A bureau à gradin is an antique desk

Desk

A desk is a furniture form and a class of table often used in a work or office setting for reading or writing on or using a computer. Desks often have one or more drawers to store office supplies and papers. Unlike a regular table, usually only one side of a desk is suitable to sit on . Not all...

 form resembling a writing table

Writing table

A writing table has a series of drawers directly under the surface of the table, to contain writing implements, so that it may serve as a desk...

 with, in addition, one or several tiers of small drawers and pigeonholes built on part of the desktop surface. Usually the drawers and pigeonholes directly face the user, but they can also surround three sides of the desk, as is the case for the Carlton house desk

Carlton House desk

A Carlton House desk is a specific antique desk form within the more general bureau à gradin form. This specific form is supposed to have been designed in the 18th century for the Prince of Wales by George Hepplewhite. It is named after Carlton House, which was at the time the London residence...

 form. A small, portable version is a bonheur du jour

Bonheur du jour

A bonheur du jour is a type of lady's writing desk. It was introduced in Paris by one of the interior decorators and purveyors of fashionable novelties called marchands-merciers about 1760, and speedily became intensely fashionable...

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In some cases the bureau a gradin has a second tier of drawers under the work surface, and thus looks like an advanced form of the bureau Mazarin

Bureau Mazarin

The bureau Mazarin is a 17th century desk form named more or less in memory of Cardinal Mazarin, regent of France from 1642 to 1661. It is the earliest predecessor of the pedestal desk and differs from it by having only two tiers of drawers or three tiers of rather small drawers under the...

 or like a non-enclosed version of the cylinder desk

Cylinder desk

The cylinder desk is a desk that resembles a Bureau Mazarin or a writing table equipped with small stacked shelves in front of the user's main work surface, and a revolving cylinder part that comes down to hide and lock up the working papers when the desk is not in use...

, or the tambour desk

Tambour desk

A tambour desk is a desk with desktop-based drawers and pigeonholes, in a way resembling bureau à gradin. The small drawers and nooks are covered, when required, by reeded or slatted shutters, tambours, which usually retract in the two sides, left and right...

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See also the List of desk forms and types.