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A term used to describe a decorative feature frequently carved on furniture and representing the leaf of the Acanthus spinosus, a motif which was used as far back as Greek and Roman times
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Robert Adam was the second son of William Adam, the foremost Scottish architect of his time, who worked from Edinburgh in the Palladian style, and after his father's death he was taken into partnership by his elder brother John. In 1754 he left for a tour of Europe with a young nobleman, returning in 1758 to London with his head full of details of Roman antiquities. His younger brother James joined him during 1763, and together they developed the 'Adam Style' marked by a new lightness and freedom in the use of the classical elements of architecture. "Works in Architecture of Robert and James Adam, Esquires" was published 1773.
Regarding furniture the Adam brothers played a leading role, as in an Adam interior everything was to be part of the unified scheme. The style is typified by an elegance and sense of proportion; extensive use is made of paterae, anthemion, delicate flutings, and wreaths of flowers festooned between rams' head.
By the late 18th C. however Robert Adam's popularity was beginning to decline, and Horace Walpole, after visiting the new Carlton House, wrote, "How sick one shall be, after this chaste palace, of Mr. Adam's gingerbread and sippets of embroidery."
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A rare wood of a mellow golden brown colour with intricate bird's eye figuring, used for veneering. Originally a native tree of the West Indies
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Classical ornamentation based on the blossom of the honeysuckle .
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A small moulding; now normally a term used when describing the division between panes in a glazed cabinet. From the Greek word for moulding - astragalus.
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Roughly it translates from the German as Honest John - a solid dependable style for the citizenry. The style was first in vogue during the early part of the 19th C., contemporary with our Regency period.
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Andre Charles Boulle (1642-1732) was a famous French cabinet maker who perfected a marquetry of tortoiseshell and brass as a veneer for furniture; the design is of scroll, flower and arabesque motifs often inlaid into ebony. Little Boulle furniture was made in England in this early period, though it enjoyed a revival of popularity in the 19th Century.
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From the Box tree, Buxus sempervirens, a pale yellowish-white wood, very hard and smooth and much used for banding and inlay. It is cut across the grain and sometimes stained green.
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A foot extending each way from the corner of the base of a piece of furniture. A bracket foot can be of fairly simple construction, or may be splayed outwards at the toes, or of ogee construction (see below)
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A pull out slide at a convenient height on a chest of drawers, or similar piece which forms a temporary work surface on which to brush clothes. (Remember roads were muddy, most people travelled by foot or on horseback, and outer clothing was often of woollen fabric and not easily washable).
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A foot somewhat in the shape of a bun, most often used on chests of drawers and bureaux etc. Popular in the 17th and early 18th C.
Bureau (the plural being Bureaux though often spelt Bureaus nowadays)
These evolved from portable writing boxes with sloping lids, which were later fitted with stands. By the late 17th C. they began to have further drawers fitted beneath. The term is now normally applied to a writing desk with an angled fall to the front concealing drawers and/or pigeon holes, and fitted with further drawers below the angled fall.
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A veneer cut from transverse slices of the knarled roots or branch junctions of trees, notably the walnut, oak, elm, and thuja.
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This type of leg first became popular in England and France in the late 17th C., although it was known in the ancient world. Based on the legs of four footed animals, and often with realistic modelling of the hoof and sometimes hair of the creature, the simplified later form is of two elongated curves - the upper one convex, the lower one concave, forming a long slow ‘S’ sometimes joined by stretchers. The knees often have carved decoration, and the legs may terminate in a scroll, slipper, pad, hoof, or claw-and-ball foot.
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A term now applied to a stand with divisions for holding sheet music (though more often used for magazines) it was originally said to have been a type of dumb waiter invented by an Archbishop of Canterbury - Sheraton describes it as ‘made to stand by a table at supper, with a circular end, and three partitions crosswise to hold knives, forks and plates at that end which is made circular on purpose’.
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A writing table on legs with a raised back and sides fitted with pigeonholes and small drawers etc. Apparently named in compliment to the then Prince of Wales, (afterwards George IV) who lived at Carlton House.
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Columns or pilasters with the top half in the form of woman. Those featuring the male form are normally called Atlantes.
A type of low chair or couch with only one end and sometimes a partial back and a seat long enough to support the legs usually made for a lady to recline on. From the French for long chair.
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Ornamentation of metal by means of a hard metal burin, used to form raised and indented sections and lines
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Sometimes mis-spelt as Cheffonier, it is normally a small sideboard with one or two shelves at the back and two doors enclosing shelving to the base, and often fitted with a concealed drawer above the cupboards. The word literally means a gatherer up of small articles (in France a chiffonnier was a rag-and-bone man! - Not that we have these in France or England these days!)
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Thomas Chippendale, was christened in 1718 at Otley, Yorkshire. His early life is sketchy but it is thought he moved to Worcester with his father who worked there as a cabinet-maker, and that they later moved to London. By 1753 he moved to 60 St. Martin's Lane where he had a showroom and workshop employing some twenty workmen, and this remained his home for the rest of his life. In 1754 he published his celebrated book ‘The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director’ this work was one of the most important collection of furniture designs published in England, illustrating almost every type of mid-18th C. domestic furniture, and containing 160 plates. In 1755 he published a second edition, and the third edition containing 200 plates was published in weekly parts from 1759-62. The designs were largely Chippendale's improvements on the fashionable furniture styles of the time.
Rococo, Chinese and Gothic influences show strongly in Chippendale's designs, particularly in chair backs, and case-furniture. From the 1760s onward, he was influenced by the great English architect Robert Adam, and adopted the new Neo-classical style. This final phase is notable for mahogany and marquetried satinwood furniture. The superb satinwood and inlaid commodes (possibly designed by his son - also called Thomas Chippendale) and other furniture at Harewood House are masterpieces of the cabinetmaker's craft.
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Beloved of Chippendale, it is probably of Chinese origin and believed to represent the three clawed foot of the dragon (in mythology a very lucky beast) clutching the sacred pearl, and was introduced by the Dutch late in the 17th C.
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A small rounded projecting moulding used around the edges of drawers. Probably used in the sense of something which is raised or standing proud. i.e.. hay cock.
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A console is a bracket often in the form of an S-Scroll or curve. A console table is a side table normally fixed to the wall, sometimes with receding legs, giving a bracket like effect. Introduced from France in 18th C. they are also known as pier tables, as they were often sited on the pier wall between tall windows.
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A cupboard with a smaller cupboard over it, often richly carved, and used by the family for wine etc, as distinguished from a livery cupboard which would have been used by retainers for more mundane fare.
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Short sections of veneer laid at right angles to the longest grain of the main surface, originally used as a protective edging, it rapidly gained favour for its decorative qualities, and can often form part of a decorative inlaid banding.
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This word refers back to the original design, which was a board, or table, on which cups, drinking vessels and other necessaries for meals were placed. There were several shelves- the number of which bore relation to the rank of the owner - surmounted by a canopy; eventually doors were added, and it became a Court Cupboard (see above) gradually metamorphosising into the cupboard as we know it today.
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A small writing desk with a lift up writing slope, and a range of drawers at the side. Popular in the 19th C., it was named after a Captain Davenport, who apparently commissioned one to take with him on campaign.
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A side table of the farmhouse type, used for dressing food before serving, and with drawers to the front and either cupboards beneath, or a pot-board shelf. There may be a narrow range of shelves, sometimes added at a later date, on which plates etc. were displayed. It seems to have become a recognized piece of furniture from the 17th C. onwards: often called a Welsh Dresser there is no necessary geographical connection with Wales, although many do come from this area of the country.
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