The sixteenth century cupboard at Palmer’s Farm
When I first started working at the Trust in April 2013 I visited each of our 5 historic properties to meet the house staff and generally get to grips (not literally!) with the collections items displayed within them. I vividly remember visiting Palmer’s Farm (part of the Mary Arden’s Farm visit) and seeing this cupboard for the first time; the memory of seeing an item of furniture so simple yet so beautifully rendered makes this one of my favourite items in our museum collections (if I’m allowed to say that!)
Although the construction of the cupboard itself is very basic – it has as a three-plank rectangular top over a 2 single plank doors and panels set within a moulded framework – it is the 2 carved panels that are the eye-catching features of this item. The right panel shows the head and shoulders of a young lady in Sixteenth Century costume, her hair covered with a net. The left panel depicts another young lady in similar head-dress wearing a lightly patterned shift and a further head leaning down to kiss her.
I think this particular gesture is why I like this item so much; partly because my first response when seeing it was ‘Aww, how sweet!’  but also because, on a more academic level, having intensely researched gestures for my PhD (in Egyptology, strange I know) has helped me to understand that actions really do speak louder than words. Viewing the faces carved into this left panel really does make you think; were the faces on this panel based on real Sixteenth Century women? And what is the relationship being conveyed here? The emotion of the gesture is clear, a universal action that relates love for another.
Pieces such as this cupboard are why I love our collections so much; they not only represent a period in our history but also the people who lived then, providing details such as what they wore and what they may have looked like. Whilst these latter details, however, may have changed over the centuries it appears that interactive gestures between loved ones has not; apparently some things never change.