XV
CUPBOARDS
THERE is no piece of furniture of the olden days around which more intimate associations clung, and to which more fond memories were wont to revert, than the old Southern cupboard. On every plantation there was some high genius from the colored quarters, constituted the particular guardian of the family cupboard, who saw to keeping it trim and clean, an old Mother Hubbard that went to the cupboard to get whatever might be wanted from the family store—sure of the supply, from ear muffs and hoods to some herb or toothsome dainty, and herself of a nature made for small confidences, to whom the children brought their troubles.
Although there is nothing which has retained about it more of the atmosphere of the home, the cupboard was, as a rule, often easily the most impressive piece in the house; and from the early sixteenth and seventeenth centuries showing fine decoration. Southern makers have not neglected their opportunities for refinement of the piece. The cupboard has received various designations, and it has been possible here to present a wide variety of types.
The earliest cupboard found in the South is the court cupboard. The word "court" coming from the French word meaning short, is accepted as referring to the carved-oak cupboard of the early seventeenth century. There are in America less than twenty cupboards of this type known. A cupboard, found in Virginia, illustrated in this chapter, is stamped in style and construction as having been made very early; and it is safe to assume that as the Virginia workmen followed the English style of cupboard, that this piece was one of the first pretentious pieces made in the early settlement of Virginia, and, as far is can be determined, one of the earliest pieces of furniture found, made in the United States.
Following the court cupboard came the kas or kasse—1700-1740. Although the piece resembles the wardrobe as we know it, the piece is so large that it holds little appeal to the collector. A panel-door cupboard on a frame, with a cabriole leg, was made during this same period in the South, but examples are scarce, and are rarely found outside the Southern states. The open, pewter cupboard, the delight of many, is also found in the South, in Southern pine and walnut, made during the same period as the first-mentioned cabinets. Many have been found in the Piedmont section of North Carolina, and in the Valley of Virginia. They were used in inns and taverns as well as homes for the display of china and pewter, a vogue which, so lovely was it at that time, has returned at this day.
A unique type of cupboard found in the South, made during the Chippendale period, was that with the drawers at the base, and paneled, glass doors at the top. It was presumably a china press. This type is rarely found outside the states of Vir-
