Antique French Cabinets
French case furniture for the bedroom and the drawing room: small bedside cupboards made to hold a chamber pot or a candle, and glazed vitrines made to show china and trinkets while keeping the dust off.
What Are French Cabinets?
Two quite different things sit under the heading. The bulk of it is small bedroom furniture: bedside cabinets, night tables, pot cupboards and little lamp chests. The word "bedside" appears in 774 of 1,793 titles, and "pair" in 730, so the listing you are most likely to meet is two matching bedsides.
Oak is the most-named wood at 331 titles, then walnut, mahogany and kingwood, with cherry, rosewood, satinwood and tulipwood behind them. A marble slab top is named in 149 titles and turns up chiefly on the bedsides and side cabinets. Plenty of these pairs are titled almost identically to one another.
The second branch is glazed: display cabinets and vitrines, 251 and 224 titles, along with bijouterie cabinets for jewellery. Ormolu mounts and marquetry cluster here rather than on the bedsides, and Vernis Martin painted panels appear in 97 titles, nearly always on a vitrine. A smaller run of oak tambour-fronted office filing cabinets shares the heading, sold as single, double and triple tambour.
Dating by the dealers runs from 1800 to 1950, with 1,318 listings carrying a clean year. The 1920s is the largest single bucket at 459, then the 1900s, 1910s and 1930s, with the 1880s and 1890s the strongest Victorian decades. A further 332 are dated only "19th Century", which is a century, not a decade.
The Range
Wood does most of the sorting. Kingwood is named in 159 titles and it keeps company with ormolu mounts, marquetry and marble; tulipwood, satinwood and burr walnut sit up there with it. Plain oak, pine and beech sit at the other end, and the many near-identical oak bedsides make up the low-to-middle body of the category.
Surface and metalwork follow the same line. Ormolu appears in 124 titles, 89 of them as "ormolu mounted", and gilt-metal mounts recur through the upper end while barely showing on the cheapest pieces. Marquetry, parquetry and Vernis Martin panels push a piece up; painted surfaces, named in 108 titles, sit lower, with 33 of those painted bedsides.
Form and number matter on their own. Glazed vitrines and display cabinets reach the top of the range, while the tambour filing cabinets and plain oak bedsides occupy the bottom. A matched pair asks more than a single of the same description, and the phrasing runs from "matched pair" through "two similar" to "almost matching".
Retail Price Guide 2026
Typical UK retail prices for french cabinets, calculated from the Sellingantiques database of over a million retail prices indexed since 2003. This retail price guide relies exclusively on Sellingantiques data; no external sources or auction records are used, so the figures do not describe the wider market.
The 1920s is the period label used most on Sellingantiques for French cabinets, with 19th Century next and the 1900s third.
The Antique French Cabinets Glossary
- Vitrine
- A glazed display cabinet, used in 224 titles and often interchangeably with "display cabinet". The word carries no size with it; bijouterie tables and full standing cabinets both take it.
- Pot cupboard
- A bedside cupboard that originally housed a chamber pot. In titles it works as a straight synonym for bedside cabinet, alongside night table and nightstand.
- Marble top
- A slab top, named in 149 titles and found chiefly on bedsides and side cabinets. Colour and moulding of the edge vary from piece to piece.
- Ormolu
- Gilded metal mounts applied to the corners, feet and rails of case furniture. Titles name it 124 times, mostly as "ormolu mounted", and it clusters on the glazed branch.
- Vernis Martin
- Painted and varnished decorative panels, usually figures or landscapes, on the doors and sides of a cabinet. Ninety-seven titles use the term, repeatedly alongside kingwood and ormolu.
- Tambour front
- A roll-up slatted shutter, the defining feature of the oak office filing cabinets. Eighty-three titles mention tambour, sold as single, double and triple.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why are so many sold as pairs?
Bedsides were made for either side of a bed, so they left the workshop in twos. That is reflected on Sellingantiques, where 730 of 1,793 titles say "pair".
The wording is worth reading closely. Dealers use "matched pair", "two similar" and "almost matching", and those are not the same claim.
What period does most of this furniture come from?
The dealers' own dating spans 1800 to 1950, and 1,318 listings carry a clean year. The 1920s alone accounts for 459 of them, with the 1900s, 1910s and 1930s close behind.
Victorian decades are thinner: the 1880s and 1890s are the strongest, the 1860s and 1870s much lighter. Where a title says only "19th Century", and 332 do, it is a century-wide label.
Which woods turn up most often?
Oak leads at 331 titles, followed by walnut, mahogany and kingwood. Cherry, rosewood, satinwood and tulipwood appear in smaller numbers.
Oak dominates the bedside and filing-cabinet end. Kingwood sits with the vitrines, and it is the wood that keeps company with ormolu and marquetry.
Are office filing cabinets really French cabinets?
They share the heading. Ninety titles name a filing cabinet and 83 a tambour front, a run of oak office furniture sold as single, double and triple tambour.
Some are described as Art Deco, which fits the 1920s and 1930s weighting of the category as a whole.
What does Vernis Martin mean on a listing?
Painted and varnished decorative panels set into the doors and sides of a cabinet. It appears in 97 titles.
It turns up almost entirely on the glazed branch, and repeatedly in the same title as kingwood, ormolu and marble.
How often do these come up for sale?
Around 142 are listed a year on Sellingantiques, and 202 different dealers have offered one. It is a category almost every general furniture dealer touches at some point.
Alongside the pairs and vitrines, odd single pieces surface: a notaire's cartonnière, a bread-store panetière, a jeweller's shop display case, a bamboo drinks cabinet.