This small desk or secretaire is from the period when Serge Chermayeff was engaged by Waring & Gillow Limited as head of their newly created 'Modern Art Department'. November 1928 saw the department launched with 'Modern Art in French and English Furniture and Decoration', an ambitious and influential exhibition of 68 room displays, held on the fourth and fifth floors at the firms Oxford Street showrooms. Realised in a richly figured mahogany, it's elegant, sculptural design displays Chermayeff's distinctive signature use of 'fluted' legs, which in turn supports a well proportioned chamfered 'box', set with two drawers. The metal label affixed to the interior dates this piece to the period between 1928 and 1930