A CHARLES II PANELLED OAK PRESS CUPBOARD, CIRCA 1680, YORKSHIRE DALES/ LAKE DISTRICT, the canopied upper section on baluster turned front uprights, the central section with a guilloche carved frieze and a pair of cupboard doors, the lower section with a pair of large cupboard doors, on stile supports, 201cm x 183cm x 53cm

The canopied press cupboard and high dresser are direct descendants of the medieval plate dresser, used by the rich middle and aristocratic classes to display their wealth in the form of plate and curiosities. The oversailing canopy originated as a simple and very practical measure to protect the area beneath from falling soot, bird droppings and insect life in the medieval open hall and bedchamber. The effect of this was to proclaim the importance of the people or goods that it protected.

The provision of a canopy continued to be an important hierarchical feature in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, appearing over cupboards of this kind where it dignified the display of decorative household wares such as gleaming pewter, brass and slipware dishes. The canopied form of press cupboard has been recorded in both the Yorkshire Dales and the Lake District (Westmorland), and is clearly related typologically to the cwpwrdd tridarn (three-part cupboard) of North Wales. A further feature common to both South Yorkshire and Westmorland is the use of chamfered and channel-moulded framing-members. This, and the lack of a definable regional carving style, makes it difficult to allocate the region precisely. However, the only other known cupboard with a sloping canopy was found at Ponden Hall, near Hawarth in West Yorkshire. This cupboard also has the horizontally boarded back to the top tier, found on the present example; it is now in the collection at East Riddlesden Hall, West Yorkshire.

Literature: Joseph Aronson, The Encyclopedia of Furniture (London, 1966), Fig. 548 (dated 1659); Richard Bebb, Welsh Furniture 1250-1950, 2 vols, (Kidwelly, 2007), pp. 323-330; Victor Chinnery, Oak Furniture - The British Tradition (Woodbridge 1979), p. 324, Fig. 3:274 (dated 1689); Peter Thornborrow, ‚`Canopied Cupboards of the Aire and Calder Valleys, West Yorkshire`, Regional Furniture, XI (1997), pp. 80-95.