Dressers/Dresser Bases »
Primitive & Early Oak Press Cupboard
Ref: 5814
Great primitive and early look to this oak cupboard/dresser, there are two tiers of cupboards with doors and a removable enclosed canopy that creates an open third tier for display. In antique parlance it’s an enclosed court cupboard, as known from late Elizabethan period, with an extra level, this form would eventually evolve into the dresser with open top rack and base cupboards.
They were known in Westmoreland and Cumbria but are best associated with North-West Wales, & called ‘trimaran’, this one might have graced the hall of a large farmhouse in Snowdonia, notable features other than the great colour are the two small cupboards between the 2nd and 3rd tier, for candles possibly, and also the spoked wheel flanked by initials in the centre, a witches mark or apotropaic device typically seen in buildings or sometimes furnitureduring the Tudor to Jacobean period.
This piece is dated for a marriage or new house to ‘1705’ but the style of construction is earlier, more like 1640, it could have been later inscribed or it’s a style hangover in a remote place.
North-West Wales c.1640-1705
H: 193cm (76.0in)
W: 135cm (53.1in)
D: 48cm (18.9in)
SOLD
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