This 19^th century plantation desk/stationary from Kirkwood Plantation in Mississippi will be presented by Ricco/Maresca Gallery. The desk was made by William “Willie” Howard when he was a slave living on the plantation, and has over 50 applied carvings depicting Masonic imagery, tools and utensils useful in plantation life. Howard remained on the Kirkwood plantation as a freedman after the Civil War and during Reconstruction. This desk/secretary is considered a retrospective work of art commemorating life on Kirkwood. This piece makes me muse about what furniture on the plantation he may have been copying, and what we might have found stored inside in say, 1860.

Ricco/Maresca is in booth 108.