For Thomas Mann, the familiar sanctuary of the writer’s study stood as a fundamental and lifelong source of creativity and productivity. Writing in English in 1941, he noted that a familiar environment was of great importance to an author, referring to the “accustomed books and walls, the view from the window of his study” and, above all else, “his own desk”.

In fact, Mann’s rather pompous-looking desk, which he acquired in the late 1920s in Munich, went on to accompany the author across the various posts of his exile. The piece arrived in the Swiss town of Küsnacht in November 1933, having barely eluded confiscation by German authorities, along with a number of other items of furniture cherished by Mann. The desk later followed him to the USA, where it took its place in Mann’s rooms in Princeton (New Jersey) and Pacific Palisades (California). It ultimately returned to Switzerland, together with a range of personal effects, as it was sent first to Erlenbach and then to Kilchberg, near Zurich, where the Nobel Prize winner died in 1955.

For Mann the émigré, this desk – 1.9 metres in width, 1 metre in depth, 78 centimetres in height and featuring 8 drawers and carved, floral patterns – embodied a sense of creative continuity. In 1938 Thomas Mann wrote, in a letter to his colleague Bruno Frank, that he was henceforth determined to apply himself to his life’s work and activities with greater assiduity than ever, refusing to allow harmful events to deter or discourage him along the way.