Dictionary Definition
chiffonier n : a tall elegant chest of drawers
[syn: commode]
User Contributed Dictionary
English
Alternative spellings
Noun
- a tall, elegant chest of drawers, often with a mirror attached
Synonyms
Extensive Definition
A Cheffonier or Chiffonier, is a piece of
furniture
differentiated from the sideboard by its smaller size
and by the enclosure of the whole of the front by doors. Its name
(which comes from the French
for a "rag-gatherer") suggests that it was originally intended as a
receptacle for odds and ends which had no place elsewhere, but it
now usually serves the purpose of a sideboard. It is a remote and
illegitimate descendant of the cabinet; it has rarely been elegant
and never beautiful.
It was one of the many curious developments of
the mixed taste, at once cumbrous and bizarre, which prevailed in
furniture during the Empire period in England. The
earliest cheffoniers date from that time; they are usually of
rosewood - the favorite
timber of that moment;
their furniture (the technical name for knobs, handles and
escutcheons) was most commonly of brass, and there was very often a
raised shelf with a pierced brass gallery at the back. The doors
were well panelled and often edged with brass-beading, while the
feet were pads or claws, or, in the choicer examples, sphinxes in
gilded bronze.
See also
References
See a picture at http://images.onlinegalleries.com/gfx/44730.jpg
chiffonier in Spanish: Chifonier
chiffonier in French: Chiffonnier (meuble)
chiffonier in Sicilian: Cifunè