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. 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 Antique versions have the usual divisions for the inkpot, the blotter and the sand or powder tray in one of the drawers, and a surface covered with leather or some other material less hostile to the Quill or the Fountain pen than simple hard wood. Quill is a high level object oriented Programming language created by the Dutch software company Quintiq. A fountain pen is a Pen that contains a reservoir of water-based liquid ink.

Diagram

Writing table (Bureau plat), about 1750, Gaspard Feilt (designer and maker), France V&A Museum no. 1052:1 to 5-1882

In form, a writing table is a Pedestal desk without the pedestals, having legs instead to hold it up. A pedestal desk is usually a large free-standing Desk made of a simple rectangular working surface resting on two pedestals or small Cabinets of stacked This is why such tables are sometimes called leg desks.

The writing table is often called a "Bureau plat" when it is done in a French style such as Louis XVI, Art Nouveau, etc. Art Nouveau ( nu vo anglicised /ˈɑːt nuːvəu/ ( French for 'new art' also known as Jugendstil ( German for 'youth style' is an international When a writing table is supported by two legs instead of four, it is usually called a Trestle desk. There are two kinds of trestle desks, the antique form and the modern improvisation

The writing table is also sometimes called a library table, because it was often placed in a rich individual's library. This was the room in a house where a gentleman would keep literature and also do his business transactions. The library often housed, in addition, a round desk called a Rent table and sometimes a Drawing table. A drawing board (also drawing table, drafting table or architect's table) is in its antique form a kind of multipurpose Desk which can be The term library table is sometimes applied indiscriminately to a wide variety of desk forms, in addition to being used for writing tables. Let the scholar or the buyer be wary.

Some writing tables have additional drawers built above the surface. In this case they are often called Bureau a gradin instead of writing table, unless they have a more specific form, such as that of a Carlton house desk. 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 A Carlton House desk is a specific antique Desk form within the more general Bureau a gradin form

As with many other desk forms antique writing tables were sometimes built with what was, at the time, a complex mechanism of gears and levers to make sections slide out or pop up when certain panels were pulled. In this case one sometimes called them a Mechanical desk. A mechanical desk is usually an antique Desk type which was produced during the 18th or the 19th century

See also

• list of desk forms and types

References

• Gloag, John. 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 A Complete Dictionary of Furniture. Woodstock, N. Y.  : Overlook Press, 1991.
• Oglesby, Catharine. French Provincial Decorative Art. New YorkCharles Scribner's Sons, 1951.
• Romand, Didier. L'argus des meubles. Paris: Balland, 1976.
• Souchal, Genevieve. French Eighteeenth Century Furniture. Translated by Simon Watson Taylor. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1963.

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