The cupboard--used to store textiles and to display silver, glass, ceramics, and other costly wares--was among the most expensive and prominent articles of domestic furniture. This example is richly embellished with almost the full vocabulary of seventeenth-century ornament: shallow relief carving; crisp turnings; moldings derived from architectural sources; and decoration painted black, in imitation of ebony. Period inventories mention fine linen covering the tops of cupboards, such as the "two diaper cuberd cloaths" and "one hollond one" in the 1691 inventory of Jonathan Avery of Dedham.

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