Click to see larger image

c.1780

England

Mahogany; spruce, white oak

37 7/8 x 50 x 33 7/8 in. (96.2 x 127 x 86 cm)

Inscriptions:
 In chalk on center of bottom of desk portion, "Shepherd"

Writing Table
This writing table has an extraordinary historic association. Tradition maintains that it served for the signing of the treaty that formally established American independence. It was among the furnishings that David Hartley brought to Paris in 1783. As the British commissioner for creating the treaty recognizing the new United States, the official recognition of independence between Great Britain and her rebellious American colonies, Hartley was sent to Paris in order to speed up the negotiations which had extended for more than a year. He was a member of Parliament as well as a friend of Benjamin Franklin, the most influential of the American commissioners. The signing of the official peace treaty between Great Britain on one side, and France and Spain on the other, was performed at Versailles on September 3, 1783. Austria and Russia sent representatives to act as mediators.

In an effort to reduce the stature of France in guaranteeing American independence, Hartley acquiesced to the American suggestion for a separate treaty. The American commissioners, Franklin, John Adams, and John Jay, met privately with Hartley on the morning of September 3rd in his rooms at the Hotel de York and signed a treaty entitled, "The Definitive Treaty of Peace between his Britannic Majesty and the United States of America." Adams later regretted the decision to avoid Versailles as it would have meant instant recognition by both Austria and Russia.

The name "Shepherd" may refer to the original cabinetmaker. There were several Shepherds working in the furniture trade in London about 1780, and two Shepherds, George and Thomas, subscribed to Sheraton's Drawing Book in 1793. Without a first name, however, there can be no further attribution to this date.

The tambour action, adopted from France, became very fashionable in England from the 1770s. Large numbers of tambour writing tables were made to several standard designs. Thomas Shearer published the first illustration in his widely consulted The Cabinet-Makers' and London Book of Prices.

In 1926 J. Wilson Sons and Coombe, an English auction house, sent the writing table to a sale in Evanston, Illinois, in the hope of attracting Henry Ford who was then assembling his remarkable collection of Americana at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan. Ford's agent missed the auction and the writing table went to the Stein family. In 1963 it came to the Diplomatic Reception Rooms, a fitting resting place for the object that held the first formal diplomatic act recognizing American independence.

Authors:
J.T. Butler & G.T. Vincent