William Freeman Regency Davenport Desk 1830s Georgian Flame Mahogany Freemans
A beautiful, special and very rare flame mahogany Georgian Davenport in wonderful condition. Made by heralded furniture makers Freemans of Norwich, most likely in the 1830s, this fabulous and very much still highly usable Davenport will add superb quality, beautiful colour and bygone sophistication to any interior.
Freemans of Norwich were a family of celebrated furniture makers based in the city around the first half of the 19th Century – father William and sons William Philip and Charles Jeremiah. Renowned artisans, their furniture is on display at Blickling Hall and Felbrigg Hall in Norwich, with other items selling at top auction houses Sotheby’s and Christies. Only one other Davenport by Freemans is recorded in the furniture History Society’s records, making this piece extremely rare indeed.
Beautifully crafted from flame mahogany, this Davenport is extremely solid and reassuringly heavy. It features a sliding locking desktop ideal for storing a laptop and papers, four large locking drawers to the left side with dummy drawers to the right and a pull-out inkwell drawer complete with ink bottle. A beautiful and extremely rare feature are the pair of concealed slide-out candle holder ledges, much-needed for late-night 19th Century letter writing – this is the only Davenport we know of to have these.
The sloping desk is adorned with the original racing green leather centrepiece with gold embellishments and has a bordered flat upper ledge. The front is decorated with four beautiful Corinthian carvings, most likely by William snr, who was renowned for his superb carving work. It has an impressive and imposing, shapely, Romanesque base and is set on attractive gadroon-mounted wheels for ease of movement.
The drawers and dummy drawers have beautiful handles and brass-fronted locks and inside the desk are two opening upper drawers and two lower dummy drawers (where the inkwell slides behind). It has the Freemans stencil to the underside of one the drawers and has pencil marks underneath the base which appears to read “Palmer SC23”, which we haven’t been able to trace but might indicate that it was built for General Charles Palmer, MP for Bath in the early 19th Century, who was married in 1823.
All in all this is a spectacular and extremely rare Davenport of the highest quality by a renowned maker. A highly usable space-saving desk, it will add the finest Georgian quality and grandeur to any setting.
CONDITION
This is in very-good-to-excellent condition, quite remarkable for its age. Beautifully constructed, extremely sturdy and reassuringly heavy, all the mechanisms work well and it shows only minor to-be-expected signs of its considerable age. It has two working keys, all four outer drawers and the desktop are lockable and overall it’s a breath-taking piece, which if well looked after should be just as gorgeous in another couple of centuries or more – please see the photos.
MEASUREMENTS
Height - 83.5cm, Width - 59cm, Depth - 59-77cm, Desk Leg Height - 67cm, Internal Desk Width - 52.5cm, Internal Desk Depth - 35cm, Internal Desk Height - 11-5.5cm, Internal Drawer Width - 40.5cm, Internal Drawer Depth - 47cm, Est Weight - 30-40kg.
DELIVERY
UK delivery price quoted, collection also available from Warwick UK. Please CONTACT US FOR INTERNATIONAL DELIVERY QUOTES - the current International delivery quote is just a place-holder.
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