Bow-Top

The name given to the top-rail of a chair which has an unbroken curve between the uprights. See Cupid's Bow.

Box

A lidded receptacle of very varied form used for an infinite variety of purposes. In one form or another, large or small, it is one of the most familiar articles of furniture, and derives directly from the ancient chest. See Bible-Box, Knife-Box, and Work-Box.

Box-Bed

A bed inclosed on three sides ; sometimes a folding bed which folds up against the wall and is more or less invisible by day. The box-bed was formerly common in Scotland.

Box-Settle

The name given to a settle when a box or chest with a hinged lid forms the seat.

Boxwood (Buxus Sempervirens)

A pale yellowish-white wood, very hard and smooth, much used for bandings and inlays. It is cut across the grain, and is sometimes stained green.

Brace

The part of a piece of furniture which ties it together and helps to give it rigidity and strength.

The stretchers on the legs of a chair, for example, are braces.

Bracket

A piece projecting from a perpendicular surface forming a support - such, for instance, as a bracket supporting a shelf or a sliding bracket on a bureau for holding a candlestick. The architect-designers of furniture in the reign of the first two Georges made great use of the bracket motive in their more ambitious designs. In architectural descriptions brackets are also called Ancones, Consoles and Trusses.

Bracket-Clock

See Clock.

Bracket-Foot

A bracket-like foot extending a short distance each way from the corner of the base of a chest of drawers, cabinet, or other piece of furniture, generally finished off with a curve at the free ends, and with a mitre at the junction. In England, the bracket-foot was longer than its height - when shorter with a concave curve down the mitre it is called a French bracket-foot; when in bombe form, a Chinese or ogee bracket. The bracket-foot is sometimes richly ornamented.

Braganza Toe

See Spanish Scroll Foot.

Brasero Or Brasera

A Spanish word, long used to denote a brazier in the shape of a tray or shaped vessel of copper or other material, sometimes of elegant shape and chased, for the burning of charcoal. Evelyn speaks of "braseras" in the house of the Duchess of Portsmouth.

Brass Work

Mountings and inlays of this metal were little used on furniture in England until the end of the seventeenth century.

Brazier

See Brasero.

Breakfast-Table

The name given by Chippendale to an elegant type of small four-legged table, often with a pierced gallery and fretwork enrichments. Sometimes there are tapering legs and pad-feet; his earliest examples have feet somewhat of the claw and ball type. The shape of the legs varies greatly, and the table occasionally contains a long narrow drawer. Some examples have a folding top; others are in Chippendale's Chinese manner.

Break-Front

The front of a piece of furniture such as a bookcase in which the surface is interrupted, and then continued in another plane.