duchess - chests of drawers
Duchess dressing tables and chests. A Victorian dressing table, usually in the Rococo revival style. It generally has heavy cabriole or scroll legs standing on a platform base, although turned and reeded legs are not uncommon. The table. top may be rectangular or serpentine in shape. The superstructure consists of an oval or rounded mirror supported by carved brackets, beneath which are two or three small drawers for gloves, pins, jewellery and so on. Normally made from walnut, mahogany or cedar. A duchess chest is a term frequently, though some-what misleadingly, applied in the Australian antique market to a combination chest. It consists of a chest of drawers surmounted by a swing mirror flanked by several small drawers for gloves or studs. Mainly found in Edwardian furniture, both in pine and cedar.
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:
Tasmanian bird's eye huon pine duchess dressing table in good original condition and patination, all original brass handles.
Edwardian mirrored duchess comprising nine drawers and mirrored decorations