A Bureau a gradin or bureau à gradin is basically an antique desk form resembling a Writing table with, in addition, one or several tiers of small drawers and pigeonholes built on part of the desktop surface. A desk is a Furniture form and a class of table often used in a work or Office setting for reading or Writing on or using a Computer A writing table (French bureau plat) has a series of drawers directly under the surface of the table to contain writing implements so that it may serve as a Desk Usually the drawers and pigeonholes are placed in front of the user but sometimes they can surround him, or her, as is the case for the Carlton house desk form. A Carlton House desk is a specific antique Desk form within the more general Bureau a gradin form
In some cases the bureau a gradin has a second tier of drawers under the work surface, and thus looks like an advanced form of the bureau Mazarin or like a non-enclosed version of the cylinder desk, or the tambour desk. The bureau Mazarin is a 17th century Desk form named more or less in memory of Cardinal Mazarin, regent of France from 1642 to 1661 The cylinder desk is a form of Desk which resembles a Bureau Mazarin or a Writing table equipped with small stacked shelves in front of the user's main A tambour desk is a Desk with desktop-based drawers and pigeonholes in a way resembling a bit that of a Bureau a gradin.
See also the List of desk forms and types. Any list of desk forms and types encountered in the modern Office or home and in antique stores is incomplete and contradictory given the variations in the naming
References
- Souchal, Genevieve. French Eighteeenth Century Furniture. Translated by Simon Watson Taylor. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1963.
- De Reyniès, Nicole. Le Mobilier Domestique: Vocabulaire Typologieque. Paris: Ministère de la Culture et de La Communication, 1987.
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