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Encyclopedia Britannica

BUFFET

This article appears in Volume V04, Page 757 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: BRI-BUN

BUFFET , a piece of furniture which may be open or closed, or partly open and partly closed, for the reception of dishes, china, glass and

plate

PLATE

. The word may also signify a

long

LONG, GEORGE (1800-1879)
LONG, JOHN DAVIS (1838– )

counter at which one stands to eat and drink, as at a restaurant, orwhich would appear to be the

original

ORIGINAL

meaningthe room in which the counter stands. The word, like the thing it represents, is French. The buffet is the descendant of the credence, and the ancestor of the sideboard, and consequently has a close affinity to the dresser. Few articles of furniture, while pre-serving their

original

ORIGINAL

purpose, have varied more widely in form. In the beginning the buffet was a tiny apartment, or recess, little larger than a

cupboard

CUPBOARD

, separated from the room which it served either by a breast-high

balustrade

BALUSTRADE

or by pillars. It developed into a definite piece of furniture, varying from simplicity to splendour, but always provided with one or more' flat spaces, or broad shelves, for the reception of such necessaries of the dining-room as were not placed upon the table. The early buffets were sometimes carved with the utmost elaboration; the Renaissance did much to vary their form and refine their

ornament

ORNAMENT (Lat. ornare, to adorn)

. Often the lower

part

PART

contained receptacles as in the characteristic English court-

cupboard

CUPBOARD

. The rage for collecting china in the middle of the 18th century was responsible for a new formthe high glazed back, fitted with shelves, for the display of fine pieces of crockery-

ware

WARE

. This, however, was hardly a true buffet, and was the very

antithesis

ANTITHESIS (the Greek for " setting opposite ")

of the757
primary arrangement, in which the huge goblets and beakers and fantastic pieces of

plate

PLATE

, of which so extremely few examples are left, were displayed upon the open " gradines." The tiers of shelves, with or without a glass front, which are still often found in Georgian houses, were sometimes called buffetsin short, any dining-roorn receptacle for articles that were not immediately wanted came at last to

bear

the name. In France the variations of type were even more numerous than in England, and it is sometimes difficult to distinguish a commode from a buffet. In the latter

part

PART

of the 18th century the buffet occasion-ally took the form of a console table.

End of Article: BUFFET

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