Secrétaire à abattant 1820 - 1825

Curator: Just look at this "Secrétaire à abattant," an elegant desk made sometime between 1820 and 1825. What's your immediate take on it? Editor: It feels like a stoic Roman temple trying to pass as furniture. It's imposing, weighty, like secrets whispered behind polished wood. Curator: It’s neoclassical through and through! Anonymous artisans, somewhere, sometime crafted it. It's a lovely showcase of wood and carving that captures that post-revolutionary fervor. Think Empire style but softened somehow, made domestic. Editor: Empire, indeed. Makes me think about power, too. A piece like this, tucked into someone’s study, reeks of privilege and controlled narratives, even propaganda through refined materials. Did people feel empowered writing at it, or confined by the formality of the time? Curator: Maybe both! It is undeniably a beautiful object and functional, all clean lines and hidden compartments. Editor: Absolutely gorgeous, a testament to craftsmanship and the era's aspirations, for sure. And what are these secrets we are all trying to lock away in there? Does the craftsmanship speak to a broader sense of marginalization? Is something, or someone being actively excluded to sustain its aesthetic and, therefore, the social narrative it occupies? Curator: Oh, I imagine everything from love letters to mundane receipts... Editor: Precisely, all of which tell us the complex stories that remain contained inside. So much of this could be a tool, and yet, simultaneously, that history often forgets that function comes second and who will actively use the item. It's such a wonderful insight into those moments that continue to echo within art itself. Curator: Perhaps a prompt for my own exploration into history and untold stories contained within these magnificent objects. Editor: Maybe also who and where it exists as well - thanks so much!