Games table desk

Instead of having large halls which could be transformed quickly into a dining room, ballroom, or audience chamber (thanks to big, sturdy transportable furniture), the trend now was towards a large number of smaller rooms in which smaller and more delicate specialized furniture stayed in permanence.

Only the extremely rich could afford to have items of furniture for every possible activity: a dresser for cosmetics, a commode for toiletry, a lady's desk for writing during most of the year and a lady's Fire screen desk for cold evenings, equivalent desks for the gentleman, a game table for chess, another one for checkers, a billiards table, and so on.

This is when furniture giving dual use or triple use became popular among those who were merely rich and could not afford having cabinet makers constantly making new items for their homes.

Most of them have in common a double-sided top, covered on one side with a gaming board and on the other side with tooled leather or some other material suitable for placing paper on it and writing with a quill.

The top board is sometimes attached loosely and sometimes very securely to the main body of the desk, and it is sometimes hinged.