Height: 36¹/₄ in (92 cm)
Width: 24 in (61 cm)
Depth: 13³/₄ in (35 cm)
An exceptional George II walnut bureau of rare small proportions, finely patinated golden brown colour; signed by its maker and dated 1732.
The interior fitted with a range of eleven variously sized drawers with curved facings and a shaped panel inset with old green silk-velvet, enclosed by a sloping flap with matched veneers and chevron bandings. The lower part with two long drawers and two short drawers below a long drawer with a hinged drop-front which encloses a removable walnut tray with various shaped compartments. All the drawers have oak linings, chevron bandings, cock-beaded edges and original oval brass escutcheons and ring and disc handles. The straight-grained sides fitted with brass carrying handles, mounted on bracket feet.
This desk was made by a German craftsman called John George Troetser in Maiden Lane in the workshops of Robert Hyde. An inscription on the base of the upper drawer in German roughly translates as: 'John George Troetser, of a foreign country, joiner's assistant to master Heid in Maiden Lane, London, made this desk, March 9th 1732'. As Adam Bowett points out: 'it is typically English in style and construction, and were it not for the inscription its German maker would have remained unsuspected. Pieces like this go a long way to explaining the strong stylistic and technical affinity between English cabinet-work and some contemporary German work'.
The master Heid in Maiden Lane is almost certainly Robert Hyde (or Hide) of Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, recorded in London Polling Lists and contemporary advertisements between 1744 and 1749.
Adam Bowett, Early Georgian Furniture 1715 - 1740, p.40, pl.1.29 (illustrated)
Connoisseur, May 1934 (illustrated, advertised with Frank Partridge & Sons, Ltd.))
Apollo, October 1938 (illustrated, advertised with H. M. Lee & Sons)