Secretaire

Wood, veneer – mahogany, metal. The second quarter of the 19th century, Russia.
According to the legend, this secretaire once belonged to Gogol, who used to write in the standing position (the upper box can be transformed into a working plane-desk). This secretaire, which fully justifies its name as it keeps a lot of secret boxes and pigeonholes, stood in Bulgakov’s «Blue Study» in Naschokinskiy lane apartment. Judging from the surviving photographs the writer worked at this secretaire during the second half of the 1930«s. On this very faded surface coated with thin reddish skin Bulgakov has been working on the novel „The Master and Margarita“. Acquired in 2010 from L. Tarasevich.