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WARDROBE

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Originally appearing in Volume V28, Page 323 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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WARDROBE , a portable upright See also:

cupboard for storing clothes. The earliest wardrobe was a See also:chest, and it was not until some degree of luxury was attained in See also:regal palaces and the castles of powerful nobles that See also:separate See also:accommodation was provided for the sumptuous See also:apparel of the See also:great. The name of wardrobe was then given to a See also:room in which the See also:wall-space was filled with cupboards and lockers—the drawer is a comparatively See also:modern invention. From these cupboards and lockers the modern wardrobe, with its See also:hanging spaces, sliding shelves and drawers, was slowly evolved. In its movable See also:form as an See also:oak " hanging cupboard " it See also:dates back to the See also:early 17th See also:century. For probably a See also:hundred years such pieces, massive and cumbrous in form, but often with well-carved fronts, were made in See also:fair See also:numbers; then the See also:gradual diminution in the use of oak for See also:cabinet-making produced a See also:change of See also:fashion. See also:Walnut succeeded oak as the favourite material for See also:furniture, but hanging wardrobes in walnut appear to have been made very rarely, although clothes presses, with drawers and sliding trays, were frequent. During a large portion of the 18th century the See also:tallboy (q.v.) was much used for storing clothes. Towards its end, however, the wardrobe began to develop into its modern form, with a hanging See also:cup-See also:board at each See also:side, a See also:press in the upper See also:part of the central portion and drawers below. As a See also:rule it was of See also:mahogany, but so soon as satinwood and other hitherto scarce finely grained See also:foreign See also:woods began to be obtainable in considerable quantities, many elaborately and even magnificently inlaid wardrobes were made. Where See also:Chippendale and his school had carved, See also:Sheraton and See also:Hepplewhite and their contemporaries obtained their effects by the See also:artistic employment of deftly contrasted and highly polished woods. The first step in the See also:evolution of the wardrobe was taken when the central doors, which had hitherto enclosed merely the upper part, were carried to the See also:floor, covering the drawers as well as the sliding shelves, and were fitted with mirrors.

See also:

WARD-ROOM (i.e. the room of the guard), the See also:cabin occupied by the commissioned See also:officers, except the See also:captain, in a See also:man-of-See also:war. In the wooden See also:line-of-See also:battle See also:ships it was above the See also:gun-room.

End of Article: WARDROBE

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