Desk and Bookcase

Artist/Maker
Wilkins, Robert
Place Made
Norfolk Virginia United States of America
Date Made
1755-1762
Medium
black walnut –atlantic white cedar –yellow pine –tulip poplar
Dimensions
HOA: 95″; WOA: 41″; DOA: 22 1/2″
Accession Number
5786
Description
DESCRIPTION: Desk and bookcase, upper case contains bookcase with adjustable shelves over 10 pigeonholes with shaped valances, this over three drawers over one long drawer; angular broken pediment features dentil molding and central fluted plinth; desk interior fitted with 10 pigeonholes with shaped valances and dividers over a set of drawers; no prospect door; desk has four tiers of graduated drawers; ogee bracket feet.

MAKER: This desk and bookcase, inscribed in chalk with the name of its maker, Robert Wilkins, is the earliest signed piece of Norfolk, Virginia, furniture known. It fits into a small group of case furniture that reflects Norfolk’s pre- and post- Revolutionary style and its influence on regional cabinetmaking in the second half of the late 18th century. In form, it is closely related to two Norfolk desk and bookcases in MESDA’s and Colonial Williamsburg’s collections. The angular broken pediment and fluted plinth appear to have been regional tastes and share commonalities with a Norfolk corner cupboard illustrated in Burroughs and a scrutoire-form desk attributed to Norfolk by Sumpter Priddy in his recent article in The MESDA Journal. Because Norfolk was burned by Lord Dunmore in the Revolutionary War, pre-Revolutionary Norfolk furniture is extremely rare.

The cabinetmaker Robert Wilkins worked in Norfolk from roughly 1755 until his death in 1762. Wilkins’s will makes specific mention of his “juniper swamp” land and profits from the timber on it. Juniper was the 18th-century term for Atlantic white cedar, one of the secondary woods identified on this desk and bookcase. Additional research has identified Wilkins’s master as Ebenezer Stevens, one of the first men in Norfolk to be described professionally as a “cabinetmaker.” From 1750 to 1752, Robert Wilkins was included in Norfolk County tax lists in Ebenezer Stevens’s household. Stevens worked in Norfolk from 1736 to 1765, when he relocated to Pasquotank County, North Carolina.

Because Norfolk burned during the Revolutionary War, furniture made in the periphery around Norfolk sometimes provides the best parallels for early Norfolk-made pieces. One of the best parallels to this desk and bookcase is a desk and bookcase illustrated by John Bivins in Furniture of Coastal North Carolina (pp. 249-252). It was made in Northampton County, North Carolina, and attributed by Bivins to cabinetmakers Thomas Sharrock and Samuel Lockhart who both trained in Norfolk. Both the Sharrock-Lockhart desk and bookcase and the Wilkins desk and bookcase share an important and uncommon design characteristic, the absence of a prospect door.

History
First published in 1931 by Paul Burroughs in “Southern Antiques,” the desk and bookcase was rediscovered in 1973 by Janet Hoggard Blocker in Santa Barbara, California, in 1973. The desk and bookcase remained in the Blocker collection until 2014 when it was given to the MESDA collection.
Artist Working Dates
1755-1762
Credit Line
Gift of Janet Hoggard Blocker; Additional funds provided by Patty and Bill Wilson