by John Andrews

From around 1835 onwards, by happy coincidence - Victoria came to the throne in 1837 - display cabinets began to be mass-produced and these are the principal subject of this article. They were mostly made on carcases of pine with machine-cut veneers to cover the surfaces which were frequently French polished. Burr walnut was very popular. With that decorative abandon for which Victorians are celebrated, inlays of lighter woods with the conch shell, sprays of flowers and other themes were repeated on these surfaces. Not only that, the shape of the display cabinet veered away from the formal Georgian rectitude of a flat rectangular surface and took on curves, swerves, bow fronts, breakfronts and other ingenious forms influenced by French models. The old, well-worn Rise of the Middle Class for which the period is noted provided a market animated by customers who were not landowners constrained by sober tradition but were fresh domestic furnishers with less reserve and more of a desire to impress at a reason-able cost. The rules of good taste were being changed. It was in the 19th century that the chest of drawers left the drawing room it had ornamented and was relegated to the bedroom, in much simpler form in mahogany or deal. Its place was taken by the book-case, the cabinet and the chiffonier in the drawing room, with the well-established sideboard and/or alternatively the chiffonier in the dining room. There were cabinets that were made as part of a suite of furniture that included bookcases and incidental pieces but many were intended as stand-alone items aimed at creating an impression. During the Victorian period the styles in which cabinets were produced followed the fashions of the day. These included the popular 'Elizabethan' or mock-medieval, the Gothic, the Rococo, the Aesthetic, the Anglo-Japanese, the Reformed 8 Gothic, the 'Adam' of re-emergent 18th century repro-duction which led to Edwardian Sheraton, the 'Queen Anne' and the Arts and Crafts before the arrival, at the end of the century, of Art Nouveau. A collector therefore has an abundance of styles to choose from, whether the purpose is to display china, books or a collection of objects dear to his or her heart.
The first example illustrated (figure 1) is a walnut display cabinet in 'Elizabethan' style of circa 1840 by Seddon of London and is far from the general mass-produced type. It includes diamond-lozenge and strapwork decoration of a kind considered to be of Tudor origin but with a certain freedom in interpretation. The two single drawers, as they appear to be, are in fact simulated on a fall front that encloses sliding trays, whereas the lower long drawer is genuine, so the piece was probably made to house a collection.