a plain batten.

The hinged top consists of two butted ¾" (19mm) planks, and one (along the top) double-thickness to allow for the top 'batten' to be carved from the solid. Along each side of the lid, with a mitre where they meet the top 'batten', is an applied batten with cavetto moulding on its upper inside edge, held on pegs supplemented by some iron nails. Along the bottom of the lid is a similar but narrower stained softwood batten, a replacement. Along the top edge of the lid are two cutaway sections 6.5cm wide, and two mortises (with loose filler blocks) just below the mitre, the original purpose of which is uncertain, but which might relate to a system for propping the lid open (wedging a rod into the hole from underneath), or to a super-structure for lighting, now missing, or to guide two weighted ribbon page holders. The current long iron lid hinges nailed inside the lid appear to be replacements for earlier ones (of which nails remain), which were inserted and nailed into both the front top rail and the lid itself. They must have been added after the lid planks had suffered cross-grain shrinkage.

On each of the two back uprights (on their back face) there is a large dowel broken off 22cm from the floor. These may have secured a section of platform (now missing) to the bottom section. On the side of each back upright the mortise housing the bottom rail tenon has become exposed/damaged (presumably through the removal of part of the base, and the one on the left side has been filled with a wood block.

Interior
At the top of the compartment, along the front there are slots and a shallow rebate for a full-width shallow (max depth 1 1/2 to 1 ¾"), shelf (now missing).

Later changes and interventions
The batten along the bottom of the hinged, sloping lid is a replacement, apparently for one of similar design. The desk has apparently been reduced in height by the removal of the embattlement of the lower storey of tracery (6.5cm), and perhaps the depth of moulding beneath, and probably a plinth or feet of about 15-20cm, which may have reduced the overall height by about 30cm. Extensive common furniture beetle damage to the right front stile might have contributed to the decision to cut the desk down from its original proportions. Currently the desk sits on a wide elm 1" board, possibly of 17th or 18th century date, to which it is nailed from underneath, using hand-made nails. Just above the base, inside the lower compartment along the front and sides, three oak battens have been added inside the front and sides using modern screws from the outside, so as to stabilise the base section. On both sides there are two small round holes in the tracery (those on the left are filled), which may relate to the internal hinged lid.

There is heavy scratching and abrasion on the upper side of the lid, including a deep X near the hasp shadow, and a grid shape scratched near the top. Three cut nails have been driven into the underside of the left side rail, whose purpose is not clear, possibly an attempted repair. On the underside of the hinged lid, at the right side, is what appears to be the wormeaten shadow of a block fixing with a recessed strip about 18cm long with spoonbit drill holes and the remnants of nails. Such a block may have served as a prop for the lid at some time.

Added inside the upper compartment (14" above the current floor, 8" below the lip - coinciding with the mid-rail) is a batten of 1" elm inserted into slots cut in the front uprights, to which a full-depth elm shelf is fixed with two modern hinges, with two oak supporting battens to prevent it dropping. This shelf can be raised like a misericord (using finger gaps at the corners) to provide access to a compartment underneath. There is evidence that a board (now missing) originally served as the internal floor (19" below the lip, at the height of the bottom rail), which was held at the front in slots in the uprights; the shadow of heavy wear at the right side suggests that the floor may have been a hinged shelf which scraped the side panel when it was raised.

Metalwork
On the underside of the lid on either side, two short iron rods to support the lid at about 15 degrees to the horizontal. Each is held on a backplate with four modern screws, with a hammered iron retainer angle, and cut outs in the sloping side rails to house them when the lid is closed. The cut out on the left (a reader's right), rail fits the rod exactly, while that on the left is much larger, suggesting that the current rod replaces a larger, single original.

On the underside of the lid in the centre, a long iron rod to support the lid fully raised. It is held on a backplate with four modern screws, with a hammered iron retainer angle, and with an indentation to foot it in the top front rail.

The current 19th century (?) iron lockplate is screwed onto a non-original reserve; this is of stained softwood applied to and intended to match the top 'rail'. The lock appears to be a replacement for an earlier, larger, nailed precursor. Opposite it are the remains of an iron hasp fixed to the lid.

Painted decoration
Tiny traces of paint survive in recesses on the surface of the desk, for example whitish traces in vertical crevices of the tracery on the front, and orangy-red under the (replaced) book rest, and in tear-out on the underside of the hinged lid. Where heavy encrustation of wax and dirt was scraped from the endgrain of the hinged top planks to facilitate dendrochronological analysis, white paste was observed forced into the open 'pores' of the wood, suggesting that a prepatory layer had been applied. Samples were taken and examined by optical microscropy and Raman microscopy in 2011. No complex layer structure was seen, and the only materials were white and haematite, traditional pigments in use since antiquity. It is not therefore possible to conclude what sort of paint scheme was applied, and when.

Additionally, there are white 'paint' drips in the lower section of the desk, (some at right angles) possibly the result of washing off exterior paint (or a water soluble gound), with water running through the cracks between planks.

Bought for £12 from Charles W. Brown 'C.W and J.H. Brown, Antique Furniture and China Dealers', 21 Oxford Street, London, from whom the Museum bought various small items of metalwork, woodworking tools and woodwork 1891-1907, according to the nominal file. (Brown is not listed in Mark Westgarth, A Biographical Dictionary of Nineteenth Century Antique & Curiosity Dealers (Regional Furniture vol. XXIII, 2009)).

