28 
House 
Garden 
& 
CUPBOARDS OF OLDEN TIMES 
Although Mother Hubbard Lacked the Bone, She Had the Cupboard, 
For which Collectors Envy Her 
GARDNER TEALL 
W HEN old Mother Hubbard 
went to the cupboard to get 
her poor dog a bone, she was 
confronted, on her arrival, by a sit¬ 
uation that has preserved the classic 
adventure in the annals of our deep¬ 
est sympathy for all time. Outside 
of the metrical tragedy we know 
nothing of Mother Hubbard. The 
learned and Reverend E. Cobham 
Brewer, EL.D. has described her as 
“The old lady whose whole time 
seems to have been devoted to her 
dog, who always kept her on the trot, 
and always made game of her." Her 
temper was proof against this wilful¬ 
ness on the part of her dog, and her 
politeness never forsook her, for 
when she saw Master Doggie dressed 
in his fine clothes— 
‘'The dame made a curtsey, 
The dog made a bow.” 
Sorrowful indeed it is that Mother 
Hubbard’s little dog should have 
been denied the solace of a bone. I 
suppose recourse to dog-biscuit was 
not to be had in those days. I say- 
in ‘‘those days” because I am as¬ 
suming that old Mother Hubbard 
lived long, long ago. At least Hub¬ 
bard is an ancient name. We know 
that Mother Shipton lived in the 
reign of Henry VIII and amused 
herself with foretelling the death of 
Cardinal Wolsey and with other 
prophecies, and we are told that 
Mother Goose was born in Boston 
f i 
1 \ 
While the Italian cassone was decorated , the cupboard 
remained plain. This 17th Century example is walnut. 
Courtesy of the Consignment Arts, Inc. 
and that her eldest daughter married 
Thomas Flint, the printer who put 
into type the rhymes his mother-in- 
law invented to amuse her grandson 
somewhere about the year 1719. Of 
Mother Hubbard, chronology gives us 
no hint, but we do know (and here 
is the interesting part of the dis¬ 
covery) that she could not have lived 
before cupboards came into use! 
You see, dear reader, if you will 
turn back to the title of this little 
excursion in the realm of antiques, 
you will find in what a scholarly 
manner I have sought to establish the 
period of Mother Hubbard’s activi¬ 
ties. Is it not important that we 
are led to suspect that the possession 
of a cupboard is a very fortunate 
thing indeed ? Even of an empty one! 
For the time was to come when 
lovers of fine old furniture would 
scurry around the world, seeking to 
find just such cupboards, the emptier 
the better, willing, in truth, to pay 
almost any- price demanded for them. 
Fine old cupboards do not lurk 
around everywhere. Collectors have 
discovered that. In fact, they do not 
lurk at all. Instead, they long ago 
obtruded their presence so unmis¬ 
takably that they were either taken 
up or left where they were, and few, 
indeed, are the cupboards now where 
once they held sway. 
Viollet-le-Duc defines cupboards 
(or armoires) as “places of safety 
for the preservation of precious ob- 
( Left ) Pine was a favorite 
wood with early American 
cabinetmakers, and they 
used it for tables, chairs 
and cupboards. This 
“press” dates about 1700 
(Right) In the oak period 
of England her furniture 
was naturally made in this 
wood. This carved livery 
cupboard was made in the 
1475-1500 period 
