# Cabinet [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [ASHBEE, Charles Robert]() - Date: 1851-1900 - Technique: Walnut stand, sycamore carcase and cedar drawers, 139 x 107 x 63 cm ## Commentary Cabinet c. 1905 Walnut stand, sycamore carcase and cedar drawers, 139 x 107 x 63 cm Victoria and Albert Museum, London The inspiration for this cabinet was the Spanish vargueño, a writing cabinet on a stand. A typical vargueño had a plain exterior that opened up to reveal a rich interior fitted with leather tooled with gold foil. The English designer Charles Robert Ashbee particularly admired this contrast and used it to great effect in designs for a number of fall-front writing cabinets. In this type of cabinet, the hinged front flap opens or 'falls' to form a horizontal writing surface. This cabinet appeared in an exhibition of 1906 organised by the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, to which Ashbee belonged. ## Related artworks - [Covered Soup Tureen and Ladle]() - [Porringer]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()