Writing table (table à écrire). Culture: French, Paris. Dimensions: H. 30-3/4 x W. 38 x D. 22-5/8 in. (78.1 x 96.5 x 57.5 cm). Maker: Bernard II van Risenburgh (ca. 1696-ca. 1767). Date: ca. 1755.Letter writing was a much-practiced activity in eighteenth-century Europe. Horace Walpole, a prolific correspondent himself, reported on September 12, 1775, to his friend Anne Liddell, "There have been known here in Paris persons who wrote to one another four times a day; and I was told of one couple, who being always together, and the lover being fond of writing, he placed a screen between them, and then wrote to Madame on t'other side, and flung them over."1 In order to accommodate this incessant writing, a variety of tables à écrire, large and small, were created. Often fitted with a leatheror velvet-covered writing surface, and with one or more drawers for the storage of quills and other paraphernalia, these pieces were generally placed in the private rooms of the house. This particul