A Late Victorian Black Painted Pine Chiffonier c.1880

SOLD
Origin: English
Period: Late Victorian
Provenance: Unknown
Date: c.1880
Height: 38.5”
Width: 34”
Depth: 17”

The late Victorian period pine carcass showing the original period black painted finish, now timeworn with age and use, having a rectangular top now lacking the superstructure, above a pair of panelled drawers, the fielded cupboard below opening to reveal a cream painted interior with adjustable shelving, flanked by turned tapering columns, on re-entrant breakfront plinth, the whole surviving from the last quarter of the nineteenth century.

The piece is in useable order with the doors shutting as they should and the drawers running smoothly. The three knob handles are later replacements and matched in and there are bored holes where the originals would have been. There are marks to the top where the vertical gallery would have once sat. The interior shows the original cream paint. There is a small section of loss to one foot as photographed and one flank is more worn to the base colour than the other.

A chiffonier is similar to a sideboard but differentiated by its smaller size and by the enclosure of the whole of the front by doors. It was one of the many curious developments of the mixed taste, at once cumbrous and bizarre, which prevailed in furniture during the Empire period in England. The earliest chiffoniers date from that time and are usually in rosewood.

A very decorative piece that would make a splendid hall or console table.
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