The desk was selected from Brown's shop stock by A.B.Skinner and [name illegible].
A museum memo 21.2.98 notes that 'the reading desk with Gothic carving is a very rare example of English Church furniture which is exceedingly difficult to obtain as so little furniture is left of the period to which this belongs. The lower portion is of the 18th century and should be removed.' J.H. Pollen, in a Dept. of Science and Art minute paper of 28/2/1898 notes 'A Church reading desk of the early years of the 16th century perhaps close of the 15th - a good deal worn and roughly repaired. A very uncommon object and its value consists in its historical character.'

Catalogued as: 'Reading Desk of oak, from a church, carved on three sides, each with two rows of Gothic arcading enriched with tracery, within a slightly moulded framework; the fourth side is plain with the exception of two carved lions' masks at the upper corners. The sloping top opens on hinges, and the interior is fitted with a cupboard with a hinged lid. Condition: Cracked, chipped and restored. The lockplate, inside hinges and iron supports are modern.'

This desk has been reduced in height and must originally have had a raised base or feet. It is characterised by the techniques of architectural joinery using massive sections of oak for the framework with integral mouldings and mason's mitres.

Display History (partial based on dept Findings Lists)
Displayed in room 21 (window side), probably during the 1920s
Displayed in room 25 (1970)
Store (RCCS, 1983; 52s, 1991; BH, 1998)
Gallery 135 (Chronology), 2012

Dating
Charles Tracy dated the desk to 1375-1400 based on comparison with similar, dated woodwork of this period. Dendrochronology suggests that the desk lid cannot predate 1420. Since it is impossible to know how much later growth may have been removed from these planks, a date range1420-50 is suggested, which remains compatible with the stylistic evidence.

Commentary from Tracy (1988)
This is an extremely rare example of a medieval desk-cum-book cupboard. It is without doubt authentic and English. It is a great pity that it has lost the lower part of its panelling and its base. Two decorative features point strongly to England. The trefoil tracery in the super-arches of the back panel is stilted in the characteristically early Perpendicular way (compare stall-ends at Lincoln Cathedral). This same trait could also be found on a fragment of panelling from the York Minster choir stalls in the Roe collection (illustrated in Roe 1910 [date must be wrong] plate XVI) where the tracery pattern is sexfoil. The date of the construction of the York stalls is about 1390. The treatment of the lions’ masks on the front of the desk is another parallel with Lincoln, in particular the same treatment of the hair in whorls and ear shape. The Lincoln stalls must have been manufactured in about 1370. the placing of these masks is reminiscent of the use of this motif on choir-stalls on the standards underneath the capping (compare Chichester Cathedral).

In construction and materials the desk conforms closely to surviving church woodwork of the 14th and 15th centuries, with such shared features as mortise and tenon joints with both large (c25mm) and small (c15mm) diameter pegs, mason's mitres, mouldings carved in the solid, also seen on the bishop's throne at Lincoln Cathedral (see Charles Tracy, A medieval bishop's throne at Lincoln Cathedral, Apollo June 2002 pp.32-41). Similar false panelling can be seen on the doorway from St Ethelburga the Virgin, Bishopsgate of the late 15th century (now Museum of London). The combination of Baltic and (presumably) English oak is typical of prestige woodwork made in the SE half of England from about 1300.

Precise analogies in terms of form have not been found in surviving furniture, which can be partly explained by the loss of so much woodwork from religious institutions during the various phases of the English reformation, and during the restoration of church buildings during the 19th century. A rare example of a late medieval oak lectern-cupboard survives in the Bayerische Nationalmuseum, Munich. Pictorial evidence of 15th century lectern-desk-cupboards shows many features of the V&A desk: a sloping top above a cupboard fitted with shelves accessed by various methods, and with carved decoration, raised clear of the ground on feet or a platform. See for example: manuscript illumination such as Harley 4425 (f.133r), Bruges c1490-1500,
Travels of John de Mandeville MS in the British Library Additional, 24189, Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire raisonné du mobilier français : de l'époque carlovingienne à la Renaissance, (Paris : Bance, 1858-1875), vol. 1 (Lutrin), fig. 7, copied from an manuscript in the Imperial Library; fig.1, copied from the bas-reliefs of the Amiens cathedral stalls.

It seems most likely that the desk originated, on an integral platform, not in the choir of a church as part of an ensemble of choirstalls, but in a monastic building such as a chapter house, scriptorium or refectory used as a lectern.

This rare Medieval desk probably originated in a monastic building such as a chapter house, scriptorium or refectory. It may have been used as a lectern, or as a desk for a scribe. It is now missing its base or platform, which would have raised it up substantially and probably insulated the user against the cold floor. The sloping top lifts up, giving access to a cupboard space inside.

Two types of oak were used for the cupboard, both worked ‘green’ or unseasoned: for the panels, planks of very straight, slow growth eastern Baltic oak, and for the structural framework, irregular, faster growth oak from small trees, probably English timber used before it was fully seasoned. Large quantities of Baltic oak boards were imported to the Eastern ports of England during the 14th and 15th centuries. In 2011, dendrochronological analysis was carried out on the three boards of the sloping top, which suggests that the tree from which they came was felled after 1420. Stylistically, the desk is close to other English church woodwork of the period around 1400.

143-1898