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A flat wooden canopy, especially over a bed, in which case it's usually supported by two or four wooden posts. If it extends over the whole bed, it's called a full tester, and if only half of it, always the bedhead, it's called a half tester.
Atenon where where the mortice is cut right through a piece of wood. See Stub-tenon .
A small ladle, sometimes with a long handle, sometimes with a pouring lip, used for serving hot toddy. Sometimes from shells, sometimes with a coin set into the bottom of the bowl, sometimes with turned wooden handles or baleen (whalebone).
An eighteenth century name, now fallen into disuse, for a side table for holding drinks. Its alliterative aptness makes it a term worth reviving. The interior design guru David Hicks advises readers of Antique Interiors International that drinks should always be served on a marble- or stone-topped table and never from a *censored*tail cabinet, which he disdains as suitable only for the outer reaches of suburbia.
Often used in wall panelling (and floors, of course), this is a long joint formed by cutting male and female interlocking shapes (the tongue and the groove) in the centre of the edge of a board, usuaTrefoil: AGothic motif of three arcs or lobes, looks a bit like a shamrock.
A spoon with a flat stem that widens at the top and has two notches on the finial that make it a three-lobed shape. The bowl is oval with a rattail. Trefid spoons were made from c 1670-1700 of silver and pewter.
A form of club foot which is generally found on a cabriole leg , it's formed of three parts (hence its name), and sometimes has foliate decoration.
See Harlequin .
A low bed on wheels that was kept under a large bed and trundled out at night for use, probably by a child.
The style period from 1485-1600 in England. A small number of chests, cupboards, and chairs are all that have survived from this era. King Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth I are the best-known Tudor monarchs
Objects decorated with an inlay composed of small-scale mosaic of various coloured woods which have been bundled together and cut into sections. It was usually used geometrically, but sometimes pictorially with quite elaborate scenes. It was introduced in the mid C17th, and was popular in the C19th, especially on tea-caddies and work-boxes.
This applies to any porcelain or china decoration which is applied under rather than over the glazed finish.
A term applied to a sword designed for use in action, a working sword, rather than on which is intended for ceremonial or decorative use.
A term commonly used in the C18th for an upholsterer.
This is just another name for side rails .
A small stand designed to hold a hot water urn for brewing tea, usually with splayed legs for stability.
The Japanese name for the sap of the lac tree, a form of ash, and which forms the basis for lacquer .
An extremely important devlopment in cabinet-making, as it allowed expensive, exotic woods go much further than if they were used in the solid. Early veneers were hand-sawn; the machines required to cut the thinner, much later veneers, didn't appear until about the 1830s. Consequently, early veneer is usually between 1.6mm and 3mm thick. Additionally, rotary-cut veneers, which have a distinctive and not very attractive pattern, are taken from a trunk and peeled off like carpet from a roll, and require quite sophisticated machinery which didn't appear until early this century. Older veneers are always crown-cut, quarter-cut , curl-cut, oyster or burr .
A repeated Classical wave-like decoration.
From the Dutch wagenschott, this is a type of fine straight-grained quarter-cut oak which was imported from the Baltic in the C16th and C17th, and which was originally used for wagon shafts. The term later became synonymous with oak, largely because the term is also applied to oak panelling used to line the interior walls of houses in the late C16th and early C17th.
A small stand designed to hold a wash basin, a pitcher or bottle of water, and beakers.
A decorative motif, popularly carved on mouldings circa 1810-1840 which was based on waterlily foliage, and took the form of a narrow leaf with a central stem, in horizontal undulations.
A convex curve between two concave curves (see serpentine ).
The style period at the end of the seventeenth century (1680-1700) referring to the reign of William of Orange and Queen Mary, who brought Dutch and Continental tastes to England.
A country chair, introduced in the late C18th, and although largely made in Slough near Windsor, (hence the name) they are found in some quite distinct regional variations. Its principal distinguishing feature is that it's essentially a stool with a back on it. They always have solid, shaped seats, into which the leg and back assembly is dowelled, holding the whole thing together. Crinoline stretchers are very desirable.