Desk and Bookcase
Mardun Vaughan Eventon
King William County, Virginia, 1750-1760
Black walnut with oak and yellow pine
Gift of the Burlington-Gwathmey Memorial Foundation
Catalog no. 140

Perhaps the best documented itinerant southern cabinetmaker is Mardun Vaughan Eventon. Along with carpenter Maurice Eventon, his kinsman and constant companion, Mardun Eventon worked in a variety of eastern Virginia locales during the third quarter of the eighteenth century.

This desk and bookcase is inscribed “Made By / Mardun V. Eventon”

inside the lower case. It descended in the Gwathmey family of King William County, Virginia, where the Eventons worked in the 1750s. Mardun Eventon's continual relocations after 1762 may reflect his frequent legal troubles and financial reverses.

The eccentric design of this desk and bookcase reflects the eccentric nature of Mardun's personal and professional history. The exterior surfaces of his wares mirror the British-inspired neat and plain furniture so popular in eastern Virginia during the third quarter of the eighteenth century. Yet the highly sophisticated writing interior features corbelled drawer ranks and receding ogee-blocked drawer fronts that differ markedly from those on most contemporary Tidewater desks, instead suggesting an awareness of eastern Massachusetts or Connecticut woodworking customs.