Why are so many of these bedside cupboards?

Because that is what the heading mostly holds. 'Bedside' appears in 511 of 1,368 titles, under several names: bedside cabinet, bedside chest, bedside cupboard, pot cupboard. The larger forms - linen presses, tallboys, armoires, corner cupboards - are there, but each accounts for a few dozen titles rather than hundreds.

What period do most walnut cupboards date from?

The dated field runs from 1700 to 1950, and 896 of 1,368 listings carry a clean year. The 1920s and 1930s take 301 and 300 of those between them. Victorian follows with 154, then a vague '19th Century' with 100 and 18th Century with 91. Earlier pieces exist but are thin on the ground.

Are pairs common in this category?

Yes. 'Pair' is in 403 titles, close to three in ten, almost always bedside cupboards made and sold as two. Where the two were not made together, dealers say so: near pair, matched pair, matching pair. A set of three bedside drawers turns up as well.

What is a cocktail cabinet doing under cupboards?

The titles treat it as one, and there are enough to matter: 'cocktail' in 116 titles and 'drinks' in 74. It is a cupboard with an interior fitted for bottles and glasses. It belongs to the 1920s and 1930s, the same decades that dominate the whole heading, and turns up in burr and figured walnut.

How often do maker's names appear?

Rarely. Only one name, Maple & Co, reaches as many as four dealers across the archive on Sellingantiques; everything else in the samples is a single dealer's stock. So names come stamped, labelled or only attributed, and they are the exception rather than the rule.

Which unusual forms turn up in walnut?

One-offs, mostly. An eighteenth-century French panetière or bread safe, a dough bin cupboard, a food hutch, a hunts game cabinet, a Spanish vargüeño, an Ottoman chest, a cartonnière and a duet cabinet. Dental cabinets are the odd persistent one, appearing four times across the samples. Origins run the same way: a steady French presence with 174 titles and Italian with 33, against single sightings from Spain, Germany, Scandinavia, Egypt and Wales.

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Antique Walnut Cupboards

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Walnut case furniture that shuts behind a door, from small bedside pot cupboards made for the chamber vessel to linen presses, armoires and interwar cocktail cabinets.