Illus. 104.—Block-front Desk, about 1770.
The middle ornament upon the top was gone many years ago, but Dr. Huntington remembers, as a boy with his brother, playing with the two end figures which, it is not astonishing to relate, have not been seen since those years. The figures were carved from wood, of men at work at their trade of cabinet-making, and the boys who were given the carved figures for toys played that the little workmen were the ones who made the secretary. The great handles upon the sides are large and heavy enough for the purpose for which they were intended, to lift the massive piece of furniture.
The block-front mahogany desk in Illustration [81] shows the blocked slanting lid. The brasses are original and are unusually large and fine. This desk belongs to Dwight Blaney, Esq., of Boston.
A splendid mahogany secretary owned by Albert S. Rines, Esq., of Portland, Maine, is shown in Illustration [105]. The lower part is bombé or kettle-shaped, but the drawers, which swell with the shape in front, do not extend to the corners, like the kettle-shaped bureau in Illustration [30], but leave a vacant space in the interior, not taken up at the ends. Three beautiful, flat, reeded columns with Corinthian capitals are upon the doors, which still hold the old bevelled looking-glasses. The handles are original, but are not as large as one usually finds upon such a secretary. There are larger handles upon the sides, as was the custom. The cabinet in the upper part is very similar to the one in Illustration [103], but there is no lacquering upon the curved tops behind the doors. With the thoroughness of workmanship and dislike of sham which characterized the cabinet-makers of the eighteenth century, there are fine pieces of mahogany inside at the back of the looking-glasses. The cabinet in the desk proper, which is covered by the slanting lid when closed, is unusually good, with the curved drawers, set also in a curve.
Illus. 105.—Kettle-front Secretary, about 1765.
This secretary is generous in secret compartments, of which there are six. The centre panel of the cabinet is the front of a drawer, locked by a concealed spring, and at the back of this drawer are two secret drawers; beneath it, by sliding a thin piece of mahogany, another drawer is disclosed; a fourth is at the top, behind a small drawer, and at each end of the curved drawers is a secret drawer. The secretary is over eight feet in height.