Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: The Museum Year 2010
The Year
Acquisitions
Art of the Americas: July 2009–June 2010
Escritorio (writing desk)
about 1671
Overall (Writing desk): 63.1 x 105 x 45.1 cm (24 13/16 x 41 5/16 x 17 3/4 in.)
Linaloe, granadillo, cedar, with marquetry and filled engraving
Classification: Furniture
Object Place: Villa Alta de San Ildefonso, Oaxaca, Mexico
Accession number: 2010.370
Location: William J. Fitzgerald Gallery (Latin America)
Provenance/Ownership History: Early history unknown; by 1970 until 2007, private collection, France [1]; 2007, anonymous (private collection) sale, Thierry de Maigret, Paris, 13 June 2007, lot 154, to Alexander di Carcaci Ltd; 2008, sold by Alexander di Carcaci Ltd, London, to Carlton Hobbs LLC, London; 2010, sold by Carlton Hobbs LLC, New York, to the MFA. Notes: [1] Letter from Thierry de Maigret, Paris, 29 January 2010, states that the desk was in France by at least 1970, in the possession of a family residing in the Paris region.
Museum purchase with funds donated anonymously, William Francis Warden Fund, American Decorative Arts Deaccession Fund, Arthur Tracy Cabot Fund, Edwin E. Jack Fund, and by exchange from a Gift of Harold Whitworth Pierce, Gift of Miss Ellen Graves, Mr. Samuel Cabot and Mrs. Roger Ernst in memory of their father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. Edmund P. Graves, Gift of Mary W. Bartol, John W. Bartol, and Abigail W. Clark, William E. Nickerson Fund, Gift of Mrs. Henry Lyman, Bequest of Barbara Boylston Bean, Charles Amos Cummings Fund, Gift of Mrs. Charles L. Bybee, Bequest of Dudley Leavitt Pickman, Gift of Henry G. E. Payson, and from funds donated by Mrs. Walter Hunnewell in memory of Walter Hunnewell