Antique Armoires between £0 and £0
A tall free-standing cupboard, built to hang or shelve clothes and linen in houses that had no fitted storage of their own.
What Is An Armoire?
The heading covers a spread of overlapping names: armoire, cupboard, linen press, press cupboard, housekeeper's cupboard and wardrobe. Titles stack them together, so one listing may read as linen press, storage cupboard, armoire and wardrobe all at once. Treat the words as near-synonyms rather than strict types.
What dominates is a full-height panelled cupboard with one or two doors, in oak or pine. French provincial armoires are the largest single thread, nearly a third of titles carrying the word french, with french oak and french walnut the commonest pairings, and bonnetieres, buffets deux corps and Normandy and Breton examples among them.
Alongside that sits the English linen press, a cupboard section over drawers, often in mahogany and often called Georgian. Then painted and waxed pine storage cupboards, including knockdown ones built to come apart; housekeeper's, larder, livery, tack and school cupboards; and a continental and Asian minority, Swedish and Dutch most often, with Indian and Chinese behind them.
Dating runs from 1730 to 1950, though the labels are broad. Far more listings are filed simply as 19th Century or 18th Century than by decade, and title and date field sometimes disagree, so the century reads as dealer shorthand rather than a fixed year. Around 56 come to market in a year on Sellingantiques, listed by some 160 different dealers.
Where The Range Splits
Timber does most of the separating. Burr and figured walnut, flame and plum pudding mahogany, bird's eye maple and yew cluster in the upper reaches, while plain pine cupboards sit at the bottom, and stripped pine offered ready to wax or paint sits lower still. Within the painted group it reverses: original paint and untouched finishes carry the dearer Swedish, Irish and English pine.
Decoration pushes the same way. Carving recurs on oak in particular, and inlay, marquetry, parquetry, satinwood banding and ormolu mounts turn up among the highest-priced pieces. Claimed age pulls with it, seventeenth and early eighteenth century at the top of the range, the 1900s to 1930s at the cheap end.
Scale matters for a form this size. Monumental, oversized and grand proportions sit high; small ones sit lower, and miniature armoires, some in faux bamboo, are at the very bottom. The top of the range is not held by armoires at all, but by late seventeenth and early eighteenth century walnut cabinets on chest and stand.
Retail Price Guide 2026
Typical UK retail prices for armoires between £0 and £0, 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.
Swedish and Dutch armoires each number under twenty on Sellingantiques. Japanese, Baltic, Bohemian and Spanish Basque examples appear once apiece.
The Antique Armoires between £0 and £0 Glossary
- Armoire
- A tall free-standing cupboard for clothes or linen, continental in origin, and used loosely in titles for almost any large two-door cupboard.
- Linen press
- A cupboard section standing over a chest of drawers. Seventy-five titles use the phrase, a good number of them in mahogany.
- Press cupboard
- An older two-stage cupboard form, often oak. Twenty-six titles, several of them described as Welsh.
- Bonnetiere
- A narrow single-door French armoire, made originally for headwear. It appears a handful of times.
- Knockdown
- A cupboard built to come apart for moving. Titles advertise it as knockdown, flat pack or (DISMANTLES), which for a piece this tall is a selling point.
- Fielded panel
- A raised door panel with bevelled edges. The word recurs on Georgian and Victorian pine.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between an armoire and a linen press?
The armoire is the continental tall cupboard for clothes and linen. The linen press is the English answer to the same problem, a cupboard section standing over a chest of drawers.
In listings the distinction blurs. Titles often run several names together, so the same cupboard may be offered as armoire, linen press, storage cupboard and wardrobe in one line.
Are most of these French?
French is the single largest identifiable origin, with the word appearing in nearly a third of titles. French oak and french walnut are the commonest pairings, and bonnetieres and buffets deux corps sit within that group.
The rest divides between English linen presses and press cupboards, pine storage cupboards, service cupboards such as housekeeper's and larder, and a continental and Asian minority led by Swedish and Dutch examples.
How old are they?
The dated field spans 1730 to 1950. Broad labels outnumber precise ones, with 19th Century and 18th Century the two largest buckets by a wide margin.
Where decades are given, they cluster in the early twentieth century. Something genuinely early surfaces once in a blue moon, such as a sixteenth-century Flamboyant Gothic cupboard or a late seventeenth-century Spanish Basque polychrome housekeeper's cupboard.
Which timbers turn up most?
Oak leads, then pine and mahogany. Walnut and fruitwood appear through the French group, and mahogany runs strongly with linen presses.
At the top of the range the timbers are figured: burr walnut, flame and plum pudding mahogany, bird's eye maple, yew. A few pieces are not wood at all, including a wrought-iron French engineer's cabinet and a painted steel cupboard.
Can a cupboard this size be moved?
A small but steady thread is built to come apart. Titles say knockdown, flat pack or (DISMANTLES).
Two-part forms help too. Buffets deux corps and many housekeeper's cupboards were made as an upper and lower carcass rather than one shell.
What does painted pine mean in these listings?
It covers two different things. Original paint, original finish and in paint describe surfaces left as they came, and these carry the dearer Swedish, Irish and English pine.
To wax or paint means the opposite: stripped pine offered ready for a finish that hasn't been applied. That wording sits at the lower end of the pine group.