Caronia Dresser, First Class

Product Description

Over the past few years at Luxury Liner Row, I have been fortunate to sell about a dozen beautiful mahogany second-class chests of drawers from the RMS Queen Mary, and they have all sold quickly.  This, however, is the only time I have been able to offer a first-class Cunard Line dresser.  Since nearly all of the built-in first-class furniture from the Queen Mary is still on board, this may be your only chance to obtain a stunning first-class dresser from one of Cunard’s finest ships.

This dresser is from cabin R-14, a first-class, single cabin forward on the port side of R Deck.  I believe it is veneered in figured avodire, a wood found in the western and central regions of Africa.  Avodire is exquisite when refinished, and your restorer will make this shine like a new penny!

This chest comes to us from a family that purchased several items of furniture from the RMS Caronia’s (ss Caribia) sale in NYC back in 1974.  They learned about the sale when they saw a handbill posted on a telephone pole near Central Park.  If they hadn’t seen that flyer, I wouldn’t be able to offer this to you today!

After her retirement and an aborted cruise under new ownership, Cunard’s RMS Caronia spent years wandering aimlessly throughout New York Harbor.  In 1974 Caronia’s owner decided to sell the furniture and fittings from this most famous of Cunarders, knowing that she would be going for scrap shortly.  One lingering question I have always had is how much of Caronia’s fittings had actually been taken off her before she started her tow to Taiwan.

During my several decades of Caronia research, I have talked to a number of people involved in the sale in the early 1970s, and from what they tell me, it seems that the ship was fairly well stripped of her furniture and fittings before she left New York.  It is from that sale that this dresser comes.

See archival photo for a similar chest on board Caronia.