The secretaire en portefeuille is an antique
desk
A desk or bureau is a piece of furniture with a flat table (furniture), table-style work surface used in a school, office, home or the like for academic, professional or domestic activities such as reading (activity), reading, writing, or using ...
form which is usually mounted on rollers at the end of four jutting legs. The legs in turn support what looks like an oversize vertically mounted wooden pizza box. This is a cabinet a few inches thick, with barely enough space in it for the raised desktop surface and a few pens and sheets of paper disposed vertically. It is also called a "Billet doux".
The secretaire en portefeuille is much like a
fall front desk
The fall-front desk is a desk with a main working surface that folds up to cover small shelves or drawers stacked in front of the user. As with its cousin the secretary desk, all working papers, documents and other items have to be stored before ...
which has been reduced in depth to a bare minimum. Like the fall front desk and the
secretary desk
A secretary desk or escritoire is made of a base of wide drawers topped by a desk with a hinged desktop surface, which is in turn topped by a bookcase usually closed with a pair of doors, often made of glass. The whole is usually a single, tall ...
the secretaire en portefeuille's desktop lifts up to cover internal areas and must thus be cleared of all work before closing up. By its mobile nature and its relatively light weight it was sometimes used as a
fire screen desk. It was also sometimes known by that name.
Its name comes from the French word for wallet: ''
portefeuille''. This is probably because it has the same proportions as many kinds of wallets and it opens up a bit like some of them.
Modern day cabinet makers and furniture designers have sometimes created contemporary versions of the secretaire en portefeuille, eschewing the florid designs of the antique ones.
See also
*
List of desk forms and types
This is a list of different types and forms of desks.
Desk forms and types
* Armoire desk
* Bargueño desk
* Bench desk
* Bible box
* Bonheur du jour
* Bureau à gradin
* Bureau brisé
* Bureau capucin
* Bureau Mazarin
*''Bureau plat'', see W ...
References
Bibliography
* De Reyniès, Nicole. ''Le Mobilier Domestique: Vocabulaire Typologique''. Paris: Ministère de la Culture et de La Communication, 1987.
* Gloag, John. ''A Complete Dictionary of Furniture''. Woodstock, N.Y. : Overlook Press, 1991.
* Bogomolets O. Radomysl ''Castle-Museum on the Royal Road Via Regia''. — Kyiv, 2013 {{ISBN, 978-617-7031-15-3
External links
* An 183
Secrétaire en portefeuillefrom the collection of the Musée Carnavalet, Histoire de Paris.
Desks
History of furniture