A Mid-18th-Century Welsh Antique Oak Hanging Corner Cupboard with Armorial Painted Door, c.1750–1770, The Armorial Panel Representing The Bulkeleys of Anglesey & The Williams Family of North Wales

This rare and characterful hanging corner cupboard combines honest Welsh country joinery with a remarkable survival: a door painted with a coat of arms. It turns a familiar vernacular form into a document of family history.

The oak carcase is canted, beneath a boldly moulded cornice, and stands on a moulded base. The single door has an arched, shaped upper panel flanked by small spandrel panels, above a shaped lower panel. The whole door is painted on a deep olive-green ground.

In the upper panel, a rococo C-scroll cartouche hung with garlands of roses and summer flowers rises from a scrolled plinth. It encloses a shield of arms and is crowned by a mask in a feathered headdress, the conventional eighteenth-century personification of America. A further mask at the base, perhaps representing Africa, suggests the painter drew on the popular allegory of the Four Continents, a favourite of engraved rococo ornament. Floral sprays and scrolled urns complete the composition. The spandrels and the lower panel carry gilt-coloured scrollwork and flowers in the same idiom. The decoration is a provincial echo of the fashionable rococo of the 1750s and 1760s, painted with real verve.

The shield appears to be impaled, recording a marriage. The dexter half shows a chevron between three bulls’ heads cabossed, the device of the Bulkeleys of Anglesey. The sinister half shows three heads couped at the shoulders, recalling the Saracens’ heads of the Williams family of North Wales. The tinctures do not fully accord with the recorded blazons, so the identification is offered tentatively. Even so, the arms strongly suggest a gentry commission from North Wales, and they invite further research.

Inside, two shelves with charmingly shaped fronts, cut with scrolls and a central half-round, survive along with an iron lock to the reverse of the door. The rear boards are fixed with hand-forged nails.

Provenance: Wales. 18th Century.

Material: Oak carcase; the door painted, with an original pine inner face; brass hinges; iron lock.

Condition: Good overall for age, with an attractive colour and patina to the carcase. The painted decoration shows wear, scratches and small areas of loss, notably to the right side of the upper panel and around the keyhole. There is an old split to the lower door stile. The brass hinges and the hanging plate to the back are later. An old leather patch covers a split to the top of the back boards. There is wear to the cornice and base mouldings consistent with age. A further detailed condition report is available on request.

Dimensions: Height 38 in (96.5 cm); width 28½ in (72.5 cm); depth 16⅛ in (41 cm)