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DRESSER

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Originally appearing in Volume V08, Page 578 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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DRESSER , in See also:

furniture, a See also:form of See also:sideboard. The name is derived from the Fr. dressoir, a piece of furniture used to range or dresser the more costly appointments of the table. The appliance is the See also:direct descendant of the See also:credence and the See also:buffet, and is, indeed, a much more legitimate inheritor of their functions than the See also:modern sideboard, which, as we know it, is practically an 18th-See also:century invention. It See also:developed into its See also:present shape about the second See also:quarter of the 17th century, and has since then changed but little. As a piece of movable furniture it was made rarely, if at all, after the beginning of the 19th century until the revival of See also:interest in what is called " farmhouse furniture " at the very beginning of the loth century led in the first See also:place to the construction of many See also:imitation See also:antique dressers from See also:derelict pieces of old See also:oak, and especially from panels of chests, and in the second to the making of avowed imitations. The dresser conformed to a medel which varied only in detail and in See also:ornament. Its See also:simple and agreeable form consisted of a See also:long and rather narrow table or slab, with drawers or cupboards beneath and a tall upright closed-in back arranged with a varying number of shallow shelves for the reception of plates; hooks for mugs were often fixed upon the See also:face of these shelves. Towards the end of the 17th century small cupboards were often added to the superstructure. The See also:majority of these dressers were made of oak, but when, See also:early in the Georgian See also:period II See also:mahogany came into See also:general use, they were frequently inlaid with that See also:wood; See also:holly and See also:box were also used for See also:inlaying, most frequently in the shape of See also:plain bands or lines. A peculiarly effective See also:combination of oak and mahogany is found in the dressers, as in other " farmhouse furniture," made on the See also:borders of See also:Staffordshire and See also:Shropshire. The excellence of the See also:work of this See also:kind in that See also:district and in the See also:country lying See also:west of it may perhaps explain the expression " Welsh dresser," which is now no more than a See also:trade See also:term, not necessarily suggestive of the place.of origin, and applied to all dressers of this type. They are most frequently found in the houses of small yeomen and substantial farmers, into which See also:fashion penetrated slowly.

The dresser is now most See also:

familiar as necessary plenishing of the See also:kitchen, in which it is invariably a fixture. In form it is essentially identical with the movable variety, but it is usually much larger, is made of See also:deal or other soft wood, and the superstructure has no back.

End of Article: DRESSER

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