Resolute desk

Uncommon card · No. 84301

The Resolute desk, also known as the Hayes desk, is a nineteenth-century partners desk used by several presidents of the United States in the White House as the Oval Office desk, including the five most recent presidents. The desk was a gift from Queen Victoria to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880 and was built from the oak timbers of the British Arctic exploration ship HMS Resolute. The 1,300-pound (590-kilogram) desk was created by William Evenden, a skilled joiner at Chatham Dockyard in Kent, probably from a design by Morant, Boyd & Blanford. The desk has been modified twice, with a kneehole panel added in 1945 and a 2-inch-tall (5 cm) plinth added to the desk in 1961. HMS Resolute was abandoned in the Arctic in 1854 while searching for Sir John Franklin and his lost expedition. The ship was found in 1855 by George Henry, an American whaling ship, repaired, and returned to the United Kingdom in 1856 as a gesture of goodwill from the United States. The ship was decommissioned in 1879...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Pete Souza, Public domain