A chiffonier (or cheffonier) is a piece of furniture differentiated from the sideboard by its smaller size and by the enclosure of the whole of the front by doors. Its name (which comes from the French for a "rag-gatherer") suggests that it was originally intended as a receptacle for odds and ends which had no place elsewhere, but it now usually serves the purpose of a sideboard. It was one of the many curious developments of the mixed taste, at once cumbrous and bizarre, which prevailed in furniture during the Empire period in England.
