A chest of drawers, also called (especially in

North American English North American English (NAmE) encompasses the English language as spoken in both the United States and Canada. Because of their related histories and cultures, plus the similarities between the pronunciations (accents), vocabulary, and grammar ...

) a dresser or a bureau, or informally a Chester Draws, is a type of cabinet (a piece of

furniture Furniture refers to objects intended to support various human activities such as seating (e.g., Stool (seat), stools, chairs, and sofas), eating (table (furniture), tables), storing items, working, and sleeping (e.g., beds and hammocks). Furnitur ...

) that has multiple parallel, horizontal

drawer A drawer ( ) is a box-shaped container inside a piece of furniture that can be pulled out horizontally to access its contents. Drawers are built into numerous types of furniture, including cabinets, chests of drawers (bureaus), desks, and ...

s generally stacked one above another. In

American English American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lang ...

a dresser is a piece of furniture, usually waist high, that has drawers and normally room for a mirror. In

British English British English is the set of Variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United Kingdom, especially Great Britain. More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in England, or, more broadly, to ...

a dresser or a

Welsh dresser A Welsh dresser, sometimes known as a kitchen dresser, pewter cupboard or china hutch, is a piece of wooden furniture consisting of drawers and cupboards in the lower part, with shelves and perhaps a sideboard on top. Traditionally, it is a utilit ...

has shelves in the upper section for storing or displaying

tableware Tableware items are the dishware and utensils used for setting a table, serving food, and dining. The term includes cutlery, glassware, serving dishes, serving utensils, and other items used for practical as well as decorative purposes. The ...

Chest The thorax (: thoraces or thoraxes) or chest is a part of the anatomy of mammals and other tetrapod animals located between the neck and the abdomen. In insects, crustaceans, and the extinct trilobites, the thorax is one of the three main di ...

s of drawers have traditionally been made and used for storing

clothing Clothing (also known as clothes, garments, dress, apparel, or attire) is any item worn on a human human body, body. Typically, clothing is made of fabrics or textiles, but over time it has included garments made from animal skin and other thin s ...

, especially

underwear Underwear, underclothing, or undergarments are items of clothing worn beneath outer clothes, usually in direct contact with the skin, although they may comprise more than a single layer. They serve to keep outer clothing from being soiled ...

, socks, and other items not normally hung in or otherwise stored in a

closet A closet (especially in North American English usage) is an enclosed space, with a door, used for storage, particularly that of clothes. ''Fitted closets'' are built into the walls of the house so that they take up no apparent space in the roo ...

. They are usually placed in a bedroom for this purpose, but can actually be used to store anything that will fit inside and can be placed anywhere in a house or another place. Various personal sundry items are also often stored in a chest of drawers. It has a long history as one of the stand-bys of a

carpenter Carpentry is a skilled trade and a craft in which the primary work performed is the cutting, shaping and installation of building materials during the construction of buildings, ships, timber bridges, concrete formwork, etc. Carpenter ...

's workshop. A typical chest is approximately rectangular in overall shape and often has short legs at the bottom corners for placement on the floor. Chests of drawers often come in 5-, 6-, and 7-drawer varieties, with either a single or a double top drawer. The chest illustrated in this section would be described as a '5 over 2 chest-on-chest', the latter term deriving from the fact that at one time it would have been made as two separable pieces. They are commonly made of

wood Wood is a structural tissue/material found as xylem in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulosic fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin t ...

, similar to many other kinds of furniture, but of course can be made of other materials. The inside of the drawers can be accessed by pulling them out at the front side. It is often placed so that the back side faces a wall since access to the back is not necessary. The lateral sides are also usually made such that they can be placed against a wall or in a corner. Although they can be plain in appearance, chests of drawers can also be made with a fancy or ornamental appearance, including finishes and various external color tones. Traditionally, drawers would slide out on smooth wood rails. Most modern cabinets (such as

Filing cabinet A filing cabinet (or sometimes file cabinet in American English) is a piece of office furniture for storing paper documents in file folders. In the most simple context, it is an enclosure for drawer (furniture), drawers in which articles are sto ...

s) use roll-out shelf sliders, made of metal, with rollers. Most chests of drawers fall into one of two types: those which are about waist-high or bench-high and those (usually with more drawers) which are about shoulder-high. Both types typically have a flat surface on top. Waist-high chests often have a

mirror A mirror, also known as a looking glass, is an object that Reflection (physics), reflects an image. Light that bounces off a mirror forms an image of whatever is in front of it, which is then focused through the lens of the eye or a camera ...

placed vertically on top, which is often bought with the piece. While a user is getting dressed or otherwise preparing their grooming, they can look at themself in the mirror to check their appearance.

Terminology

The chest drawers were and are called by many names: LAMSAS database contains 37 answers to the request to name a chest of drawers, with "bureau" and "dresser" most popular at 52.5% and 17.5% respectively. Chippendale called them "commode tables" or "commode bureau tables", Hepplewhite used the terms "commodes", "chests of drawers". At the beginning of the 20th century "bureau" became popular in American English. Morse suggests that the name came from the similarities in the construction to " bureau desks", popular in the 18th century. A '' chifforobe'' (from ''chiffo''nier + ward''robe'') is a combination of a wardrobe and a chest of drawers.

History

In late

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

the chest came into widespread use, especially in homes of the nobility. This type, also known as a coffer, was more or less a simple joined wooden box with a hinged lid. It may or may not have stood on feet. An early transitional phase was the installation of one drawer beneath this main compartment. A number of early pieces from the seventeenth century are extant of oak manufacture from

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

, and corresponding seventeenth-century pieces of French

walnut A walnut is the edible seed of any tree of the genus '' Juglans'' (family Juglandaceae), particularly the Persian or English walnut, '' Juglans regia''. They are accessory fruit because the outer covering of the fruit is technically an i ...

have survived. Some of the early surviving English specimens are from the Charles I period. Nutting ascribes the earliest piece in his Furniture Treasury to "before 1649".

Styles

Mule Chest: A chest commonly wider than it is high and deep. A mule chest has drawers in its base and a hinged top, beneath which there are either two short drawers or one long one. This form, introduced in England in the 1600, was popular for 100 years in England and colonial America.

Gallery

Image:Clevelandart 1989.158.jpg, Chest of drawers, circa 1720, Kingwood with gilt-metal mounts and marble,

Cleveland Museum of Art The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. Located in the Wade Park District of University Circle, the museum is internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian art, Asian and Art of anc ...

File:George III Chest on Chest.jpg, Chippendale-style George III mahogany chest-on-chest, circa 1770 Image:ChestOfDrawers.jpg, A chest-on-chest, a derivative of the simpler chest of drawers

References

Sources

* * {{cite journal , last1 = Burkette , first1 = Allison , title = The story of chester drawers , journal = American Speech , date = 1 May 2001 , volume = 76 , issue = 2 , pages = 139–157 , issn = 0003-1283 , eissn = 1527-2133 , doi = 10.1215/00031283-76-2-139 , pmid = , s2cid = 144842733 , url = https://www.waywordradio.org/Chester_Drawers.pdf Furniture Cabinets (furniture) Clothing containers ca:Calaixera de:Kommode es:Cómoda eo:Komodo (meblo) fr:Commode (meuble) io:Komodo ja:箪笥 pl:Komoda ru:Комод fi:Lipasto

Terminology

History

Styles

Gallery

See also

References

Sources