The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-01-21
OLD FASHIONED
 WRITING TABLES,

In the early days of the medieval [ period, when household furniture, as the term is understood today, was slowly evolving from the rudimen- tary beginnings, a table was a simple, massive affair, probably a board laid on trestles, and it had to play a va r1ety of parts in the domestic econo . my. On it the family and the fam lly's retainerS ate their meals, SUD- posing, that is, that the master of the house was sufficiently opulent to afford the luxury of two tables. At night, 1t not infrequently did service as bed; and, if any of the family had acquired. the art of writing, no doubt a corner of it would be all they needed in the way of a writing table. Later on, the table became a more elaborate affair and, as the needs of the average family grew more and | more complicated, a variety of tables | made their appearance to supply them, says the Christian Science Mon | itor.
 After some hundreds of years, the | first simple trestle tables had given ] way to heavy, richly carved ones, and they, in their turn, to tables of all sorts and descriptions; round tables, oval tables, side tables, dressing ta- | bles, gate-legged tables claw-footed tables, cabriole-legged tables, and, in 1 fact, to too many different kinds of tables to make it possible to mention | half of them-including of course, 1 writing tables.
 A few fifteenth century illuminated | manuscripts show pictures of simple sloping writing desks; and, in late i Tudor and Jacobean times, such things as small desks, mounted on table stands, were not unknown, al l though they were rare. These, how | ever, were exceptional cases and the | ordinary person did his or her writing at a table in no wise specially adapt ed for the purpose. The end of the | seventeenth century, in England | found a. much wider diffusion of let ters, in the larger sense of the word l throughout the community, than haj 1 ever been the case before, and, nat. | urally enough. this change was ac. companied by great development il the designing and making of writine
 
 into, and continued throughout. the eighteenth century. The tern bureau" is said to have been de rived from the Latin word ''burrus, red, and to refer to a reddish clotI used for covering the desk. Tn derivation of the word escritoire may be traced more easily from it's Latil origin.
 Many of the late seventeenth cen } tury bureauX were simple, dignifiet ! affairs, often having tall cupboards crowned with pediments and cornice above the desk or writing portion with its pigeonholes and drawers, in closed by a sloping lid, while, be ] meath, were larger drawers. Walnu was the wood principally in use a
 this time, but sometimes differen = woods were combined, and the write
 knows an excellent example which carried out entirely in oak. Tn Dutch influence appeared sometime l in the rounded fronts of the lowe portion, containing the drawer | Queen Anne's reign produced larg l variety of writing tables and bureau. l some on rather similar lines to thos l Of the preceding reign, and with C | , without the upstanding cupboard | above.
 | A convenient type of little knee | hole writing table appeared in tt
 reign of Queen Anne, which has | charming appearance, but these al | by no means so easy to secure as u more usual type of writing burea Later on in the eighteenth centur when Chippendale had appeared i
 the world of cabinet making, hs d, vised a number of variations of whi he calls the "desk and bookcase
 but, in addition to these he mac pedestal tables and library tables,
 a form which has remained in gene
 al use since his time. Some Of Il
 dressing tables and writing table
 the early Chippendale period at
 really equally well suited to fluff
 either function, and the writer DO
 sesses one nick has been four
 equally satisfactory in practical u
 in both capacities. After Chippel
 dale, as all the world knows, Thor
 as Sheraton became the leading liz
 in the matter of furniture dedgnin
 and he is responsible for some of Il
 most charming little writing tabl
 Of the "boudoir' type ever desig1
 ed
 Although charming to look at al
 well adapted for the writing of g occasional note. for practical pu poses something more substantial