How common are display cabinets on Sellingantiques?

About 338 are listed in a year, and 289 different dealers have handled one. That's close to a dealer apiece, which makes it one of the most widely stocked furniture forms on Sellingantiques. The archive behind that runs to 3,456 listings.

What wood are they usually made of?

Mahogany dominates, in roughly a third of titles, and it is very often inlaid. Satinwood turns up as inlay and as a ground for painted decoration. Walnut is the second thread, with burr walnut concentrated in the 1920s and 30s Art Deco cabinets. Kingwood belongs mainly to the French vitrines.

Why are shop cabinets in this category?

Glazed shop fittings were made on the same principle as the drawing-room cabinet, and roughly one listing in ten is retail rather than domestic. That covers counter-top showcases, drapers' and haberdashery counters, chemist and apothecary cabinets, and cases later sign-written for chocolate and biscuit brands.

What does a pair mean for a display cabinet?

Pairs are a real minority habit, announced in 126 titles. They run from countertop cases up to matched vitrines and pier cabinets. In the sampled range, pairs appear disproportionately at the upper end.

Are French vitrines different from English cabinets?

They read differently. The Continental strand brings ormolu mounts, kingwood, bombe shaping, boulle and Vernis Martin painted panels, along with Louis XVI style cases and Dutch marquetry pieces. French appears in around 271 titles and vitrine in 205. These sit toward the top of the range.

Which unusual forms show up?

Corner cabinets, hanging cases and tall narrow pier cabinets each form a steady thread, and multi-drawer collectors' cabinets of twelve, sixteen and twenty drawers recur. Museum and institutional showcases in bronze and oak are a small distinct group. The one-offs include an apprentice miniature cabinet, a table-top sedan-shaped vitrine, a Swedish mazur birch pair, a cedar collector's cabinet in the Indian taste and a steel-and-leather Art Deco case.

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Antique Display Cabinets

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A glazed cabinet made to show china, curios and collections rather than shut them away, in forms from a wall-hung case up to a room-sized breakfront, plus the shop showcases and counters built on the same idea.