chest style - bedside cabinets
Bedside Cabinets. Small cupboards, usually square or rectangular though sometimes round, designed to stand one on either side of a bed. They have been made since the 18th century, but true pairs are very difficult to find. In a genuine pair, the doors should be hinged on different sides, so that the cupboard opened away from the bedside. Small chests of drawers were also made as bedside pieces. Pairs of French bedside cupboards are much more common than English or Australian pairs, which even when part of a bedroom suite, were only made as singles. Most Victorian or Edwardian pairs of bedside cupboards that come on to the market, have been made up from the pedestals of pedestal dressing tables of the period, but due to demand the fact that they are not original does not diminish their value.
Chest of drawers. Until the mid-19th century, the standard chest had either four long, or three long and two short drawers. Rarely were there any exceptions to this rule. A chest with three drawers, or a series of small upper drawers, purporting to be Georgian, will probably have been converted from a chest-on-chest or tallboy. It is true that the 18th century commode often contain two long deep drawers, but this was a much grander and more decorative piece altogether, intended for drawing rooms, not bedrooms, and in any case was usually made to stand on legs. The standard chest of drawers continued to be made throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries (some Edwardian pine chests even had bracket feet), but variations were introduced during the mid-Victorian period, with some chests having seven or more drawers usually a deep hat drawer and smaller glove compartments. Chests with barley-sugar twist or split bobbin-turned supports date from the mid-19th century.
2 item(s) found:
A pair of late 19th century Australian huon pine bedside tables, the rectangular tops with slanted edge above four graduated drawers, raised on a plinth base, adapted, 43 cm wide, 54 cm deep, 76 cm high.
Napoleon III European ash side table with three drawers, a pot cabinet and a white marble top