Antique Satinwood Wardrobes
A large bedroom cupboard in which satinwood, a pale golden hardwood, carries the show, either as the main timber or as inlay and banding on a mahogany carcase, built to hang clothes and hold folded linen.
Antique Satinwood Wardrobes
The form that dominates on Sellingantiques is the late Victorian to Edwardian fitted wardrobe, often called a compactum: a hanging section on one side, a bank of drawers, trays or slides behind a side door, and a mirrored door on the front. Edwardian and Victorian labels between them account for half the listings, with the dated field running from 1800 to 1930.
Three-section pieces are the backbone of the category. "Triple" appears in nineteen of ninety-nine titles, "breakfront" in nine and "compactum" in thirteen, usually meaning a central mirrored door set between two wings, with the centre projecting forward. Single and double wardrobes are well represented too, and they sit at the lower end of the range.
Satinwood does two jobs. Sometimes it is the principal timber or the veneer across the whole front; more often it is the decoration, with fourteen titles naming mahogany and satinwood together as inlay, banding or panels. "Inlaid" is the most frequent descriptive word in the whole set, at twenty-six titles.
Around the edges sit corner wardrobes, linen presses with sliding shelves rather than hanging space, French armoires and Art Deco pieces. Style labels cross a wide span for one timber: Sheraton Revival, Adams style, Aesthetic Movement, Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau and Art Deco all appear. Georgian examples number two.
Where The Range Sits
Decoration separates the top from the bottom more sharply than anything else. Hand-painted panels and marquetry appear on only a handful of pieces, and every one of them sits high in the range, while plain single and double wardrobes with a mirror door fill the bottom twenty listings.
Scale follows close behind. Triples, four-door pieces and breakfront compactums run far above two-door wardrobes, and the largest to state its size is a Scottish triple recorded at seven feet three inches. How the satinwood is used matters as well: titles reading simply "satinwood wardrobe" or "flame satinwood" cluster higher than those reading "mahogany with satinwood detailing" or "satinwood banded".
Figured cuts and added materials lift a piece too, with burr and flame satinwood named as a grade above plain veneer, and satinwood turning up alongside rosewood, ebony and, on one French example, ormolu mounts. A cabinetmaker's name in the title runs through the middle and top of the range.
Antique Satinwood Wardrobes Retail Price Guide 2026
Typical UK retail prices for satinwood wardrobes, 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.
Armoire comes from the Latin armarium, a cupboard for arms. The clothes moved in later.
Maple & Co
The Antique Satinwood Wardrobes Glossary
- Compactum
- A wardrobe fitted inside with a hanging section plus drawers, trays or slides. Thirteen titles use the word, and it points to a fitted piece rather than a plain hanging cupboard.
- Breakfront
- A front where the centre section stands forward of the wings either side. Nine titles carry it, usually on a triple wardrobe.
- Triple
- A three-section wardrobe, commonly a central mirrored door between two flanking wings. It is the single commonest form word after the material terms.
- Crossbanded
- Edged with a border of veneer laid across the grain rather than along it. It appears in one title as a selling point in its own right.
- Burr and flame satinwood
- Figured cuts of the timber, named in two titles as a grade above plain veneer. Burr comes from a growth on the tree, flame from the figure at a fork.
- Satin birch
- A pale figured birch used in place of satinwood, and the timber of one Aesthetic Movement wardrobe catalogued here.
Antique Satinwood Wardrobes: Frequently Asked Questions
What is a satinwood compactum wardrobe?
It's a fitted wardrobe: hanging space on one side, and drawers, trays or sliding shelves behind a door on the other. Thirteen of ninety-nine titles use the word.
On Sellingantiques the compactum is commonly late Victorian or Edwardian, and often triple and breakfront as well.
How many come up for sale each year?
Only about eight satinwood wardrobes come to market on Sellingantiques in a year.
Yet forty-six different dealers have listed one. It's a piece most dealers handle once and few handle twice.
Are these solid satinwood or veneered?
Satinwood came into English cabinet use in the later 18th century mostly as veneer, banding and inlay, and that is how it appears on many of these wardrobes.
Fourteen titles name mahogany as the carcase timber with satinwood as the decoration. Others describe the satinwood as the principal show timber, and those sit higher in the range.
Which periods do satinwood wardrobes date from?
The dated field runs from 1800 to 1930. Edwardian and Victorian are the two largest labels, followed by the 1900s and 1910s.
Georgian pieces are scarce: two in ninety-nine. One is a George III mahogany and satinwood linen press with a swan-neck pediment, the other a George III inlaid two-door wardrobe.
Do painted satinwood wardrobes turn up?
They do, but rarely. Hand-painted panels appear on only a handful of pieces, alongside a few described as marquetry.
All of them sit in the upper reaches of the range.
What else is catalogued under this heading?
Besides wardrobes proper, the heading takes in four linen presses, which have sliding shelves rather than hanging space, and three armoires, two of them French.
Corner wardrobes appear three times, one of them a corner compactum. French origin is the scarcest stated origin, named on three pieces.