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.

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.