Design for Roll Top Desk
Medium
Classification
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
Gift of Eleanor and Sarah Hewitt
Accession Number
1931-94-508
About this artwork
Research in Progress
Art Historical Context
This elegant *Design for Roll Top Desk by Mathieu Nicolas Goulet Saint-Morien, a French artist active in the late 18th, captures the ingenuity of Enlightenment-era furniture innovation. Created as a print during the 1700s, it showcases a practical yet refined roll-top desk—a relatively new invention designed for secure storage and organized workspaces, popular among the rising merchant and administrative classes. Goulet de Saint-Mor's work reflects the neoclassical taste of the period, emphasizing symmetry, functionality, and subtle ornamentation suited to bourgeois homes. As a print medium, ...